Glossary
What is WhatsApp template pacing?
Meta's gradual release of new or previously paused marketing templates and of large campaigns, why some messages show as held, and how to plan sends around it.
By Broadchat teamPublished 3 min read
Definition
Template pacing: Template pacing is a Meta safeguard on the WhatsApp Business Platform that applies to new templates and templates that were recently paused. Instead of delivering a large send all at once, Meta may release it to an initial group of recipients and hold the remainder while it checks how people react. Related business portfolio pacing batches very large campaigns. Pacing protects customers from unwanted messages and protects the sender's quality rating.
Also called: Message pacing, Business portfolio pacing, Campaign pacing (Meta)
How WhatsApp template pacing works
Meta describes pacing as a check on templates it has not seen perform yet, or that had problems before. When you send such a template to a large audience, Meta may:
- deliver it to a first portion of the audience;
- watch the signals from those recipients, such as reads, replies, blocks and reports;
- release the held messages if the feedback is healthy, or stop them if it is poor.
Meta's changelog (8 Dec 2025) adds business portfolio pacing, which batches large campaigns across the business portfolio. Meta does not publish exact batch sizes or timings, and they can change, so plan for delay rather than for a fixed schedule.
Worked example
Rangoli Home creates a new marketing template for its winter sale and sends it to 8,000 opted-in contacts at 11 am. The campaign report shows a few hundred delivered quickly while the rest stay pending for a while (illustrative numbers). Meera sees early replies like "Do you have this in grey?" and very few blocks, and the remaining messages go out later that day.
Had the first group blocked or reported the message heavily, the held messages could have been stopped and the template's quality marked down. The lesson: test a new template on your most engaged customers first, then widen the audience.
Why it matters
- Timing: a flash sale that ends at 6 pm should not rely on a brand-new template sent at 5 pm.
- Quality: pacing is Meta's early warning. A template that triggers blocks during pacing can hurt your quality rating, which in turn affects your messaging limit.
- Not a fault: held messages are not failures. Wait for the final status before resending.
Meta's pacing vs Broadchat's campaign pacing
These are two different things. Template pacing is applied by Meta after a message leaves your platform. Broadchat has its own campaign pacing in CRM → Bulk Campaign: it spreads sends to stay within your number's messaging limit and throughput, and retries when WhatsApp's pair rate limit is hit. Broadchat's pacing cannot override Meta's. Campaign reports show sent, delivered, read and replied counts, so you can see when held messages finally deliver. The message templates guide and quality rating and messaging limits explained cover the wider rules.
Sources
- WhatsApp Business Platform changelog — Meta for Developers, checked 12 October 2026
- Message templates overview — Meta for Developers, checked 12 October 2026
Broadchat team · Product and partner success team
The people who build and support Broadchat, the white-label WhatsApp Business API platform. We write from what we see while onboarding partners and their clients on the official WhatsApp Cloud API, and we check every article against Meta's current documentation.
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Frequently asked questions
Why are some of my campaign messages still pending?
If the template is new or was recently paused, Meta may be pacing it: delivering to a first group and holding the rest while it checks reactions. Wait for the final status before resending, or you may message people twice.
Can I turn off template pacing?
No. Pacing is applied by Meta, not by your platform. You can reduce its impact by sending new templates to engaged contacts first and by avoiding last-minute launches of brand-new templates.
Does pacing apply to utility templates?
Meta's changelog describes pacing for new or paused templates and business portfolio pacing for large campaigns. Marketing campaigns are where most businesses notice it, because they are the largest sends.