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WhatsApp Business messages

This document provides an overview of how messages work on the WhatsApp Business Platform.

WhatsApp Business charges a fee for each delivered message. From October 1, 2026, this also includes service messages and utility templates sent within an open 24-hour customer service window, which were previously free. Each business phone number has 1,000 free service messages per month. See WhatsApp pricing for current rates.

Message categories

Messages are divided into the following categories:

  • Marketing - Marketing messages include promotions or offers, informational updates, or calls to action for customers.

  • Utility - Transactional messages facilitate a specific, agreed-upon request or transaction, or update the customer on an ongoing transaction. They may include transaction confirmations, transaction updates, and/or post-purchase notifications.

  • Authentication - OTP messages allow you to authenticate users with one-time access codes, possibly in multiple steps of the login process (e.g., account verification, account recovery, integrity verification prompts).

  • Service - Service messages help you resolve customer queries. They are free-form messages sent within the 24-hour customer service window, which opens or resets each time the customer messages you. From October 1, 2026, service messages are charged beyond the monthly free tier.

Marketing, utility and authentication messages can only be sent using templated messages. Service messages can only be sent using free-form messages.

Messages

You can send the following message types using the BulkGate platform:

  • Text messages
  • Template messages

Forthcoming:

  • Media messages: image, video, audio, document, and sticker messages.
  • Contact messages
  • Location messages
  • Interactive messages: List messages, Reply button messages, and Single and Multi Product Messages.

The following endpoints allow you to send a message from a phone number to a customer:

  • On-Premises API /messages endpoint

  • Cloud API /messages endpoint

Read Receipts

You can set up read receipts and customers can elect to send read receipts back. If your customers opt out of sending read receipts, you will only be able to see that the message was delivered. For more information, see:

Message Status

For each message you send, a notification about the status of the message will be sent to your webhook callback. In the table below, click the arrow in the left column for the WhatsApp app equivalent to each status, if available.

Name Description
deleted A message sent by the customer was deleted by the customer. Upon receiving this notification, you should ensure that the message is deleted from your system if it was downloaded from the server.
delivered A message sent by you was delivered to the customer's device.
failed A message sent by you failed to send. A reason for the failure will be included in the callback. Check the error message documentation for help debugging:

- On-Premises API Errors
- Cloud API Error Codes and Troubleshooting
read A message sent by you was read by the customer. read notifications are only available for customers that have read receipts enabled. For customers that do not have it enabled, you only receive the delivered notification.
sent A message sent by you is in transit within our systems.

For On-Premises API users: To receive notifications for sent messages, set the sent_status setting to true in the application settings. The sent status notification is disabled by default.
warning A message you sent contains an item in a catalog that is not available or does not exist.
The order of these notifications in your app may not reflect the actual timing of the message status. View the timestamp to determine the timing, if necessary.

Message scaling and limits

Meta (the operator of WhatsApp) limits how many unique customers you can reach with messages sent outside of a customer service window (typically templated messages that start a new communication) within a moving 24-hour period. Messages sent within an open customer service window do not count toward this limit.

  • Limits are set at the business portfolio level and are shared by all business phone numbers in your portfolio.
  • The limit counts unique customer phone numbers, not individual messages.

Initial limit and first step to increase:

  • A new business portfolio starts with a limit of 250 unique customers in a moving 24-hour period.
  • To increase the limit to 2,000, complete one of the following:
    • Verify your business with Meta.
    • Send 2,000 delivered templated messages to unique customers outside of a customer service window within 30 days while maintaining a high quality rating.

Automatic scaling:

After you reach the 2,000 limit, it automatically increases to the next tier:

  • 10,000 unique customers
  • 100,000 unique customers
  • Unlimited unique customers

Meta increases the limit when both of the following apply:

  • Your messages are of high quality (based on customer feedback, such as blocking or reporting your messages). Maintaining high quality is crucial for increasing limits.
  • In the past 7 days, you have used at least half of your current limit.

The increase usually takes effect within 6 hours.

For the most current and detailed information, please visit the official Meta documentation at https://developers.facebook.com/documentation/business-messaging/whatsapp/messaging-limits.

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