General rules and features of WABA

Our integration works through an official Meta partner, so we meet all the requirements of the official WABA.

In WABA, two types of messages are available for communication - template and service messages. Each type is limited by its own rules and has different costs.

In addition, it is worth knowing about such a concept as the “24-hour window rule”, which is a rule of the WhatsApp platform. All dialogues are measured by fixed 24-hour sessions (windows). A session opens as soon as the first message is delivered.

If a dialogue is initiated by a user and its purpose is to solve customer issues, the correspondence is categorized as Service conversations.

Additionally, a support window is a rolling 24-hour time period that is updated when a message is received from a customer.

An active dialogue (support window, active session) exists for 24 hours in all standard situations. A business can send free-form messages within the support window. But any message sent to a customer more than 24 hours after their last message must be with an approved template.

If a business sends a template message to a user, starting a dialogue or in response to a user's message, a session is automatically opened that is considered a dialogue initiated by the business.

Read more about dialogue-based billing in the official Meta documentation.

Template is a pre-created and validated Meta message content, which consists of fixed text in a specific language and dynamic variables in that you can substitute with personalized information (name, order number, account number, etc.).

You can create a template message in enKod. All templates belong to one of the categories:

The content of your message must match the template category, otherwise it will not pass moderation.

If a message template reaches the lowest quality rating (status Active - Low quality in your WA Business manager), it is automatically paused. The duration of the pause is as follows:

The quality score of a template depends on its usage, feedback and customer engagement. You can read more in Meta documentation.

Starting April 1, 2024, Meta will take template readability into account as a key factor determining the quality of Marketing templates, in addition to the existing metrics: number of blocks and spam complaints. Meta will now temporarily suspend mailings with Marketing templates when readability is low, giving you time to edit the templates with the lowest level of engagement.

To track metrics and template quality, you can:
• go to WhatsApp Business Manager ➔ Account Tools ➔ Message Templates.
• monitor the email notifications Meta sends, linked to the business account, detailing any changes to the status of the template or WhatsApp Business account.

If you receive a status_change notification for a template, you can:

As of April 1, 2024, Meta has set a limit on the number of “Marketing dialogs” (Marketing) a user can receive from any company within a certain period of time. The limitation only affects Marketing templates that start a new dialog. If a “Marketing dialog” is already open, the restriction will not apply to sending Marketing templates in it. You can read more in documentation 360dialog.

The limit is determined by Meta and is based on the number of marketing template messages a user has already received from any company, and is not specifically related to your business.

If a marketing template message is not delivered to a user due to a limit, the API will return an error code Message Undeliverable (“Unable to deliver message”), which you can view in the statistics. Note that this error code covers a wide range of issues that can cause a message to be undeliverable, and for privacy reasons Meta does not directly specify the limit restriction as the cause of undeliverability.

If you suspect that a message is not being sent due to a limit, do not resend immediately, instead try increasing the time interval until the message is delivered, as the limit may be in effect for different periods of time.

Businesses are limited to sending a maximum of two marketing template messages within a 24-hour conversation window without a customer response. If a marketing template message is not delivered to a given user due to the limit, Cloud API will return error code 131049 “This message was not delivered to maintain a healthy ecosystem engagement.”

Whether a WhatsApp Business API account can send a message depends on:

You can read more about the rules and features of sending messages at 360dialog.

Please also note that the phone number registered in WhatsApp Business API cannot be changed. It is allowed to delete and add a new one.

To delete a number, go to your personal 360 dialog, “Details” tab. Scroll down to the “Cancel payment” button. In the modal window that pops up when you click on it, confirm deletion of the number by clicking on “Cancel subscription”.

Add a number can be:

The number will not be permanently deleted immediately. Usually, it happens on the last day of the month.

You can read more about adding and deleting numbers in your WABA account here.

Limits on sending messages regulated by Meta

Meta allocates 5 levels of sending limits per day:

Moving from the first tier (250) to the next (1000) requires going through the process of verification of a WhatsApp business account. However, as of October 31, 2023, such a transition is available to all 360dialog customers without verification as long as the rules are followed:

As soon as the volume and quality targets are reached, Meta will automatically change the message limit to a higher level.

Thereafter, the limits change automatically depending on the status of the phone number (whether it is connected), its quality rating and how often you start correspondences with unique customers.

Automatic level increase

With the start of each new correspondence with a unique client, Meta checks if your limit needs to be increased. This depends on the following criteria:

If all requirements are met, Meta will increase the restriction by one level after 24 hours.

Automatic downgrade.

If your number has a “Marked” rating in the last 7 days, Meta will immediately lower your restriction by one level.

You can read more about posting restrictions at here.

In enKod, you will not be able to send more messages than are available to you under your current limit. Such messages will be listed as “Not Sent” in the WhatsApp template details with the appropriate error text. Attempting to exceed your sending limit does not affect the quality of your account, and messages beyond the allowed number will simply not be sent.

You can find out your current limit in the Meta Business Manager or your personal 360dialog account.