Messaging limits and quality

Meta's cap on new conversations, the green-amber-red quality rating, and how to protect both.

Two Meta controls decide how much you can send and whether you keep sending at all. Neither is set by ONPAD, and no plan changes them.

The messaging limit

How many different customers your number may start a conversation with in a rolling 24 hours.

It counts conversations you start — templates and campaigns. Replying inside an open 24-hour window does not count against it, which is one more reason to answer people while the window is open.

New numbers start at the lowest tier and rise automatically as they send messages people welcome. Business verification with Meta raises the ceiling further.

When you hit it, sends fail with "messaging limit reached". Nothing is broken — the remaining messages simply have to wait.

Working within it

Split large campaigns across days. A list bigger than your limit was always going to take more than one day.

Use the campaign throttle. Spreading a send over an hour is gentler than a burst, and leaves your inbox able to cope with the replies.

Check the limit before a big send, not after a thousand failures.

The quality rating

Green, amber or red, based on how recipients react to you. Blocks and reports push it down; being ignored does not.

Rating	What it means
Green	Healthy
Amber	Customers are reacting badly. A warning
Red	Serious. The number can be paused

A red rating can pause your number, and a paused number sends nothing at any price. This is the single worst thing that can happen to a WhatsApp Business account, and it is entirely preventable.

What damages it

Messaging people who never gave you their number. Bought lists are the fastest route to red.
Sending too often. The same marketing template weekly to the same people.
Ignoring opt-outs. Someone who said STOP and hears from you again reports you.
Messages that do not match their opening line. An "order update" carrying an offer gets reported.
Sending at bad hours. A marketing message at 11pm gets blocked far more than the same message at 11am.

What protects it

Only message people who expect you. This one rule prevents most problems.

Make opting out easy and honour it immediately. A footer saying "Reply STOP to opt out" costs you nothing — ONPAD excludes opted-out contacts from every campaign automatically.

Send at sensible hours. Use the campaign send window.

Prefer utility over marketing. Order updates get welcomed. Offers get tolerated at best.

Watch amber. Amber is the warning before red. React to it rather than hoping.

Template pauses are the early signal

Meta pauses individual templates before it touches your number. A paused template is telling you which message people disliked, while the rest of your account is still fine.

Treat a pause as information, not an obstacle. Resubmitting the same text and getting it paused again is how numbers end up red.

If your number is paused

Stop sending. Everything, including campaigns scheduled for later.
Find out what caused it. Look at what you sent in the days before — a particular campaign, a particular list, a particular template.
Fix the cause before resuming. A pause that is waited out rather than understood comes back.
Restart small. Utility messages to engaged customers, not the whole list.

Recovery takes time, and the rating rises only as you send messages people welcome. There is no way to buy it back.

Business verification

Verifying your business with Meta raises your ceiling and is worth doing once you are sending regularly.

It happens in Meta Business Manager, not in ONPAD, and Meta asks for documents showing the business is real and that the name matches. The display name must match your registered business name — a mismatch is the usual reason verification fails.