Quality rating and messaging limits
How Meta scores a WhatsApp number, what a drop to yellow or red actually costs you, and the messaging limit tiers a number moves between.
On this page
Every WhatsApp number carries a quality rating and a messaging limit, and they are the two numbers that decide whether your messages keep going out. Neither is set by you, and both move on their own.
Quality rating
Quality is scored green, yellow or red, based on how recipients have reacted over the last seven days — mostly blocks and "report business", weighed against how many people you messaged, with recent messages counting for more. The score is recalculated continuously, so it moves without you doing anything.
It is not a score of your writing. It is a score of whether the people receiving your messages wanted them.
| Rating | What it means | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Green | High | Nothing. This is the normal state. |
| Yellow | Medium | A warning. Meta is watching; the limit does not change yet. |
| Red | Low | The number's messaging limit is lowered, or it is flagged for restriction. |
A rating recovers on its own once the behaviour that caused it stops — it is a rolling seven-day window, not a permanent mark, so a bad send ages out rather than staying on a record. What does not recover on its own is the habit that caused it.
What actually drives it down
In rough order of how often it is the cause:
- Messaging people who did not ask to hear from you. This is nearly always the reason. See opt-in.
- Sending marketing to a list that has gone cold. A year-old list is a list of people who have forgotten you.
- Frequency. Several marketing messages a week to the same person produces blocks, however good the offer.
- Content that does not match what they signed up for. They agreed to order updates and are getting promotions.
- Sending at bad hours. A promotional message at 11pm gets blocked rather than ignored.
Note what is not on the list: message volume by itself. A business sending thousands of order confirmations to people expecting them stays green.
Messaging limits
Separately, each number has a limit on how many unique customers you may start a conversation with in a rolling 24 hours. Replies inside an open 24-hour window do not count against it.
Numbers move up through tiers — 250, then 1,000, 10,000, 100,000, then unlimited — automatically, based on quality and on how much you actually send. You cannot request a jump; you send more, keep quality green, and the tier rises.
Two consequences worth planning around:
- A new number starts at the bottom. If your first campaign is to 5,000 people, most of it will not go out on day one. Grow into the tier before you need it.
- Business verification is a prerequisite for the higher tiers. See business verification.
If the rating drops
The instinct is to send an apology. Do not — that is another unwanted message to the same people.
- Stop the marketing sends. Utility messages people are expecting are not the problem.
- Find the list. Which send preceded the drop? Almost always there is one.
- Clean it. Remove anyone who has not interacted in months. A smaller list to people who want it outperforms a large one on every metric that matters here.
- Check what you promised at opt-in. If people signed up for delivery updates, send delivery updates.
- Wait. The window is rolling; the rating comes back.
Where to see it
Quality rating and the current limit live in the WhatsApp Manager on Meta's side, on the number itself. Meta also emails the business's administrators when a rating changes — which is worth making sure reaches somebody who will act on it, rather than an inbox nobody opens.