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Guide · How WhatsApp works · For the people who answer customers

The WhatsApp 24-hour rule and message templates, explained for your team

On the WhatsApp Business Platform your team can reply to a customer with anything for 24 hours after the customer last wrote. After that, only a message Meta has approved in advance, called a template, will go through. Almost every first-week problem comes from this one rule.

Published 27 September 2026 · Updated 4 October 2026

The 24-hour window

Every time a customer sends you a message, a 24-hour window opens. Inside it your team can send anything: a typed reply, a photo, a document, a location. Each new message from the customer starts the 24 hours again. When 24 hours pass with no message from the customer, the window closes, and a typed reply will no longer send.

Why WhatsApp works this way

Meta keeps business messages something the customer asked for. Outside the window a business can only start a conversation with a message Meta has already checked.

Templates: the only way in when the window is closed

A template is a message you write once, submit to Meta, and reuse, usually with blanks for the customer's name or order number. Meta sorts every template into one of three kinds:

Marketing
Offers, new products, reminders to come back. Anything promotional.
Utility
Updates about something the customer already did: an order confirmation, a delivery date, a payment receipt.
Authentication
One-time login or verification codes.

Meta reviews a template automatically when you create or edit it, and review can take up to 24 hours. Only an approved template can be sent, and Meta can change a template's status later if customers react badly to it. The kind Meta assigns decides the price, so check that an order update has not been filed as marketing.

What each message costs from 1 October 2026

Replies inside the window
Free up to 1,000 a month for each business phone number, then charged.
Utility templates
Charged, including when sent inside the window. They had been free inside the window since 1 July 2025.
Marketing templates
Always charged.
Conversations started from an ad
When a customer writes to you from an ad that clicks to WhatsApp and you answer inside the 24-hour window, Meta opens a further window of up to 7 days in which nothing you send is charged, except messages written by Meta's Business Agent.

Prices depend on the customer's country and the kind of message, and Meta publishes them. The change to replies has its own guide.

What to set up before your team needs it

  1. Get your everyday templates approved in advance. A follow-up, an order update, a payment reminder. Approval can take up to a day, which is too long to wait with a customer waiting.
  2. Reply within 24 hours. A reply sent while the window is open is simpler and cheaper than a template sent after it has closed.
  3. End with a question. A customer's answer opens a fresh 24 hours.
  4. Know that Meta limits marketing messages. Meta caps how many new customers a number can reach with templates in a day, and how many marketing messages one person receives from businesses, so a big promotional send may not reach everyone.

Questions

Why did my message not send to a customer?

Most often the 24-hour window had closed. Send an approved template instead; once the customer replies, you can type freely again.

Does this apply if I only use the WhatsApp Business app on my phone?

These rules are for the WhatsApp Business Platform, which is what a system or software connected to your number uses.

Sources

More plain-language notes like this one are on the guides page.

Want templates ready before you go live?

We set up a business's WhatsApp number on a proper system, with its everyday templates written and approved before the team starts. A short call is the easiest way to see whether it fits.

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