Guide · 8 minute read
What counts as a high quality WhatsApp message
By DripTell Editorial · Published 2 November 2026 · Facts checked against Meta's documentation on 2 November 2026
The short answer
Meta treats a message as high quality when the people who receive it do not block or report your business. Your phone number's quality rating is based on how customers reacted to your messages over the past 7 days, and every template has its own rating that also reflects read rates. Green is high quality, yellow is medium and red is low. Staying green is what lets your messaging limit grow and keeps templates from being slowed down or paused.
Quality is measured by what customers do
Meta does not grade your copywriting. It looks at what people do after your message arrives. If they block your number or report it, quality falls. For templates, low read rates count against you as well. A message that is expected, relevant and easy to act on tends to stay high quality, whatever its length or style.
There are two ratings, one for your phone number and one for each template, and they are measured a little differently.
Your phone number rating
Your number's rating is based on the messages customers received over the past 7 days, and mainly on blocks, block reasons and other reports. You will find it in WhatsApp Manager in the Phone numbers tab, shown as green, yellow or red. A 30-day view shows the lowest rating on each day, which helps you match a drop to a particular send.
Meta retired the old Flagged and Restricted phone number statuses on 7 October 2025, so advice that still mentions them is out of date.
Your template ratings
| Rating | What it means | Can you still send it |
|---|---|---|
| Green | Little or no negative feedback | Yes |
| Yellow | Negative feedback from several people, or low read rates | Yes, but it may be paused soon |
| Red | Negative feedback from several people, or low read rates | Yes, but it is in danger of being paused |
| Unknown | Too new to have feedback or read data | Yes |
In WhatsApp Manager the same states appear as Active with High, Medium or Low quality, or as Quality pending. Through the API, request the quality_score field on the template.
The five reasons people give when they block you
When someone blocks a business they can pick a reason. Each one points to a different fix.
- No longer needed. They wanted your messages once but have moved on. End campaigns when a purchase or booking cycle finishes, and make opting out easy.
- Didn't sign up. They do not recognise agreeing to hear from you. Record where and when each person opted in, and make your first line say who you are and why you are writing.
- Spam. The volume or the offer felt unwanted. Send less often and to a tighter audience.
- Offensive messages. The content itself upset people. Review the wording and images before sending again.
- No reason. Look at what went out just before the blocks for a pattern in timing, audience or template.
If your rating is yellow or red, hover over it in WhatsApp Manager to see block reason insights where Meta has them.
What happens when quality drops
Template pacing comes first. Marketing templates that are new, recently unpaused or not yet green can be paced, and utility templates can be too for 7 days after one of your utility templates has been paused. WhatsApp sends to part of your audience, holds the rest and waits for feedback. Good feedback releases the held messages. Bad feedback pauses the template and drops the held messages with error 132015. Meta's stated goal is that even paced campaign messages are delivered within an hour in 99 percent of cases.
| Time it happens | Result |
|---|---|
| First time | Paused for 3 hours |
| Second time | Paused for 6 hours |
| Third time | Disabled |
A paused template cannot be sent. Attempts are rejected, are not charged and do not count against your messaging limit. Templates paused during pacing stay paused until you unpause them in WhatsApp Manager or through the API.
Pausing does not touch your phone number at first, but a business that keeps sending templates that end up low quality can see its number affected. Quality is also one of the two conditions for a bigger messaging limit, as our guide on how to increase your WhatsApp messaging limit explains.
Per-user marketing limits are a separate check
Even with a green rating, WhatsApp may deliver fewer marketing templates to a person who has not been reading marketing messages lately or whose inbox is busy. Those sends fail with error 131049. Wait at least 24 hours before trying that person again, because repeated retries can stop delivery to them for up to another day. Marketing messages sent inside a 24-hour customer service window do not count toward this limit.
WhatsApp also does not currently deliver marketing templates to United States phone numbers.
How to keep your messages high quality
- Message people who asked to hear from you about this kind of thing, and keep a record of when and where they agreed. The WhatsApp Business Messaging Policy requires opt in.
- Say who you are and why you are writing in the first line, so the message is recognised before it is judged.
- Match the template category to the purpose. Utility is for an order, booking or account update the person expects. Marketing is for promotions.
- Send less often to people who rarely read, and stop once someone has bought or no longer needs the offer.
- Give an easy way out, such as a quick reply that stops promotions. A clear opt out is better for you than a block.
- Try a new template on a small, engaged group before the full list. Pacing does something similar anyway, and a small test protects the rating if the wording misses.
- Watch read rates and blocks for each template, and retire templates that drift to yellow before they reach red.
Our free WhatsApp template checker catches the formatting mistakes that get templates rejected in review, so your attention can go on relevance and timing instead.
Where to watch quality
- WhatsApp Manager shows the phone number rating in the Phone numbers tab and each template's quality in Manage templates.
- The Template API returns a template's quality_score with the date it last changed.
- The message_template_quality_update webhook reports rating changes, and message_template_status_update reports pauses and unpauses.
DripTell syncs template status from Meta and shows delivery and failure reasons for each campaign recipient, so a pause or a run of 131049 errors appears in the campaign report rather than surfacing later as a support question.
Questions people ask
What are high quality messages on WhatsApp?
Messages that recipients do not block or report. Meta bases your phone number's quality rating on customer feedback about messages received over the past 7 days, and rates each template using feedback and read rates.
How is the WhatsApp quality rating calculated?
From recent customer feedback, mainly blocks with their stated reasons and other reports, over the past 7 days for your phone number. Template ratings also take read rates into account.
How do I improve a yellow or red quality rating?
Find the cause in the block reasons, then send less to people who do not engage, tighten opt in and targeting, and stop using templates that are drawing complaints. Because the number rating looks at the past 7 days, better sending shows up as older messages fall out of that window.
Why was my WhatsApp template paused?
Its quality reached the lowest rating, or it received bad feedback while being paced. The first pause lasts 3 hours, the second 6 hours, and a third disables the template. Templates paused during pacing must be unpaused manually.
What does WhatsApp error 131049 mean?
WhatsApp did not deliver a marketing template because the person reached their per-user marketing limit, or because of repeated resends to someone at that limit. Wait at least 24 hours before trying them again.
Does a low quality rating reduce my messaging limit?
Meta's current documentation says high quality is required for the limit to increase. It does not describe automatic decreases, but low quality can pause templates and, over time, affect the phone number.
Sources
Every platform rule in this guide comes from these pages, checked on 2 November 2026. Meta changes these rules from time to time, so check the source before relying on a number.
- Meta Business Help Center, your WhatsApp Business phone number's quality rating
- Meta for Developers, template quality rating (updated 17 June 2026)
- Meta for Developers, template pacing (updated 21 May 2026)
- Meta for Developers, template pausing (updated 17 June 2026)
- Meta for Developers, per-user marketing template message limits (updated 17 June 2026)
- Meta for Developers, messaging limits (updated 21 May 2026)
- WhatsApp Business Messaging Policy