Capacity, Quality & Limits

Throughput

Each business phone number can send up to 80 messages per second by default (combined inbound and outbound across text, media, and template messages). Higher capacity is available through Meta on request.

Throughput is per phone number, not per portfolio — adding more numbers under the same WABA is one way to scale total send rate.

API Rate Limits

Two layers of rate limiting apply at the Graph API level:

App-level call limits

Calls your app makes against a WABA count toward an app-level request budget over a rolling one-hour window:

These limits apply to management endpoints such as /<WABA_ID>, /<WABA_ID>/phone_numbers, /<WABA_ID>/message_templates, /<WABA_ID>/subscribed_apps, and /<WABA_ID>/assigned_users.

Runtime symptoms

Rate limiting can also occur even when your account is healthy. Two common runtime modes:

• Request-rate limit — returns 429 when request-per-second thresholds are exceeded.
• Concurrent-load limit — returns 503 when upstream systems are temporarily overloaded.

If either appears:

1. Slow down request pace immediately.
2. Use queue-based traffic shaping.
3. Retry with exponential backoff and jitter.

For error code details, see Meta API Error Reference.

Pair Rate Limit (Per Recipient)

Independent of throughput, a single business phone number can only send 1 message every 6 seconds to the same WhatsApp user (≈10 messages/minute, 600/hour per pair). Exceeding this returns error 131056 until the pair is back within the allowed rate.

Bursting is allowed: up to 45 messages in a 6-second burst to the same user, but each burst "borrows" from future quota — after a burst of 20, you must wait roughly 2 minutes before sending more to that recipient.

Recommended retry on 131056: back off 4^X seconds (start with X=0, increment on each repeated failure) until the send succeeds.

Messaging Limits (Portfolio-Level)

Messaging limits define how many unique users your business can message outside the customer service window in a rolling 24-hour period.

Limits are shared at the Meta Business Portfolio level — all numbers in the same portfolio consume the same messaging pool.

Typical tiers:

Important: User-initiated conversations are not counted toward this limit. Limits only apply to business-initiated outreach outside the service window.

Legacy vs Current Limit Fields

Meta shifted to portfolio-level limit handling on October 7, 2025. Some older limit-related fields were gradually phased out after that date.

Dualhook prefers current portfolio-level fields when present and keeps compatibility with legacy fields for backward support.

Increasing Limits

Limit growth happens in stages:

1. Scale from 250 to 2,000
2. Scale from 2,000 upward (10K, 100K, UNLIMITED)

Common qualification factors:

• Business verification path completion
• Consistent high-quality messaging
• Sufficient recent usage of current limit

After eligibility is met, upgrades are often applied automatically within a few hours.

Automatic Scaling Beyond 2,000

Meta evaluates:

• Message quality across numbers and templates
• Utilization of current limit over the last 7 days

If criteria are satisfied, the portfolio moves up one tier automatically.

Quality Rating

Quality is based on recent user feedback signals, weighted by recency:

• Blocks
• Reports
• Read/engagement behavior
• Negative feedback patterns

When quality degrades:

• Upgrade eligibility can be delayed
• Sending restrictions can appear
• Health may move from AVAILABLE to LIMITED or BLOCKED (see Health Monitoring)

Template Quality States

Template-level quality is tracked separately from number-level health.

Low template quality can lead to pauses or disablement even if account-level access is still active.

Check Current Status

curl -X GET "https://graph.facebook.com/<GRAPH_VERSION>/<PHONE_NUMBER_ID>?fields=health_status,quality_rating,whatsapp_business_manager_messaging_limit,messaging_limit_tier" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <ACCESS_TOKEN>"

{
  "id": "<PHONE_NUMBER_ID>",
  "health_status": {
    "can_send_message": "AVAILABLE",
    "entities": []
  },
  "quality_rating": "GREEN",
  "whatsapp_business_manager_messaging_limit": "TIER_10K",
  "messaging_limit_tier": "TIER_10K"
}

Webhook Signals to Monitor

Dualhook surfaces management events for operations monitoring. See Webhook Events for the complete event list.

phone_number_quality_update

{
  "object": "whatsapp_business_account",
  "entry": [
    {
      "id": "<WABA_ID>",
      "changes": [
        {
          "field": "phone_number_quality_update",
          "value": {
            "event": "QUALITY_UPDATED",
            "phone_number_id": "<PHONE_NUMBER_ID>",
            "display_phone_number": "<BUSINESS_DISPLAY_PHONE_NUMBER>",
            "current_limit": "TIER_2K",
            "current_quality_rating": "YELLOW",
            "previous_quality_rating": "GREEN"
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

business_capability_update

{
  "object": "whatsapp_business_account",
  "entry": [
    {
      "id": "<WABA_ID>",
      "changes": [
        {
          "field": "business_capability_update",
          "value": {
            "event": "increased_capabilities_eligibility_deferred"
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Monitoring Locations

Use both product and Meta surfaces:

• Dualhook dashboard — webhook-driven health and limit/quality signals
• WhatsApp Manager — Messaging Limits and account insights
• Meta Account Quality — business.facebook.com/accountquality

Operational Playbook

If quality drops or limit upgrades stall:

1. Reduce promotional volume and tighten audience targeting.
2. Send only to recently opted-in users.
3. Improve template relevance and frequency control.
4. Monitor blocks/reports daily and pause weak campaigns quickly.
5. Resume scale gradually only after sustained quality recovery.

For a comprehensive health maintenance strategy, see Maintain Account Health.