WhatsApp and artificial intelligence
Phone number quality rating
The quality rating is the score Meta gives each WhatsApp Business Platform phone number, and each template, based on how people receive its messages: blocks, reports, and chats muted or archived over the last seven days. It affects the messaging limit and whether a template stays active.
Also known asquality rating · message quality · number quality · phone number status
What it depends on
The score is set not by the sender but by the recipients. WhatsApp looks at how the business's messages have been received over the last seven days, giving more weight to the most recent: blocks, reports, muted or archived chats and the reasons people give when they block. Each message template also has its own rating, in which low read rates count too: green, yellow, red, or pending while there is no data. A red template can still be sent, but it is at risk of being paused or disabled.
It matters because of what it drags along. High quality is a condition for Meta to raise the messaging limit, and if it stays low for a sustained period, Meta rate-limits the business. Its guidelines are specific: write only to people who have given their opt-in, send personalised and useful messages, avoid open-ended introductory greetings and do not send too many a day. Each number's status, with its quality and its limit, can be checked in WhatsApp Manager, and on high-traffic numbers it can change within minutes.
Worth knowing
What people take for granted: that a notice to the whole house has no consequences because everyone is a resident. If many people mute or block it because it does not concern them, the score drops all the same. Notifying only the people affected (a floor without hot water, each person's parcel) is how to look after it; announcements shows how to choose who each notice goes to.
Sources
Related terms
- Message templateA WhatsApp message template is a message with a fixed format and variable placeholders (a name, a time) that is registered and reviewed by Meta before use. It is the only thing that can be sent outside the 24-hour window, and each one belongs to a category: utility, marketing or authentication.
- Messaging limitThe messaging limit is the maximum number of different people a business can write to through the WhatsApp Business Platform while the 24-hour window is closed, within a moving 24-hour period. Meta sets it for the whole business portfolio: it starts at 250 and rises in steps.