WhatsApp and artificial intelligence
Template category
The template category is the class Meta assigns each WhatsApp message template to: marketing, utility or authentication. It decides what content the template may carry and what Meta charges for each message sent. Whoever creates the template proposes it, Meta validates it on approval and can change it later.
Also known asWhatsApp template category · template type · utility or marketing template
How the category is decided
Whoever creates the template chooses the category and WhatsApp checks it against the content. Since 9 April 2025, if utility is requested and Meta sees marketing, it approves the template as marketing straight away. And it does not stop there: since July 2024, Meta periodically reviews templates that are already approved and changes their category if the messages do not fit, with one day's notice, or with no notice for a business that has already been warned for misuse. What a template is and what it is for: message template.
- Utility requires two things at once: no promotional intent, and being specific to or requested by the person, or essential to them, such as a safety notice.
- Marketing is anything promotional and, on top of that, anything mixed or unclear: a fault notice with an invitation to the open day, or a template that only says "{{1}}" or "Congratulations!".
- A survey can be utility if it is about something specific, such as the fault report just closed; a general satisfaction survey is not approved as utility.
- Authentication is for one-time codes, and it is the only category that can send them.
Worth knowing
What people take for granted: that the sender sets the category. The sender proposes it, but Meta decides, and with it changes what is paid for each message sent. In a residence, the notice that a parcel is waiting at the porters' lodge is utility; add "and don't miss Friday's party" and it no longer is. What is sent without a template inside the window is something else: a service message.
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.
- Service messageA service message is any non-template message a business sends through the WhatsApp Business Platform within the 24-hour window that a person opens by writing in: text, photos, audio, buttons. It needs no prior approval, and Meta charges for it in a category of its own.