What Changed in WhatsApp Marketing, and What to Do About It

If you planned WhatsApp campaigns a year or two ago, several rules underneath them have since moved. Here is each change with the date it took effect, checked against Meta's own documentation in October 2026, and what to do differently. For the wider picture, start with our guide to WhatsApp marketing for small businesses.

Pricing: per message since July 2025, replies since October 2026

On 1 July 2025 Meta replaced conversation-based pricing with a charge per delivered message, priced by category and by the recipient's country code. Every marketing template that lands is charged, even mid-conversation. Rates change only on the first day of a quarter, with at least a month's notice. Marketing rates rose in the UK, Italy and Spain in July 2026, and in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait in October 2026.

Since 1 October 2026, free-form replies inside the 24-hour window are free only for the first 1,000 per business number each month. Without a payment method on file, Meta stops delivering them once those are used up, and utility templates sent inside an open conversation are charged again too. Click-to-WhatsApp ads keep their exception: when someone writes from an ad on their phone, your answer opens a window of up to seven days in which your messages are free.

What to do: add a payment method in Meta's billing settings, check the rate card before each quarter, and answer in one complete message rather than three fragments. Replies are still where a campaign earns its money, as turning campaign replies into sales shows. Keep offers out of reminders: since April 2025, a utility template that reads as marketing is approved as marketing, which template categories and what they cost explains.

Limits on what reaches one person

WhatsApp may cap how many marketing templates one person receives from all businesses together, adapting to how many of them that person recently read and how full their inbox is. Every delivered marketing template counts, but once someone replies, marketing messages inside the 24-hour window do not. People can also turn a business's offers down, or stop them entirely, in a WhatsApp setting called Offers and announcements.

One regional rule is still in force: since 1 April 2025 WhatsApp has not delivered marketing templates to United States numbers. A hotel in Dubai with American guests can still answer them when they write, but cannot send them promotions.

What to do: send fewer campaigns, to people who read them, and wait at least 24 hours before resending a message the limit blocked, as Meta asks. How often to send WhatsApp campaigns covers the rhythm. Convelly records a tap on WhatsApp's stop button and leaves that person out of later campaigns.

One sending limit per business since October 2025

Since 7 October 2025 the messaging limit belongs to the business portfolio, and all its numbers share it, so a second number adds no capacity. It counts the different people you reach outside an open conversation in a moving 24 hours. New portfolios start at 250. Verifying your business, or delivering 2,000 messages to different people within 30 days using high-quality templates, can raise it to 2,000. From there it climbs on its own to 10,000, 100,000 and unlimited while quality stays high and you use at least half of it over seven days.

A lower quality rating for your number no longer cuts the limit, but templates still pay for complaints: one rated low quality is paused for three hours, then six, then disabled. What to do: get through Meta business verification early and send to your most engaged contacts first. Convelly shows your quality rating and daily limit, and can spread a large WhatsApp campaign over several days.

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Nearly every change rewards the same habit: send less, to people who asked, and answer fast when they write back.

Convelly team

AI may answer, with a way to a person, since January 2026

Since 15 January 2026, WhatsApp's business terms let AI companies offer general-purpose AI assistants on the platform only where Meta is legally required to allow it. A business answering its own customers is a different case. Meta's pricing page counts replies powered by a third-party AI solution or by people as ordinary service messages, and its Business Messaging Policy, updated 23 September 2026, allows automation inside the 24-hour window if a prompt, clear way to reach a person exists.

What to do: keep your AI on your own services and make the handover easy. Convelly's AI chatbot answers as your business, books appointments and passes a conversation to a named team member when a person is needed.

Usernames: reservations open since June 2026

WhatsApp is rolling out usernames gradually during 2026, and since 29 June 2026 businesses can reserve one. A business username does not hide your number, but customers who choose a username may write to you without showing theirs, and Meta has added a button that templates can carry to ask for it. What to do: claim a name that matches your Instagram handle, and stop treating the phone number as the only key to a customer. Convelly lets you claim your @name and still recognises customers who write with a username.