WhatsApp quality rating — keep your number green
WhatsApp rates your templates as high, medium or low quality based on how customers react. Low quality pauses templates and can restrict your number. Here's what moves the rating and how to recover.
WhatsApp watches how customers react to your messages. If people read them and reply, your quality stays high. If people block you, report you or ignore you, it drops — and WhatsApp starts holding your messages back.
The three ratings
| Rating | Colour | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| High | Green | Little or no negative feedback. Everything sends normally. |
| Medium | Yellow | Several customers reacted badly, or read rates are low. A warning. |
| Low | Red | In danger of being paused or disabled. Act now. |
A new template shows Quality pending until enough customers have received it.
What makes quality drop
- Customers tap Block or Report on your chat.
- Customers choose Stop / "not interested" on a marketing message.
- Low read rates — messages delivered but never opened.
- Messaging people who never agreed to hear from you (bought or scraped lists).
- Sending too often, or sending the same offer again and again.
- Messages that don't say who you are in the first line.
What happens when a template goes low
Meta pauses the template so it can't do more damage:
| Time it reaches low quality | What Meta does |
|---|---|
| First time | Paused for 3 hours |
| Second time | Paused for 6 hours |
| Third time | Disabled — it can't be sent again |
While a template is paused, messages using it are rejected — they are not charged and don't count against your messaging limit. You'll see errors 132015 (paused) or 132016 (disabled). One paused template doesn't stop your other templates, but repeating the pattern can restrict the whole number.
How quality affects your account
- Your messaging limit stops growing. Meta only raises the limit for businesses sending high-quality messages. See WhatsApp messaging limits.
- Fewer marketing messages get delivered. WhatsApp delivers fewer marketing messages to people who don't engage.
- Restrictions. Continued low quality or policy violations can restrict the number from starting new conversations, and in the worst case disable the account (error 131031).
Where to check it
- WhatsApp Manager (business.facebook.com) → Account tools → Message templates shows each template as Active – High quality, Medium quality, Low quality, Paused or Disabled.
- Account tools → Phone numbers shows the status of each number.
- In Adwix Connect, Analytics shows delivery, read and reply rates for every campaign and template, so you can spot a weak template before Meta does.
Bring a low rating back up
- Stop the campaign that uses the weak template.
- Open the template and read it as a customer. Is it clear who is writing and why? Is the offer relevant to everyone on the list?
- Edit and resubmit it, or write a new one. Say your business name first, keep it short, and add a clear way to opt out ("Reply STOP to unsubscribe").
- Shrink the audience. For the next two weeks send only to people who chatted with you recently — in Adwix Connect, choose the Highly engaged segment when you create the campaign.
- Send less often. One useful message a week beats three offers a week.
- Clean your list. Remove numbers that fail, and never re-add people who opted out.
The rating is recalculated from recent feedback, so a couple of weeks of clean sending normally brings it back.
Prevent it in the first place
- Collect a clear WhatsApp opt-in from every contact.
- Follow the checklist in Send bulk WhatsApp messages without getting banned.
- Keep the STOP reply working — Adwix Connect moves people who reply STOP to Opt-outs automatically and skips them in every campaign.
Frequently asked questions
What is quality rating in WhatsApp Business API?
It is Meta's score of how customers react to your messages. It is shown as high (green), medium (yellow) or low (red) and is based on signals such as blocks, reports and read rates.
How long does it take to improve a low WhatsApp quality rating?
The rating is based on recent customer feedback, so it usually recovers after one to two weeks of sending only wanted, relevant messages to engaged customers.
What happens if my WhatsApp template is paused?
Meta pauses a template for 3 hours the first time it reaches low quality and 6 hours the second time. The third time the template is disabled. Messages sent with a paused template are rejected and not charged.
Can a low quality rating get my WhatsApp number banned?
Yes. Continued low quality or policy violations can lead Meta to restrict the number from starting new conversations and, in serious cases, disable the WhatsApp Business account.
Still stuck?
Message us on WhatsApp — a real person from the Adwix team will help you finish it.