Once you have connected WhatsApp with Trengo, you’re channel will have one of three statuses: ‘Sandbox’, ‘Extended sandbox’, or ‘Live’. In this article, we’ll explain everything you need to know about these statuses.
‘Sandbox’ status
The first status your WhatsApp Business API channel will have is the ‘Sandbox’ status. This means that the number is connected, but you did not start the Facebook verification process yet. When you have the Sandbox status, there are limitations to the number of conversations you can have.
🔘 Templates: You can send templates to a maximum of two phone numbers daily. Each of these can receive a maximum of ten templates. This limit will be renewed every day.
🔘 Regular responses: You can respond to customer-initiated messages within 24 hours to up to ten phone numbers per day. There is no limitation to the number of messages you can send to these ten phone numbers. When an eleventh customer reaches out to you, you will still receive their messages. However, you will not be able to send a message back. This limit will be reset daily, so the next day you can have up to ten conversations with ten different numbers again.
ℹ️ Do note that not every Facebook page has to be verified manually. Meta will decide if this is needed. You can check your Facebook’s ‘Security Settings’ page for the optional verification request.
‘Extended sandbox’ status
Your WhatsApp Business channel will gain the status ‘Extended sandbox’ once your Facebook Business page has been verified by Meta, but your Whatsapp Business has not yet been approved by WhatsApp. Most of the time, once your Facebook Business has been approved, WhatsApp's approval will follow soon. In a few cases, Whatsapp might request some extra information. During this status, you have access to the following.
🔘 Templates: You can send templates to a maximum of two phone numbers daily. Each of these can receive a maximum of ten templates. This limit will be renewed every day.
🔘 Regular responses:
Business phone numbers without a connected status and an approved display name are limited to 250 business-initiated conversations in a rolling 24-hour period. This includes all business phone numbers of an unverified business, since these numbers cannot receive display name approval until the business is verified.
Business phone numbers with a connected status and approved display name can initiate conversations with the following number of unique customers in a rolling 24-hour period:
- 1K unique customer
- 10K unique customers
- 100K unique customers
- An unlimited number of unique customers
This amount starts at 1K unique customers and scales automatically based on phone number status, phone number quality rating, and how often you initiate conversations with unique customers.
Note that if you meet these requirements but your business phone number has a low quality rating, you may continue to be limited to 250 business-initiated conversations until its quality rating improves. Alternatively, you can open a direct support ticket and request a messaging tier upgrade (Ask a Question > WABiz: Phone Number & Registration > Request type > Request a Messaging Tier Upgrade).
Checking Your Limit
You can check your current messaging limits in the WhatsApp Manager > Overview Dashboard > Insights tab. The panel depicted below will only show your current limit if your messaging limit has increased from the default limit of 250.
To increase your limit you may refer to Meta's article here.
‘Live’ status
Once your Facebook Business account has been verified and Whatsapp has approved your Whatsapp Business account you gain full access to the WhatsApp Business API. This means that your messaging limit will now be determined by your quality rating, defined by Meta.
Quality Rating:
Your quality rating is based on how messages have been received by recipients over the past seven days and is weighted by recency. It is determined by a combination of quality signals from conversations between businesses and users. Examples include user feedback signals like blocks, reports and the reasons users provide when they block a business.
Your business phone number's status, quality rating, and messaging limits are displayed in the WhatsApp Manager > Account tools > Phone numbers tab in WhatsApp Manager.
For more information on quality rating you may access the article from Meta here.
