Where
Integrations→Integrations→WhatsApp Accounts
Your role needs
Read access to WhatsApp Accounts
read-whatsapp-accounts. Admin, Member and Viewer have it by default.To create or change
create-whatsapp-accounts to add one, update-whatsapp-accounts to change one, on top of the permission above.Your plan
Needs at least one seat for WhatsApp numbers.
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How it behaves
Two budgets, and the smaller one is the one that binds
A number’s settings page opens on Message Limits. Daily messages and Weekly messages cap everything the number sends, and the daily field tops out at 250. Each field shows a recommended figure alongside its maximum, and leaving a field blank runs the number at the recommended figure, not at the maximum. Below a divider, New Conversations holds a second, separate pair of fields (New chats per day and New chats per week) that count only sends opening a conversation with someone who has never messaged the number before. That budget is capped far lower: at most 25 a day. A new-chat ceiling of no more than 6 in any single hour applies as well; it is not a field on this screen, and a number runs below it by default. Opening a conversation draws down both budgets at once, so the message budget stays the global ceiling and the new-chat budget is the one that actually stops outreach first. WhatsApp watches new-conversation volume specifically, which is why a number sitting comfortably inside its message budget can still be restricted for opening too many first contacts.An answer is exempt from both
An answer to someone who has written to the number is exempt from both budgets. It does not consume either one, and it is never held back by either one, however close the number is to its daily message limit. That exemption is what keeps live conversations moving on a number whose outreach has already stopped for the day. What counts as an answer depends on who is writing it. A message you type yourself in the inbox counts as one as long as that lead has written to that number at some point. An automatic reply counts as one only while the lead’s own last message is still recent; once the conversation has been quiet longer than that, an automatic message to the same lead is treated as fresh outreach again and goes through both budgets like any other cold open. How long an automatic reply waits before it goes out is a separate, workspace-wide setting, timed in seconds rather than minutes because WhatsApp is treated as a live chat rather than correspondence: see Workspace-wide pacing settings for that.A newly connected number can’t open anything for its first day
On top of both budgets, a number that has just connected is held back further: for its first full day it cannot open a single new conversation, no matter how high you set its limits. The same wait applies again after a real disconnect and reconnect, not only the first time a number is linked. Answers keep sending normally throughout, since they are exempt from it regardless.The new-chat allowance then ramps up over ten days
Once that first day passes, a number does not jump straight to its configured New chats per day limit. How many new conversations it may start climbs a little further each day across its first ten days connected, reaching 30 on the ramp’s last step: already above the highest that field can ever be set to (25), so your own configured limit takes over as the binding one before the ramp runs out. Where you see this depends on the screen:- While the number is in that first-day wait, the accounts list shows a warming-up label beside its usage counters, counting down to when new chats reopen.
- Afterwards, that label reappears only once the number has spent the day’s ramped allowance, and then it names which day of the ramp the number is on. Below the allowance there is no label, because nothing is being held back yet.
- The settings page shows the ramp the whole way through. While a number is warming up, the helper line under New chats per day is replaced with today’s actual allowance and how far into the ramp the number is.
What else can hold a number back
The accounts list shows one label at a time: the first thing standing between the number and a new conversation, with the reason in a tooltip.- Daily limit reached: the message budget is used up, whether that is its daily, hourly or weekly ceiling. Sending resumes on its own.
- Daily new chats reached: the new-chat budget alone is used up. New conversations resume the next day.
- Outside sending hours: the number has a schedule and the moment falls outside it. Outreach is queued until the schedule reopens.
The schedule, and the hours it is read in
A number arrives with a weekly Schedule already filled in: weekday business hours, as the note at the top of Message Limits says. The schedule governs only when the number may start new outreach; an answer to someone who wrote recently is never held for it. Clear every block and the number is no longer restricted to particular hours at all. The accounts list carries a Schedule column: a calendar button on a number that has one, and a dash on a number that does not. The button opens a Weekly Schedule panel listing each day’s blocks, headed by the zone those hours are read in: the number’s own Timezone, set alongside the blocks themselves, not your browser’s.Limits
Related
Connect a WhatsApp number
Link a phone and set these budgets for the first time.
WhatsApp Chat
Where the conversations these budgets govern actually happen.
Why an agent's sending numbers move
How an agent’s WhatsApp budget is read from this account’s limits and ramp step.
Workspace-wide pacing settings
Where the WhatsApp reply delay lives, separate from the per-number budgets on this page.