Meta Restricts WhatsApp Marketing to U.S. numbers; Zoho Desk Limits Bulk & Mass Actions for Marketing Templates

Meta Restricts WhatsApp Marketing to U.S. numbers; Zoho Desk Limits Bulk & Mass Actions for Marketing Templates

InfoMeta has always limited WhatsApp marketing messages based on user engagement with previously sent templates. Businesses may have repeatedly seen the error message “USER_MARKETING_TEMPLATE_LIMIT” when messages failed to deliver.  Learn more about the restriction from meta

Info
Zoho Desk does not allow marketing templates to be sent in bulk or through mass actions, as this could lead to compliance violations and legal risks for both customers and BSPs.

Hello, everyone!

Starting April 1, 2025, Meta will pause all WhatsApp marketing messages sent to U.S. phone numbers (+1 country code). If you try to send a marketing message to a U.S. number, it will fail and show an error.

This change affects businesses that use WhatsApp to send promotional messages, discounts, or sales offers to customers in the U.S.

However, you can still send important messages like:
  • Order confirmations
  • Payment receipts
  • Shipping updates
  • One-time passwords (OTPs)
  • Customer service replies within 24 hours

What's changing on April 1, 2025?

  • No WhatsApp marketing messages can be sent to U.S. numbers. This affects any message classified as marketing under WhatsApp’s template system, including promotional offers, discounts, and outbound sales messages.
  • Non-marketing messages (such as receipts, OTPs, and support replies) are still allowed.
  • Businesses outside the U.S. can continue sending marketing messages to non-U.S. customers.
  • U.S.-based businesses can still send marketing messages to non-U.S. numbers.

How this affects your business

If You Use a U.S.-registered WhatsApp Business Number  
  • You can send marketing, utility, and authentication template messages to international (non-U.S.) customers.
  • You cannot send marketing messages to U.S. numbers.
  • Customer-initiated conversations are still allowed worldwide.

Billing and payment impact

  • Prepaid credits: If you prepaid for WhatsApp marketing messages, those credits cannot be used for U.S. numbers.
  • Refund credits: If you have purchased credits for sending marketing templates, refunds for those credits can be issued.
  • No charges for failed messages: If your marketing message fails due to this restriction, you will not be billed.
  • Queued messages: If a message was scheduled before April 1 but fails after that date, refund policies may vary.
  • Marketing conversations in the U.S.: No longer billable under WhatsApp’s conversation-based pricing.


How this affects Zoho Desk users

If you use Zoho Desk to manage WhatsApp conversations, this change will impact:

Inbox  
  • Marketing messages sent to U.S. numbers will not be delivered.
  • Agents will see failed message notifications if they try sending marketing templates to U.S. customers.
 
Automation and workflows  
  • Any ticket-based automation that sends WhatsApp marketing messages should be updated to exclude U.S. recipients.

What Zoho Desk users need to do next

To comply with this new rule and avoid message failures, Zoho Desk users should:
  • Update inbox workflows to remove WhatsApp marketing for U.S. numbers.
  • Revise automation rules to prevent failed message attempts.
  • Train agents on these changes so they do not send marketing messages to U.S. customers. 
For help, contact support@zohodesk.com 


Adjusting your business workflows

  • U.S. numbers will automatically be excluded from WhatsApp marketing messages.
  • WhatsApp delivery rates will drop for U.S. numbers.

Can I still create WhatsApp marketing templates?

Yes, but you cannot use them for U.S. recipients.

What you need to know about creating templates  
  • Templates will remain approved in Meta’s system.
  • Exclude U.S. numbers when sending marketing messages.
  • Templates can still be used for non-U.S. customers.

Restrictions on Bulk and Mass Actions for Marketing Templates in Zoho Desk

  • Users are not permitted to send marketing templates in bulk or through mass actions in Zoho Desk, as this may lead to compliance and legal risks for both the customers and the Business Service Provider (BSP). These restrictions are applicable across all Zoho data centers (DCs).

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

What happens to existing WhatsApp marketing templates?  

Pre-approved templates remain in Meta’s system. They can still be used for non-U.S. recipients but will not be deliverable to U.S. numbers.

Will businesses be charged for failed messages?  

No, businesses will not be billed for failed WhatsApp marketing messages. If a message was queued before April 1, 2025, refund policies may vary.

Can businesses still send WhatsApp messages to U.S. customers?  

Yes, non-marketing messages such as order confirmations, receipts, and OTPs are still allowed.

How can businesses continue engaging U.S. customers?  

Encourage customer-initiated chats using Click-to-WhatsApp Ads. Use WhatsApp for transactional updates rather than promotions.

Will Meta lift this restriction in the future?  

Meta has not provided a timeline for when WhatsApp marketing may resume in the U.S. Businesses should continue monitoring Meta’s announcements for any policy changes.

Unexpected billing charges for WhatsApp marketing messages to U.S. numbers  

The message may have queued before April 1, 2025, and processed later.

Can I use Zoho Desk to send bulk or mass marketing or promotional messages via WhatsApp?

Zoho Desk supports both utility and marketing templates for WhatsApp in real-time conversations through the IM inbox. However, bulk and mass actions for marketing templates are not supported in Zoho Desk. For running campaigns or promotional activities at scale, we strongly recommend using Zoho Marketing Automation to ensure compliance with WhatsApp's policies.

Best,
Prabin

    • Topic Participants

    • Raj R

    • Sticky Posts

    • Zoho Desk Partners with Microsoft's M365 Copilot for seamless customer service experiences

      Hello Zoho Desk users, We are happy to announce that Zoho Desk has partnered with Microsoft's M365 to empower customer service teams with enhanced capabilities and seamless experiences for agents. Microsoft announced their partnership during their keynote

    • WhatsApp pricing changes: Pay per message starting July 1, 2025

      Starting July 1, 2025, WhatsApp is shifting from conversation-based pricing to per-message billing. That means every business-initiated message you send will count. Not just the first one in a 24-hour window. Pricing updates on the WhatsApp Business Platform

    • Live Webinar - Work smarter with Zoho Desk and Zoho Workplace integration

      Hello customers! Zoho Desk and Zoho Workplace are coming together for a webinar on 14th May, 2024. Zoho Workplace is a suite of productivity apps for email, chat, docs, calls, and more at one single place. Zoho Desk is closely integrated with a few tools

    • Apple iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 updates for Zoho Desk users

      Hello Zoho Desk users! Apple recently announced the release of iOS 17 and iPad OS 17. These latest OS updates will help you stay productive and efficient, through interactive and seamless user experiences. Zoho Desk has incorporated the updates to help

    • Zoho Desk Cheat Sheet For The Year-End

      Check out these Zoho Desk best practices to end this year on a high and have a great one ahead! #1 Set Business (Holiday) Hours - If you have limited working hours, please make sure you restrict your business hours or set them as holidays for the coming days. Let your customers know when you will, and won't, be available. #2 Update the Annual Holiday List - Check the holidays for the new year and update the holiday schedule. Usually, holidays from the current year will be carried over for the next

      • Recent Topics

      • monetizing the courses

        Can I add a price for course enrollment ?

      • Can we add zoho books features like invoices estemates etc on our zohocommerce website. When our customer login with their account they can able to see all books features in one place on zohocommerce?

        Can we add zoho books features like invoices estemates etc on our zohocommerce website. When our customer login with their account they can able to see all books features in one place on zohocommerce?

      • Copy paste from word document deletes random spaces

        Hello Dear Zoho Team, When copying from a word document into Notebook, often I face a problem of the program deleting random spaces between words, the document become terribly faulty, eventhough it is perfect in its original source document (and without

      • Download a file from within a zoho creator widget

        I have a widget running in Zoho Creator , it displays uploaded documents in a table file, and I have added a download link in the view. ( The widget is created with html, css and javascript). I do not succeed in getting the download working. Do I have

      • Taxes for EU B2B Transactions

        Currently, ZC doesn't seem to have a procedure for validating VAT numbers of businesses purchasing in another EU state, and removing local VAT is valid. This is essential for all inter EU B2B trade.

      • Unable to Receive Emails on Zoho Mail After Office 365 Coexistence Setup – Error: 553 Relaying Disallowed

        Hello, My domain name is bigniter.com, and I’ve been using Zoho Mail as my email service provider without any issues. Recently, I followed the steps outlined in the Zoho documentation to enable Coexistence with Office 365: 🔗 https://www.zoho.com/mail/help/adminconsole/coexistence-with-office365.html#multi-server

      • CRM Related list table in Zoho analytics

        In Zoho Analytics, where can I view the tables created from zoho crm related lists? For example, in my Zoho CRM setup, I have added the Product module as a related list in the Lead module, and also the Lead module as a related list in the Product module.

      • Candidate Registration/Invitation

        It would be great to include the 'invite' candidate functionality into some of the automation functions - ether through a custom function trigger or webhook or accessible through an email template.  Currently there is no way to add this functionality into any workflows or blueprint steps which, I find limits the ability to invite candidates to engage with us directly through our candidate portal. 

      • [Free Webinar] Learning Table Series - Creator for Infrastructure Management | A Partner-driven collaborative session

        Hello Everyone! We’re excited to invite you to another edition of Learning Table Series, where we showcase how Zoho Creator empowers industries with innovative and automated solutions. About the Learning Table Series The Learning Table Series is a free,

      • Where we can change the icon in social preview

        Hi, we changed our logo, and the image that appear in preview (ex : when we post a appointment link somewhere) is still our old logo. I did change our logo in the org setting. https://bookings.zoho.com/app/#/home/dashboard/settings/basic-info?clview=false

      • I have error AS101 when I try to add paypal@mydomain.com to Zoho

        Please help me with this. I tried to call the help line 4 times but don't get any response.

      • VAT on Multiple Expenses

        Firstly, might I say I am based in Ireland, and I'm not an accountant, and therefore my understanding of procedures could be somewhat limited. Scenario. An employee pays for items throughout a month, and therefore their claim for expenses includes multiple items - some of the items are VAT deductible (eg, an IT product) and some are not (eg, a client lunch). Discovery The odd thing in ZBooks, is that whilst it seems possible to add a VAT rate to a one-off item of expense, it is not possible to add

      • Agent assignment filter?

        Godo day, We are starting to play with FSM to see if it's going to work for our needs. Now so far we have found that it's very restrcitve in the field department you you have layout rules or can't even hide fields depending on the users roles. We can't

      • DKIM Now Mandatory - Changes to Zoho Forms Email Policies

        Hello Zoho Forms Users, This post is to inform you about an important update regarding the authentication of all email domains in your Zoho Forms account. This year, we are doubling down on our commitment to deliver a secure, seamless, and empowering

      • is it possible to add more than one Whatsapp Phone Number to be integrated to Zoho CRM?

        so I have successfully added one Whatsapp number like this from this User Interface it seems I can't add a new Whatsapp Number. I need to add a new Whatsapp Number so I can control the lead assignment if a chat sent to Whatsapp Phone Number 1 then assign

      • Kiosk Page Refresh

        We have a Kiosk running from a button in contacts to update values and also add related lists, which works great, but when the kiosk is finished the page does not refresh to show the changes. Is there a way to force the contact to refresh/update when

      • Tips & tricks: Make SalesIQ automations work for you

        Every day, thousands of visitors land on your website. Some browse, some buy, and some leave without a word. But, wouldn’t it be great if you could automatically know who’s interested, engage them at the right moment, and never miss a lead, and all this

      • Add Custom Reports To Dashboard or Home Tab

        Hi there, I think it would be great to be able to add our custom reports to the Home Tab or Dashboards. Thanks! Chad

      • Digest Octobre - Un résumé de ce qui s'est passé le mois dernier sur Community

        Chers utilisateurs, Faisons le point sur les temps forts du mois d'octobre au sein de notre Community Zoho France. Partager des informations sensibles, comme des mots de passe, peut vite devenir compliqué et risqué. Les données circulent par email ou

      • How do I fully delete a user account

        Hi, I have two old accounts on my CRM which are inactive and show as 'Closed' in the list of users. BUT they are basically still there. How do I fully delete these accounts? They appear in some parts of CRM still such as the on the contact record emails

      • Automatically Add Recurring Zoho Meeting Events to Zoho Calendar / Zoho Meeting Calendar

        Hello Zoho Meeting Team, Hope you are doing well. We would like to request an enhancement regarding recurring meetings created inside Zoho Meeting. At the moment, when we schedule a recurring meeting in Zoho Meeting, it does not appear in Zoho Calendar

      • Credit Management: #6 Tackling Common Mistakes in Credit Based Billing

        Businesses extend credit to build relationships, make buying easy, and drive more sales. But somewhere between extending and collecting, things begin to slip. A few late payments here and there, an overlooked invoice, and a backlog make cash flow feel

      • Tasks Statuses

        Hi, The task status "Completed" is a final status which closes the task. We need to have a status "Cancelled". However, when the status is set to "Cancelled", the task prompt still has a blue button to Close Task. When the customer clicks that and closes

      • Updating Blueprint stage from my Deluge function

        Hi all, I need to update the blueprint stage. Its almost working, but ONLY if the current Deal stage is 'Closed Lost'. On any of my custom stages that Ive specified in the pipeline it doesnt work! My code: dealmap = Map(); deal_stage = deal.get("Stage");

      • Canvas: is it possible to have a fixed header?

        Hello. Does Canvas provide the option to have a fixed header, similar to the standard view? It would also be interesting for other parts of the interface, like the header or sidebar of the tab section. Thanks!

      • Limited layout rules in a module

        There is a limit of 10 layout rules per module. Is there a way to get that functionality through different customization or workflow + custom function (easily accessible), etc. Having just 10 is limiting especially if module contains a lot of data. Are

      • Introducing Lead Capture: Empower exhibitors to capture leads effortlessly

        Events provide a great opportunity for exhibitors to generate awareness and engage with potential customers. Efficiently distributing attendee information to exhibitors through a seamless and secure way is of paramount importance. Introducing Lead Capture

      • dealing with post dated cheques

        Hi, can you help me please the best way to deal with this We sell an item of three months duration that is paid for with post dated cheques in monthly stages example - item is sold £3000 Cheque 1 is for £1000 due at time of sale (say Sept) cheque 2 is dated 25th of next month (Oct) cheque 3 is dated 25th of next month +1 (Nov) Now, with invoice number one it's simple - i send a standard invoice as usual But with the other two here's what i want zoho to do next month i want it to send an invoice on

      • Using Contains as a filter

        We are using Zoho Reports, ServiceDesk Plus analytics. I do not see how to create a report filter using Contains comparison of a string values, is one string contained in another. For example, Task Title contains the word Monitor. Is this possible in Zoho Reports?  This reporting feature is available in SDP reporting. Thanks in advance, Craig Rice

      • Mass import of documents into Zoho Writer

        I'm using Google's word processor at the moment but feel that Zoho does a better job (on the online apps market). Iwant to move my documents (about 50-70) to Zoho but it seems to me that I have to import them seperately. Is it already possible to upload several documents at a time or is this a forthcoming feature? Cheers Rolli :?:

      • Error 400 Booking

        Added a custom domain to Booking. Am Getting a SSL Error that has some other domain on the SSL and giving a 400 error. Followed instructions and it stated it verified our domain.. However it is not working. Please Help!

      • Set off Unearned Revenue

        Hi, I would like to get a clarification on the below. I have an opening balance of BD.725/- in my Unearned Revenue A/c which includes the overpayments of 6 clients. No One of my clients settled his invoices by paying the value of the invoice less the

      • How Zoho Desk contributes to the art of savings

        Remember the first time your grandmother gave you cash for a birthday or New Year's gift, Christmas gift, or any special day? You probably tucked that money safely into a piggy bank, waiting for the day you could buy something precious or something you

      • Add Webhook Response Module to Zoho Flow

        Hi Zoho Flow Team, We’d like to request a Webhook Response capability for Zoho Flow that can return a dynamic, computed reply to the original webhook caller after / during the flow runs. What exists today Zoho Flow’s webhook trigger can send custom acknowledgements

      • When moments in customer support get "spooky"

        It’s Halloween again! Halloween is celebrated with spooky symbols and meanings based on history and traditions, with each region adding its own special touch. While we were kids, we would dress up in costumes along with friends, attend parties, and enjoy

      • How can I delete duplicate transactions?

        I want to delete the duplicates not simply exclude them. I have duplicates, because I had automatic bank feeds turned on (had to make sure this critical functionality was working before migrating to Zoho). Now when I import my csv's exported from Wave,

      • Python - code studio

        Hi, I see the code studio is "coming soon". We have some files that will require some more complex transformation, is this feature far off? It appears to have been released in Zoho Analytics already

      • Multiple email addresses

        Multiple email addresses: I understand there is the ability to add an additional email field to a contact, but the functionality here needs to be drastically revised. Currently, this second email address does not log under the contact email history, nor is it available as a send address when using the Send Mail button within CRM. We recently migrated from GoldMine. I hate GoldMine, but there is one thing they did well: Email. I suggest copying them. Change the email field to an editable picklist,

      • ViewID and Zoho Desk API

        I'm looking at the documentation for Listing contacts and it looks like you can filter by ViewID. I assume this is views created in a department or all departments. Is this correct? And if so, how do I find the ViewID for that view? EDIT: I see the view

      • Ability to Link Reported Issues from Zoho Desk to Specific Tasks or Subtasks in Zoho Projects

        Hi Zoho Desk Team, Hope you're doing well. When reporting a bug from Zoho Desk to Zoho Projects, we’ve noticed that it’s currently not possible to select an existing task or subtask to associate the issue with. However, when working directly inside Zoho

      • Next Page