Meta Stops WhatsApp Marketing Messages to U.S. Numbers: Impact on Businesses

Meta Stops WhatsApp Marketing Messages to U.S. Numbers: Impact on Businesses

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

      • 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

      • Deprecation of older versions of ASAP Mobile SDK | Zoho Desk

        Hello, everyone.    Greetings from Zoho Desk ASAP!   In order to continue to deliver the best and most secure experience to our mobile SDK users. On account of the recent enhancements and updates to the mobile SDKs, we have planned to mark the older versions

        • Recent Topics

        • Feature Request - Insert URL Links in Folders

          I would love to see the ability to create simple URL links with titles in WorkDrive. or perhaps a WorkDrive extension to allow it. Example use case: A team is working on a project and there is project folder in WordDrive. The team uses LucidChart to create

        • onDuty Request approval from API

          use case We have custom CRM modules and meeting devices where a user can add meeting details We are pushing these details to People using onDuty Request API Now what we want is If the onDuty request is pushed using API, it should be auto approved i-e

        • Introducing Assemblies and Kits in Zoho Inventory

          Hello customers, We’re excited to share a major revamp to Zoho Inventory that brings both clarity and flexibility to your inventory management experience! Presenting Assemblies and Kits We’re thrilled to introduce Assemblies and Kits, which replaces the

        • Zoho Creator HTML Page

          Hello Team, I have a query related to the HTML page I created in Zoho Creator. I would like to apply some filters on this page without passing them through URL parameters. Could someone please guide me on how this can be achieved? Thanks & Regards, Piyush

        • Impossible de créer une adresse e-mail : licence déjà utilisée mais aucun utilisateur visible

          Bonjour, Je suis abonné à Zoho Mail Lite avec 1 utilisateur (abonnement actif), mais je ne peux pas créer mon adresse pro contact@joasavon.com . Le système indique « Limite maximale de licence utilisateur atteinte », alors que je n'ai qu'un seul utilisateur

        • Repeat script N number of time with some incrementation

          Hi, I have a script I want to repeat a certain number of time, depending on a value from a variable NumberOfDelivery, and at a certain frequency depending on a variable DaysBetween (wich would afect my addday function on the last line). Here is the basic

        • Creating email schedules with custom filters for Pivot/Summary Reports in Zoho Analytics

          Hi Zoho, I have a Weekly Inventory Report that I'd like to send out to various vendors. Is it possible to create an email schedule for each vendor with customized filtering at the scheduling level? Currently, we generate two pre-filtered reports (copies

        • Marketing Automation Emails Going to Spam

          Google is trapping all the marketing automation emails in spam. My domain has a perfect reputation and it looks like Zoho has a low reputation which is sending it to spam. When I pull the email out of spam and click on a link in the email, I get this

        • Zoho Learn & Zoho Connect

          Hi, Is there a way to sync the knowledge base we have in Zoho Learn with the manuals section is Zoho Connect? Thanks,

        • Zoho Analytics API Call With Pagination

          Hi, I have fetched data successfully from zoho analytics using https://analyticsapi.zoho.com/restapi/v2/workspaces/<workspace_id>/views/<view_id>/data? with a thrid-party tool postman. But i wanna know if i can use pagination with this api, like can i

        • MArking as NOT SPAM

          I have just been checkign my SPAM folder and it seems that markign mails as NOT SPAM makes them disappear. I cannot find them in my mailbox with a search.

        • Introducing Image Upload Field

          Hello everyone, In this post we will discuss about the benefits and usage of the Image upload field. The field is available for standard and custom modules.  Usage: This field can be used to upload a gallery of images to a record and share the record with peers or customers. The record can be made accessible to users outside of Zoho CRM via Portals, where they can upload the necessary images. Preview, editing, and deleting images: The uploaded images can be directly edited and saved from the record

        • Announcing Early Access to "Zoho CRM for Everyone" — A new and exciting update to Zoho CRM

          We are delighted to announce an Early Access to Zoho CRM for Everyone— a truly democratic approach to managing a CRM, gift-wrapped in an exciting and intuitive user interface. Here, multiple teams across an organization can coordinate among each other

        • Open a popup window from inside Record A and stay on the record after saving Record B

          Hello community, Perhaps you can help me with the following topic. I have a form A with a decision box. When this decision box is checked, a form B pops up. Once Form B is saved, I need to stay on Form A to continue entering data. I've observed the following

        • How can I bulk import product images to Zoho crm.

          How can I import product images to Zoho crm within bulk imports. I am using an excel sheet or csv and want to include an image (via URL) for each product. This topic is the closest I have found to a solution but I need further help to implement it: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/community/topic/import-file-upload-and-image

        • Dynamic user applications for CPQ?

          Hi, I've been enjoying getting to know CPQ, the Product Configurator and Price Rules components have been very useful, albeit with some issues. I have noticed that I don't have the power to decide which level of sales staff has permissions when it comes

        • Max limit reached on Web Tabs for Zoho Projects

          Hello, ByWater manages between 50-60 projects at a time, and we have been heavily utilizing the Web Tab feature. However, we just hit our maximum limit reached for web tabs. The main thing we use Web Tabs for is sharing a Google document with our partners

        • Outgoing blocked again.

          Hi Dear, My outgoing mails are blocked again. I am just using it as normal business emails going in and out. Could you please help fix the problem? I am happy to support where I can do to make it work properly. Thank you very much. Aurora

        • Join our World Password and Passkey Day expert Q&A 2025

          Hey everyone! World Password and Passkey Day is almost here, and there's no better time to talk about something we all rely on daily—secure authentication. Did you know that a staggering 60% of hacking-related breaches are tied to weak or stolen passwords?

        • Global "Search" in FSM

          I'm missing the global Search function like in CRM. This should save us a lot of time. We don't now upfront if the customer is a Contact or a Company. So now we have to guess in what module to start a search/filter. Also looking up an address, phone number,

        • inventory template

          is it possible to implement if condition within inventory template?

        • Automate Zoho Meeting Creation via Blueprint (Leads & Accounts)

          I need help automating Zoho Meeting creation during a blueprint transition in both the Leads and Accounts modules. Requirements: Triggered via blueprint Read meeting start time (DateTime field) and internal participants from CRM Create Zoho Meeting via

        • Invalid OAuth Token When Using Zoho CRM API with Postman

          We're in the process of integrating Zoho CRM with our Django backend and currently testing the API endpoints via Postman. I've forked Zoho's official CRM REST API collection in Postman for this. Steps Taken: Created a Self Client via Zoho API Console:

        • Sending possible. Receiving not possible.

          We are not receiving mail in our company email. Could you please solve this. It has been recurring and I want it to be resolved once and for all. Please help.

        • How to find the number of companies within contacts

          I'm trying to track our database growth and want to find out how many companies we have in our database. is there an easy way to do this? Moderation Update: I'm locking this post, as we have an ongoing discussions in this linked post. You can follow the

        • Want to setup automation

          I would like to send mail automatically after 7 days when stage is approved using Bigin Automation. Can you guide. I tried and attached the screenshot but it seems to be not working well.

        • Generate a Zoho Sign link

          From time to time I get a response "I never received your you e-document for electronic signature" is there a way to generate a Zoho Sign link to share.

        • Highlight a candidate who is "off limits"

          Hello: Is there a way to highlight a candidate who is "off limits"?  I would like to have the ability to make certain candidate and / or Client records highlighted in RED or something like that.   This would be used for example when we may have placed a candidate somewhere and we want everyone in our company to quickly and easily see that they are off limits.  The same would apply when we want to put a client or former client off limits so no one recruits out of there. How can this be done? Cheers,

        • Feature Request - Approval Processes

          Hi Team, I think it would be really valuable to add the approval process feature like what is currently available in the CRM. The problem with the current approval support is it can't be automated to send the approval to set people based on the values of fields within the tickets. Is this something that could be considered for the roadmap? Thanks, Harry

        • What is VoC "Unique count", counting?

          Using the "Response based sentiment analysis" dashboard, here is our VoC "Overall Count by Sentiment" VoC uses Zoho Survey and email...and we have almost certainly touched (via email) more than 401 Contacts since January 1, 2025.

        • Knowledge base articles is now available in the Zoho Desk mobile app!

          Hello all,   As a customer service agent, every day you might have to deal with many questions and issues reported by the users. With Knowledge Base, you can reduce the issue resolution life cycle for your organization.   We are delighted to announce that we have brought in support for 'Knowledge Base articles' in the Zoho Desk iOS mobile app.  This feature is already available for Android users.   KB articles are available to iOS users in the latest version of the app (v2.4.9). You can update the

        • Document data extraction and import into CRM.

          I've been trying to solve this for a while and I can't come up with a workable solution: In our business, we utilize many subcontractors around the world (without Zoho user accounts) to produce reports and client sites which they then submit back to us

        • Notifications API - how to handle channel expiry

          The Documentation doesn't give a lot of detail on how the Notification API should be used. Am I correct that I can only open a channel for a maxmimum of 24 hours? And once the channel_expiry date has passed, I will no longer receive notifications? What

        • Introducing ICR in Zoho CRM: Transform your printed text into digital data

          From writing on papyrus in the ancient times to creating a humble record in your CRM, the world may have evolved with how it used to record data, but data entry as such has not been simplified. It is still a repetitive and arduous chore on which businesses

        • Sync Books quote value into Deal amount

          I have books integrated into deals in CRM and I want to sync the quote value into the deal value automatically. Can anyone provide me some guidance?

        • Can I add Conditional merge tags on my Templates?

          Hi I was wondering if I can use Conditional Mail Merge tags inside my Email templates/Quotes etc within the CRM? In spanish and in our business we use gender and academic degree salutations , ie: Dr., Dra., Sr., Srta., so the beginning of an email / letter

        • Zoho Books | Product Updates | April 2025

          Hello partners, We’ve rolled out new features and enhancements to elevate your accounting experience. From FEC report to BillPay Add-on, these updates are designed to help you stay on top of your finances with ease. Export Transactions in Factur-X Format

        • Filter a report for a specific bank and a specific transaction type (interest income)

          I am trying to run a report - any report - on a specific bank account for the interest income. I do not see it as an option. I can see the Bank Account under Account in the Filters, and I can see the Interest Income under Account in the Filters But I

        • Pin multiple columns and adjust column widths in CRM subforms

          Hello all, Subforms act as secondary forms or tables in which you can associate multiple line items to a primary record and thereby ensure more structured and comprehensive data organization. We've made some recent enhancements to subforms. Here's what's

        • Exchange Rate Updates

          Hi, It would be great that when you work with multiple currencies, the exchange rate updates automagically every day (as seen on Zoho Books) or at least that when you create/update an opportunity the exchange rate could be manually updated, or maybe both!

        • Next Page