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

Meta 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

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

• Allow Text within a Formula

  Hi, I would like to be able to use this for others things like taking an existing Date Field and copying its value, so by entering getDay(Date)&"-"&getMonth(Date)&"-"&getYear(Date) it results in 01-02-2026. And then when the Date is changed so is this

• Change Number Field to Decimal Field

  Hi, It would be nice to be able to change the field type without having to delete it and create a new one, messing up the database and history. Thanks Dan

• Pipeline.Company Name field shows up as numbers! [Bigin Developer Console > Component > URL]

  Hi there, I am setting up to invoke URL to send infromation zoho bigin > zoho forms with company name pre-fill in the form. however when I use : ${Pipelines.Company Name} field it shows up as a string of number instead of words. Help.

• Add specific field value to URL

  Hi Everyone. I have the following code which is set to run from a subform when the user selects a value from a lookup field "Plant_Key" the URL opens a report but i want the report to be filtered on the matching field/value. so in the report there is

• How to Move Behavior, Acquisition, Polls & Forms Data from Zoho PageSense to Zoho Analytics?

  Hi Zoho Community, I'm looking for a way to transfer data from Zoho PageSense to Zoho Analytics, specifically: Behavioral data (clicks, scrolls, heatmaps, etc.) Acquisition data (traffic sources, campaigns, etc.) Polls and forms data As far as I can tell:

• Zoho Social - Feature Request - Non-US Date Format

  Hi Social Team, I have noticed that there is no option to change the date format from US mm/dd/yyyy to others like dd/mm/yyyy. It would be great to see this added as the platform matures. Thanks for considering this feedback.

• In arattai received message can't be deleted

  The issue has been noticed in following: arattai app (Android) arattai app (Window) arattai web While the message posted by me may be deleted, the ones received from others can't be. The item <Delete> change to <Report> when the message is a received

• Zoho CRM Community Digest - December 2025 | Part 1

  Hello Everyone! In the first half of December, Zoho CRM rolled out auto-invite for portals, smarter CPQ with Zia suggestions and price rules, and Query Workbench for faster query building. We also highlight other noteworthy conversations you shouldn’t

• Zoho Flow Credits

  Hi , I would like to ask the reason why every time I added plus credit but few days later I will return back to default? (as below I add credit to 3000 but today It change back to 1000) Most important is, when the credit fully used, not any reminder to

• Custom Module Send Email not filling To automatically after adding Email field also

  I create custom module in zohoCRM but problem is in custom module when i click send email there in popup To is filling automatic its coming empty which i need to manually add an email there. How can I fix it? I already added the Email field there, but

• Introducing Intake Forms

  We are excited to announce the release of Intake Forms, a new feature in Zoho Contracts designed to make contract requests simple, structured, and efficient. Intake Forms allow organization members to request new contracts through a web form instead of

• eIDAS 2.0: What's changed for digital trust in Europe, and where Zoho Sign stands

  Hi there! It's that time of year when many of us get our ducks in a row. A new year often makes us reassess priorities, and for businesses in the EU, it means taking a closer look at how digital identities and electronic signatures work across borders,

• Directly Edit, Filter, and Sort Subforms on the Details Page

  Hello everyone, As you know, subforms allow you to associate multiple line items with a single record, greatly enhancing your data organization. For example, a sales order subform neatly lists all products, their quantities, amounts, and other relevant

• Add Israel & Jewish Holidays to Zoho People Holidays Gallery

  Greetings, We hope you are doing well. This feature request is related to Zoho People - please don't move it to zoho one! We are writing to request an enhancement to the Holidays Gallery in Zoho People. Currently, there are several holidays available,

• Any update on much requested feature, to delete attachments without deleting the e-mail body?

  People have been requesting the ability to delete e-mail attachments without deleting the e-mail for more than ten years now. The latest I see is marked "Working On It" and a year ago it was supposedly being added, see here: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/community/topic/is-there-a-way-to-delete-mail-attachments-without-deleting-the-text

• How to delete attachments form Zoho mail accounts

  I can't find a way to delete attachments from Zoho mail messages, either individually or in bulk. Searches here are providing conflicting results and often talk about workspace, whereas I am only interested in how to delete attachments that are seen with

• Unable to fetch ticket by custom field value

  I'm trying to set up a Flow to fetch a ticket based on a custom field value. This seems like it should be pretty straightforward, but it's not working for me. I keep getting an error saying Zoho Desk says "Extra query parameter 'cf_creator_record_id'

• Zoho Inventory - Composite Items - Assembly - Single Line Item Quantity of One

  Hi Zoho Inventory Team, Please consider relaxing the system rules which prevent an assembly items from consisting of a single line item and outputting a quantity of 1. A client I'm currently working with sells cosmetics and offers testers of their products

• What's New in Zoho Inventory | Q2 2025

  Hello Customers, The second quarter have been exciting months for Zoho Inventory! We’ve introduced impactful new features and enhancements to help you manage inventory operations with even greater precision and control. While we have many more exciting

• Writing by Hand in "Write" Notes

  Hi there! I just downloaded this app a few moments ago, and I was wondering if there was a way to write things by hand in "Write" mode instead of just typing in the keyboard. It would make things a bit more efficient for me in this moment. Thanks!

• Zoho Mail Verification Following DNS Switch from Cloudflare to Hosting Provider

  I initially configured my domain’s ( https://roblozapk.com/ ) email with Zoho Mail while using Cloudflare to manage my DNS records such as MX, SPF, and DKIM. At that time, all email services were working correctly without any issues. Recently, I removed

• "Spreadsheet Mode" for Fast Bulk Edits

  One of the challenges with using Zoho Inventory is when bulk edits need to be done via the UI, and each value that needs to be changed is different. A very common use case here is price changes. Often, a price increase will need to be implemented, and

• SAML in Zoho One vs Zoho Accounts

  What is the difference between setting up SAML in Zoho Accounts: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/accounts/manage-your-organization/saml/articles/configure-saml-in-zoho-accounts ... vs SAML in Zoho One?: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/one/admin-guide/custom-authentication/setting-up-custom-authentication-with-popular-idps/articles/zohoone-customauthentication-azure

• How can I reset the password for a user in Zoho Projects

  We need to reset the password for a user in Zoho Projects. I am the admin portal owner and there was nothing to be found to do this. very confusing.

• How can I add a comment to an existing ticket via API?

  I need to add comments/notes to the history of an existing ticket using the API without overwriting the original ticket description. Thanks!

• Marketer's Space: Proven tips to improve open rates – Part III

  Hello Marketers! Welcome back to another post in Marketer's Space! This is the final post in the "open rate series". In the first and second parts, we discussed topics ranging from sender domains to pre-headers—but we're not done yet. A few more important

• Attention Deluge Developers: Important Update Regarding "Send Email Deluge Task"

  Hi Deluge Users, We hope this message finds you well. We would like to inform you about a recent update on the Send emails deluge task. If you are using this deluge task (SalesIQ Scripts) for your Zobot, widgets, or form controllers to send emails, please

• Zoho Social - Feature Request - Reviewer Role

  Hi Social Team, I've come across this with a couple of clients, where they need a role which can review and comment on posts but who has no access to create content. This is a kind of reviewer role. They just need to be able to see what content is scheduled

• Zoho Books/Inventory - Update Marketplace Sales Order via API

  Hi everyone, Does anyone know if there is a way to update Sales Orders created from a marketplace intigration (Shopify in this case) via API? I'm trying to cover a scenario where an order is changed on the Shopify end and the changes must be reflected

• Zoho Inventory / Finance Suite - Add feature to prevent duplicate values in Item Unit field

  I've noticed that a client has 2 values the same in the Unit field on edit/create Items. This surprised me as why would you have 2 units with the same name. Please consider adding a feature which prevents this as it seems to serve no purpose.

• Kaizen #224 - Quote-driven Deal Reconciliation Using Zoho CRM Functions and Automation

  Hello everyone! Welcome back to another instalment in the Kaizen series. This post covers quote-driven deal reconciliation, emphasizing Functions and Automation to address practical sales challenges. Business Challenge Sales organizations often mark deals

• BARCODE PICKLIST

  Hello! Does anyone know how the Picklist module works? I tried scanning the barcode using the UPC and EAN codes I added to the item, but it doesn’t work. Which barcode format does this module use for scanning?

• Zoho Inventory - Allow Update of Marketplace Generated Sales Orders via API

  Hi Inventory Team, I was recently asked by a client to create an automation which updated a Zoho Inventory Sales Order if a Shopify Order was updated. I have created the script but I found that the request is blocked as the Sales Order was generated by

• How do I create an update to the Cost Price from landed costs?

  Hi fellow Zoho Inventory battlers, I am new to Zoho inventory and was completely baffled to find that the cost price of products does not update when a new purchase order is received. The cost price is just made up numbers I start with when the product

• VoC in Zoho CRM is now data savvy: Explore response drilldown, summary components and participation in CRM criteria

  VoC has all the goods when it comes to customer intelligence—which is why we're constantly enhancing it. We recently added the following: A customer drilldown component that shows you the list of prospects and customers behind a chart's attribute Expanded

• Let’s Talk Recruit: LinkedIn Cheatsheet

  Welcome to the first edition of Let’s Talk Recruit for 2026. We are kicking off the year by revisiting one of the most asked about topics in Zoho Recruit. How our LinkedIn integrations actually work and how recruiters can get the most value from them.

• Zoho Forms API

  Is there any way to get all form entry list using API? Looking forward to hear from you

• Ability to Set Client Name During Portal Invitation

  Hi Zoho Team, We would like to suggest an important enhancement to the Zoho Creator Client Portal functionality. Zoho Creator recently introduced the option to set a client’s display name in the Client Portal settings, which is very helpful for creating

• 【Zoho CRM】データ一覧画面でのメモのバッジ機能リリースのお知らせ

  ユーザーの皆さま、こんにちは。コミュニティチームの藤澤です。2026年度もゾーホーユーザーコミュニティをどうぞよろしくお願いいたします！ 今回は「Zoho CRM アップデート情報」の中から、新機能のデータ一覧画面でのメモのバッジ機能をご紹介します。 目次 概要　メモのバッジ機能について メモの作成について メモに関する様々な処理について 最近追加したメモについて メモのバッジの非表示について クライアントスクリプトの対応 概要　 メモのバッジ機能について 既存の活動バッジに加えて、すべてのタブのデータ一覧表示画面に、各データごとに利用できる「メモのバッジ」（キャプチャ内の赤枠部分）が新たに導入されました。

• 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

• Next Page