Meta's 24-Hour Window

The 24-Hour Meta Window in the WhatsApp Business API: How It Works and What Coexistence Has to Do With It

What Is the 24-Hour Window?

The 24-hour window (Customer Care Window) is a Meta rule that governs what messages a business can send to a customer via the WhatsApp Business API without using templates.

If a customer messages a business, a 24-hour window opens: For 24 hours from the time of the customer’s last message, a business can send any free-form (session-based) messages—text, files, buttons, etc.—with no content restrictions and without needing to use pre-approved templates.

Once the 24 hours have elapsed and the customer has not messaged again, the window closes. To resume the conversation, the business must send the customer a template message (Template Message) that has been pre-approved by Meta.

How the chat window opens

The chat window opens only at the customer’s initiative—that is, when an incoming message is sent from the customer’s number to the business. This can be:

a regular text message;
a reply to a template previously sent by the business;
a button click in an interactive message;
a call or other action that WhatsApp counts as an interaction.

Important note: A business cannot open the chat first via the standard API. If a customer has never messaged the bot or received any messages from it before, the only way to start a conversation is to send them an approved template.

Special case: Coexistence and the first message from a phone

When using Coexistence mode (where a number operates simultaneously in the WhatsApp Business app on a phone and via the API), an additional option becomes available: an employee can message a customer first through the mobile app, and this counts as the start of a conversation—without the need to send an approved template.

This works because, in Coexistence mode, a message sent from a phone technically does not go through the API but rather through the regular WhatsApp app, to which the 24-hour window restriction on templates does not apply as strictly as it does to messages sent via the API. Thanks to this:

an employee can manually message the customer first (for example, following a phone call, in-person meeting, or a request submitted via the website);
after such a message, the customer has the opportunity to reply, and then the standard 24-hour window opens for all subsequent correspondence, including conversations via CRM/API.

This is useful for scenarios where the first contact with a customer is personalized and non-automated, and using a template message would be excessive or less personal.

Important to Remember