WhatsApp Marketing Messages API: what changes for your marketing templates

Meta is moving WhatsApp marketing templates off the Cloud API and onto its Marketing Messages API for WhatsApp. The Cloud API stops carrying marketing messages on October 13, 2027, and WhatsApp Business Accounts created on or after April 13, 2027 cannot send marketing messages through it at all. At the same time, customers can now stop and resume one business’s promotions from inside WhatsApp, and you are told when they do. Your number, your approved templates and the way Meta bills you stay the same. What changes is how marketing templates are routed, who you are still allowed to promote to, and a few new controls you should start using.

This guide covers Meta’s timeline, the stop and resume control, error 131049, message time-to-live, and the exact steps in MonoChat. Opt-in, sending limits and safe bulk campaigns have their own guides, linked below.

What the Marketing Messages API is

The Marketing Messages API is a second sending endpoint for the same WhatsApp Business number. Meta’s documentation describes the split like this: the Cloud API keeps sending service, utility and authentication messages and receiving customer messages, while the Marketing Messages API sends marketing templates “with optimizations” over the same number.

According to Meta, it adds:

• Delivery optimization. WhatsApp aims marketing messages at the people most likely to find them relevant. In Meta’s test with about 12 million delivered marketing messages from advertisers in India (January 2025), optimized delivery drove more reads and clicks for high-engagement messages than standard Cloud API delivery.
• Benchmarks and recommendations. Read and click rates compared with similar templates from other businesses in your region.
• GIF headers, which the Cloud API does not support for marketing templates.
• Message time-to-live for marketing templates (more on this below).
• The same billing model as the Cloud API, existing phone numbers and existing marketing templates. No new number registration and no template re-creation.

Some of this varies by country. In the EEA, the UK, Japan, South Korea, Nigeria, South Africa and Thailand you can onboard, but messages get no delivery optimization and no click or conversion reporting. Businesses in sanctioned regions cannot onboard.

Meta’s timeline

Date	What happens
November 19, 2025	The Marketing Messages API reaches general availability after its open beta.
October 13, 2026	Meta announces the end of marketing messages on the Cloud API.
April 13, 2027	WhatsApp Business Accounts created on or after this date cannot send marketing messages through the Cloud API.
October 13, 2027	Marketing messages sent through the Cloud API return an error.

Meta’s own advice for businesses that have not moved yet: accept the Marketing Messages API terms, make sure your integration sends marketing templates to the new endpoint, and check templates whose category changed. A template approved as Utility can be moved to Marketing by Meta if its content is promotional, and from then on it has to go out as a marketing message.

How you onboard

Onboarding is a business decision, not a technical project on your side. Meta’s documented path for businesses that work with a partner:

1. Someone with full control of your Meta business portfolio opens WhatsApp Manager › Overview.
2. In the Alerts section, they click Accept terms for the Marketing Messages API for WhatsApp.
3. They follow the steps to sign the terms.

Once the terms are signed, the WhatsApp Business Account can send through the new API. Message status events (delivered, read, clicked) are then shared with Meta to optimize campaigns; Meta lets you switch that sharing off in the WhatsApp Business account settings.

Customers can now stop your marketing messages

WhatsApp has a setting called Offers and announcements for each business. A customer can use it to say they are interested or not interested in your promotions, and to stop or later resume your marketing messages entirely.

What each action does:

• Not interested can lower how many of your marketing templates that person receives, but it does not block them, and you are not notified.
• Stop blocks your marketing templates to that person. If you send one anyway, the API accepts the request, does not deliver it and reports error 131050: “This recipient has chosen to stop receiving marketing messages on WhatsApp from your business”.
• Stop and Resume both trigger the user_preferences webhook, with the value stop or resume.

Two things matter here. First, this is not the same as opt-in. A customer who stopped your promotions still agreed to hear from you about orders and bookings, and utility templates still reach them. Second, sending to someone who stopped you is wasted effort at best. A list that keeps sending to them makes reports show failures you could have avoided, and it tells nobody on your team that the customer said no. Our WhatsApp opt-in guide covers how to collect consent; this setting is the customer’s way to withdraw part of it.

Error 131049: the per-customer marketing limit

WhatsApp may limit how many marketing templates one person receives from all businesses in a period, based on that person’s recent read rate and how busy their inbox is. A message held back fails with error 131049.

• Wait at least 24 hours before sending again to that person. Repeated retries within 24 hours can make further attempts unavailable for up to a day.
• Marketing messages sent inside an open 24-hour customer service window, after the customer replied, do not count toward the limit.
• Meta does not currently deliver marketing templates to people with United States phone numbers.

The other causes of undelivered campaigns are in why a WhatsApp broadcast is not delivered, and the habits that keep your number healthy are in how to send WhatsApp bulk messages without getting banned.

Message time-to-live for marketing templates

If WhatsApp cannot deliver a message, for example because the phone is off, it keeps retrying for a period called the time-to-live (TTL). For marketing templates sent through the Marketing Messages API, the default is 30 days, and you can set anything from 12 hours to 30 days. A message that is not delivered within its TTL is dropped.

That default is a problem for time-limited offers. A “Sale ends tonight” message that arrives three days later because the customer was travelling looks careless. Set the TTL to the life of the offer:

Offer	TTL in seconds
Flash sale ending in 12 hours	43200
24-hour discount	86400
Weekend sale (3 days)	259200
Event invitation a week ahead	604800
No deadline	leave empty (30 days)

What MonoChat does since version 3.8.41

MonoChat 3.8.41 (November 1, 2026) handles each of these changes for WhatsApp Business (Cloud) channels:

• Routing by category. Every template is sent with its category. When your WhatsApp Business Account is onboarded, Marketing templates go out through the Marketing Messages API, and everything else stays on the Cloud API. Until then, Marketing templates go out through the Cloud API as before. MonoChat checks the account’s status regularly, so a newly onboarded account switches over within an hour.
• Onboarding status where you can see it. The channel’s Profile Settings show a Marketing Messages API section saying whether the account is onboarded.
• Stop and resume, recorded. When a customer stops your marketing messages, the profile field WhatsApp marketing stopped is set to Yes, separately from the customer’s Opt-in, and a whisper only your team sees is added to their latest conversation on that channel. When they resume, the field goes back to No. You can filter customers by this field in the CRM.
• No wasted sends. Bulk messages skip customers who stopped your marketing messages when the template’s category is Marketing, and the recipient’s status says why. The Send Template Message flow node does not send them a Marketing template and takes its On Fail output instead.
• Readable errors. Error 131049 is shown as “The customer reached WhatsApp’s marketing message limit; try again after 24 hours” on the message in the inbox and in Message Status in the bulk message records.
• TTL in the template builder. On an onboarded account, Marketing templates have a Message time-to-live (seconds) field that accepts 43200 to 2592000.

Step by step in MonoChat

1. Check the onboarding status. Go to Settings › Chat › Channels, open the ⋮ menu of your WhatsApp Business (Cloud) channel and choose Profile Settings. The Marketing Messages API section says either that the account is onboarded or that it is not yet, with the October 13, 2027 date.

2. Accept Meta’s terms if it is not onboarded. Ask the person with full control of your business portfolio to accept the terms in WhatsApp Manager, as described above. Within an hour, Profile Settings show the account as onboarded. Your templates and number do not change.

3. Add a TTL to time-limited Marketing templates. In Settings › Chat › Channels › ⋮ › Template Messages, click Create, choose the Marketing category and fill in Message time-to-live (seconds). Add a quick reply such as “Stop promotions” too, so customers who want fewer messages have an easier option than blocking you.

4. Build segments that respect the new field. In the CRM, filter on WhatsApp marketing stopped so your campaign audiences leave those customers out from the start, and keep using Opt-in for your other channels. Bulk messages would skip them anyway, but a clean segment gives you honest audience numbers before you send.

5. Give flows a fallback. In any flow that sends a Marketing template with Send Template Message, connect the On Fail output. A customer who stopped your promotions might get a note for your team, or a different path, instead of a silent end.

6. Read the reports after each campaign. In System › Bulk Messaging, open the records. “The customer stopped WhatsApp marketing messages; marketing templates are not sent to them” in Status and the 131049 text in Message Status tell you which part of the audience you lost, and why.

What it looks like in practice

A Marketing template for a 24-hour sale, with TTL set to 86400:

Hi {{1}}, our 24-hour sale is on: 25% off all running shoes until midnight tomorrow. Your size in the trail model you looked at is still in stock.

[Shop the sale]  [Stop promotions]

If the customer’s phone is off until after midnight tomorrow, WhatsApp drops the message instead of delivering an expired offer.

The whisper your team sees in the conversation when that customer later stops your promotions:

The customer stopped WhatsApp marketing messages.

Their order confirmation the next week, a Utility template, still goes out:

Hi {{1}}, your order {{2}} has shipped. Track it here: {{3}}

Checklist

• Profile Settings show the account as onboarded to the Marketing Messages API, well before April or October 2027.
• Every template has the right category. A Utility template moved to Marketing by Meta now follows marketing rules.
• Time-limited Marketing templates have a TTL that matches the offer.
• Campaign segments exclude WhatsApp marketing stopped = Yes.
• Every Send Template Message step with a Marketing template has an On Fail branch.
• Nobody retries 131049 failures within 24 hours.
• You check cost before big sends with the bulk messaging calculator. The billing model does not change with the new API.

For the strategy around all of this, from segments to frequency, see our WhatsApp marketing guide. To see how MonoChat connects your number through the Cloud API, read the WhatsApp Cloud API explained. You can start on the free Basic plan at app.monochat.ai; MonoChat is an official Meta Business Partner, and Meta bills message fees to you directly with no MonoChat markup.

Sources

• Meta for Developers: Marketing Messages API for WhatsApp, overview and timeline (general availability, 2027 dates, benefits, India test; opened November 2, 2026)
• Meta for Developers: Onboard to the Marketing Messages API (WhatsApp Manager steps, same phone number, event sharing; opened November 2, 2026)
• Meta for Developers: Get started, geographic availability (countries without optimization, sanctioned regions; opened November 2, 2026)
• Meta for Developers: Marketing Messages API features (GIF headers, benchmarks, TTL range; opened November 2, 2026)
• Meta for Developers: Route template messages by category (re-categorized templates; opened November 2, 2026)
• Meta for Developers: Marketing templates, user preferences (Offers and announcements, stop and resume, error 131050; opened November 2, 2026)
• Meta for Developers: user_preferences webhook reference (opened November 2, 2026)
• Meta for Developers: Per-user marketing template limits (error 131049, 24-hour wait, US numbers; opened November 2, 2026)
• Meta for Developers: Configure message time-to-live (defaults and ranges; opened November 2, 2026)
• MonoChat help center: Template Messages, Marketing templates on WhatsApp (opened November 2, 2026)
• MonoChat help center: Bulk Messages, why a recipient failed (opened November 2, 2026)
• MonoChat release notes 3.8.41 (opened November 2, 2026)