WhatsApp template categories: marketing, utility and authentication

Every template a business sends is approved by Meta and placed in one of three categories. The category decides the price of each message and how closely Meta checks it. Meta sets out the rules in its template categorization guide.

• Utility has two tests, and a template must pass both. It must be non-promotional, with no persuasive intent. And it must be specific to the customer, about their order, booking, account or transaction, or essential to their safety, such as a fraud warning or a product recall.
• Authentication is the strictest. Meta’s authentication templates use fixed wording, “<code> is your verification code.”, with an optional security line and an expiry time, plus a copy-code or one-tap button. Links, media and emojis are not allowed.
• Marketing is the default for everything else. A template that mixes an update with a promotion, such as an order confirmation with a discount code, is marketing.

Meta checks the category you choose against its guidelines. Since 9 April 2025, a template submitted as utility that Meta judges to be marketing is approved as marketing, not rejected. You still get the template, at the marketing price.

Meta also re-checks approved templates on a recurring basis. If it decides a utility template is really marketing, it gives one day’s notice by email and in WhatsApp Manager, then changes the category. The template keeps working, but every message from then on is billed as marketing. A business already warned for misusing utility can be changed with no notice.

If you think Meta is wrong, you can ask for a review through Meta’s Business Support within 60 days. Until then the new category stands: Meta’s pricing rules make the business responsible for checking the category, and each message is billed at the category the template has when it is sent.

Pulse shows the category Meta has set for each template, with its price, and updates it when Meta changes it, so a switch to marketing does not go unnoticed.

Meta charges per delivered template message, at a rate set by the template’s category and the country code of the number receiving it. These are Meta’s rates for Indian numbers, before 18% GST, effective 1 July 2026.

• The gap is large. A reminder sent as utility costs ₹0.115. Add “and get 10% off your next visit” and it becomes marketing at ₹0.8631, about 7.5 times as much.
• Meta lowers its utility and authentication rates for businesses that send large volumes in a month. The rates above are the standard ones.

These are written for Indian small businesses and follow Meta’s rules for each category. Text in double braces, such as {{1}}, is a variable filled in for each customer. Meta asks for a sample value for every variable when you submit.

• Keep utility templates free of offers, discounts and “check out our new range” lines. One promotional sentence makes the whole template marketing.
• Start and end every template with words, not a variable, and number variables in order: {{1}}, {{2}}, {{3}}.
• Name the business in the message, so the customer knows at once who is writing.
• Use a button for a link rather than pasting the address into the text. Meta’s own best practices recommend it.

Meta reviews templates with automated checks and people, and says a decision can take up to 24 hours. These are the reasons Meta itself lists in its template review guide:

• Variables are missing or have mismatched curly braces, such as {{1} instead of {{1}}.
• Variables contain special characters such as #, $ or %.
• Variables are not in sequence, such as {{1}} followed by {{3}}.
• There are too many variables for the length of the message.
• The template starts or ends with a variable.
• The content breaks WhatsApp’s Commerce or Business Policy, for example by asking for a full card number.
• The content is abusive or threatening, such as threatening legal action or public shaming over an unpaid bill.
• The template duplicates one you already have.