BroadcastoThe 24-hour window opens every time a customer sends a message to your WhatsApp Business number. For the next 24 hours, your business can reply with any free-form message — text, image, video, document — without using a template. After 24 hours, only approved templates can be sent.
This rule prevents spam: businesses cannot cold-message customers with arbitrary content. To re-engage after 24 hours, you must send a template message, which either pulls the user back into a session or is billed as a Marketing/Utility conversation.
Broadcasto shows a live 24-hour timer on every conversation in the shared inbox so agents know when the window closes.
Related terms
- WhatsApp Conversation-Based Pricing — Meta charges per 24-hour conversation, not per message.
- WhatsApp Message Template — A pre-approved message structure required to start a conversation with a customer.