Every message a business sends first has to be approved by WhatsApp, not by us. When one comes back as REJECTED it is WhatsApp that turned it down, and only a change to the wording will get it through.

Where to look

  1. Go to Settings, then WhatsApp Message Templates.
  2. Open the tab the message is on, which is Manual template, Chat template or Auto template.
  3. The state sits next to each message.

The three states you will see are PENDING while WhatsApp is deciding, APPROVED when it can be used, and REJECTED when it cannot.

Refresh pending status asks WhatsApp again. Approval often takes a few minutes, so a message stuck on PENDING is usually just waiting rather than broken.

The usual reasons

  • It reads like an advert when it was not meant to. Wording about offers and discounts is held to a much higher bar than wording about a booking
  • It asks for something sensitive, such as a card number or a password
  • A blank you left for a name or a date sits right at the start or right at the end, with no words around it
  • The message is almost all blanks and barely any real words
  • It promises something WhatsApp cannot check, such as a guaranteed result

How to fix it

Rewrite it as the plainest version of the same message. Say who you are, what has happened, and what the customer needs to do.

Put real words around every blank so the message still reads properly when the blank is empty.

Then save it again. It goes back for approval as a new message.

If it keeps coming back

Send it as three or four short sentences with one blank in the middle. That shape gets approved far more often than a long message with blanks scattered through it.

More options on a message lets you remove one you no longer want with Delete template, which is worth doing so your list stays short enough to read.