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Every message a business sends first has to be approved by WhatsApp, not by us. When one comes back as REJECTED, WhatsApp is what turned it down. 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 left for a name or a date sits right at the start or 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.

Files on a template header

Each kind of header file has its own size limit. Happy Pet refuses one that is too big as soon as you pick it, and shows the limit for that kind. That saves waiting for WhatsApp to turn it down for a reason you cannot see.

A big document can take a while to upload, so there is a progress bar. Let it finish rather than pressing the button again.

If a template has been sitting at PENDING for a long time, that used to mean its status was never re-checked. Every waiting template is checked now, so PENDING means Meta really has not decided yet.

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 has Delete template, for one you no longer want. Worth doing so your list stays short enough to read.