WhatsApp template checker

A WhatsApp template checker reads your message template before you submit it to Meta. It predicts whether Meta will treat it as marketing, utility or authentication, and flags the length, button and variable problems that get templates rejected. Per Meta's rate card, checked 28 September 2026, an Indian marketing message costs about 7.5 times a utility one.

TL;DR

• Meta sorts every template into marketing, utility or authentication. Meta's review decides, not you, and the checker's answer is only a prediction.
• Since 9 April 2025, a template you submit as utility that Meta judges to be marketing is approved as marketing. Approved utility templates are also re-checked.
• In India, per Meta's rate card checked 28 September 2026, marketing costs ₹0.8631 a message and utility or authentication ₹0.115.
• One promotional line (a discount, an offer, "shop now") is enough to make an order update marketing.
• Most format rejections come from a few rules: a 1,024-character body, 60-character header and footer, 25-character buttons, and {{1}}, {{2}} variables numbered in order and not at the start or end of the body.

What are the WhatsApp template categories?#

Outside a customer service window, a business can only message people with an approved template. Meta's template categorisation guidelines (formerly the new template guidelines page, checked 28 September 2026) define three categories:

• Marketing templates are for goals "from generating awareness to driving sales and retargeting customers". Offers, launches, festive sales, cart reminders and win-back messages are all marketing.
• Utility templates "follow up on user actions or requests". Examples are an order confirmation, a delivery update, a payment reminder or an appointment change. A utility template must be non-promotional, and it must be either specific to the user or essential to them.
• Authentication templates verify who the user is with a one-time password. Meta fixes their wording: a code, an optional "do not share" security line and a copy-code or one-tap button.

Meta's guidelines add two rules that catch many businesses. A template with mixed content, such as an order update with a promo code, is marketing. A template with unclear content, such as a bare "Congratulations!", is also treated as marketing.

How does Meta re-categorise templates since 9 April 2025?#

According to Meta's categorisation guidelines, checked 28 September 2026:

• At submission. From 9 April 2025, if you pick utility and Meta decides the template should be marketing, the template is approved as marketing. You no longer choose whether Meta may change the category: that is now the default.
• After approval. Since 1 July 2024, Meta has run a recurring check on approved templates. A utility template it judges to be marketing is moved to marketing, usually after a day's notice, and its status stays approved.
• Misuse. From 16 April 2025, a business Meta has warned for miscategorising templates gets no notice: category changes are instant.
• Appeals. You can ask for a review in WhatsApp Manager within 60 days of the change.

So you cannot pay utility prices for marketing content. Meta corrects the category, and its guidelines describe escalating restrictions for businesses that keep miscategorising.

Why does the template category change what you pay?#

Meta bills per delivered template message, priced by category and the recipient's country.

A message that drifts from utility into marketing costs about 7.5 times as much. On 10,000 order updates a month that is ₹8,631 instead of ₹1,150, before GST. Utility and authentication rates also fall at very high monthly volumes. For the full breakdown, including service messages and GST, read our guide to WhatsApp Business API pricing in India.

Why do WhatsApp templates get rejected?#

Most rejections fall into two groups: format and policy.

Format rules, which this checker tests, are the limits Meta's API enforces:

• the body can have at most 1,024 characters, and the header text and footer at most 60 each;
• a template can have up to 10 buttons: at most 2 website buttons, 1 phone button and 1 copy-code button, with quick-reply buttons kept together;
• each button's text can have at most 25 characters;
• variables are written {{1}}, {{2}} and must be numbered in order with no gaps. The footer takes no variables, and a text header takes one at most.

Meta's template review guide (checked 28 September 2026) adds parameter rules. A template can't start or end with a variable, braces must match, variables can't contain characters like #, $ or %, and the body can't have too many variables for its length. Meta gives no number for that last rule, so the checker uses its own threshold and says so.

Policy rules need a human read. Meta rejects templates that break the WhatsApp Commerce or Business Policy, ask for sensitive identifiers such as full card numbers, use abusive or threatening wording, or copy the body and footer of an existing template. The same review guide says a decision can take up to 24 hours.

Approval is only the start: our guide to sending bulk WhatsApp messages without getting blocked covers quality ratings and messaging limits.

How do you write a utility template that stays utility?#

Meta's guidelines ask two questions of a utility template: is it free of promotion, and is it about something specific to, or essential for, this customer? To pass both:

1. Tie it to one transaction the customer started. Name it with a variable, such as the order number, booking date or invoice amount.
2. Remove every promotional element. That means discounts, coupon codes, "offer", "sale", free gifts, promotional prices and urgency such as "today only".
3. Keep buttons on the transaction. "Track order", "View invoice" or "Reschedule" are fine. "Shop the sale" or a link to your catalogue is not.
4. Stay factual. Say what happened, what happens next and what the customer needs to do, if anything.
5. Send the promotion separately. If you want to cross-sell, use a marketing template and pay the marketing rate.

The checker shows these tips whenever it predicts marketing, with a specific tip for each promotional phrase it found.

How does this checker work?#

The checker is rule-based and runs in your browser, with no AI and no server. It tests the same limits Relay's template editor enforces, then matches your wording against marketing, utility and authentication signals in English, Hindi and Hinglish, and highlights each phrase that fired. Any marketing signal makes the prediction marketing, because Meta treats mixed content that way.

Meta's reviewers read the whole message in context and can disagree with the checker either way, so use it to find risky wording before you submit. The help guide to message templates explains how to create, submit and track templates in Relay.