What is the template limit?
The template limit is the maximum number of message templates a single WhatsApp Business Account (WABA) can hold at once. If the business portfolio that owns the WABA is not verified, each of its WABAs is limited to 250 templates. Once the portfolio is verified and at least one of its WABAs has a business phone number with an approved display name, each WABA can hold up to 6,000.
The count is per template, not per name. Templates with the same name in different languages each count, so one renewal reminder in English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu uses four slots. When a WABA is full, creating another template fails with error 2388019 (message template limit exceeded) until something is deleted. A separate rate limit applies to creation itself: at most 100 new templates per WABA per hour.
This is a storage cap, not a sending cap. It says nothing about how many messages you may send — messaging limits govern that, counting unique users reached outside a service window in a rolling 24 hours — and nothing about how many marketing messages one customer receives, which is the per-user marketing limit. A WABA holding 6,000 templates can still send freely; a WABA with ten templates can still hit its messaging limit.
Key takeaways
- The template limit is the most templates one WABA can hold: 250 on an unverified portfolio, up to 6,000 once verified.
- The 6,000 cap needs a verified portfolio plus an approved display name on a phone number in one of its WABAs.
- Every language version counts as one template, so one message in four languages uses four slots.
- A full WABA refuses new templates with error 2388019, and creation is separately capped at 100 templates per WABA per hour.
- The template limit caps storage, not sending: messaging limits and the per-user marketing limit govern delivery.
Figure 1
Climb from 250 to 6,000 templates
- Tier 1Tier 1: Unverified portfolio (below the current tier)250 per WABA250 per WABA
- Tier 2Tier 2: Verified, no approved display name (below the current tier)250 per WABA250 per WABA
- Tier 3Tier 3: Verified + approved display name (current)Up to 6,000 per WABAUp to 6,000 per WABA
Tier 3 · Verified + approved display name
Up to 6,000 per WABA
Why: Display name approved on the main number: the ceiling rises to 6,000 per WABA.
Every WABA in the portfolio can now hold up to 6,000 templates, each language version counting as one.
Move 4 of 4: climbs to tier 3, Verified + approved display name (Up to 6,000 per WABA). Display name approved on the main number: the ceiling rises to 6,000 per WABA.
Why it matters
Why does the template limit matter?
The limit bites two kinds of business. Young ones that have not verified yet burn through 250 slots on drafts, one-off campaigns and translations; large ones run many brands, languages and seasonal campaigns. Either way it tends to surface at the worst moment — the morning a festive campaign template needs creating — so knowing where you stand, and keeping housekeeping routine, saves a scramble and a rushed bulk delete of the wrong templates.
How does the template limit work?
Know which cap applies
Unverified portfolio: 250 templates per WABA. Verified portfolio with an approved display name on at least one of its WABAs' numbers: up to 6,000 per WABA.
Count templates, not names
List the WABA's templates with
GET /{WABA_ID}/message_templates?fields=name,language,status, follow the pages to the end, and count every row; each language version is one template.Raise the cap if you can
Complete business verification and get a display name approved. The higher limit depends on the portfolio meeting both conditions, not verification alone.
Clean up on a schedule
Delete rejected drafts you will not fix and one-off campaign templates. Meta also archives templates unused for 12 months and deletes them 28 days later unless they are unarchived.
Split across WABAs only for real reasons
Each WABA has its own limit, so separate brands or regions on separate WABAs each get their own allowance — but templates, quality and billing then live apart too.
Example: A Jaipur travel agency out of room before the season
A Jaipur travel agency on an unverified portfolio holds 238 templates: every tour package got its own marketing template in English and Hindi, and two years of rejected drafts were never removed. Before the winter season it needs 30 new ones. The team deletes 85 rejected and expired templates in bulk, merges the per-package templates into a handful that use a destination variable and an image header, and starts business verification in parallel. Once the portfolio is verified and its display name approved, the ceiling rises to 6,000 per WABA — but the merged templates stay, because fewer, better templates are easier to keep at high quality.
Common mistakes with the template limit
Forgetting that translations count
A template in five languages takes five slots. A multilingual programme on a 250 cap fills up much faster than the number of template names suggests.
One template per campaign
A fresh template for every offer burns slots and starts its quality rating from scratch each time. Reuse a well-performing template with variables and a changing media header.
Confusing it with sending limits
The template limit caps storage. Delivery volume is governed by messaging limits and the per-user marketing limit, and deleting templates changes neither.
Deleting live templates to make room
Check that no campaign, bot or code path still sends a template before deleting it, and remember that a deleted approved template's name is blocked for 30 days.
Assuming verification alone lifts the cap
Meta's condition is a verified portfolio and an approved display name on a phone number in one of its WABAs. Verification without an approved display name leaves the limit at 250.
The template limit in code
import collectionsimport requestsGRAPH = "https://graph.facebook.com/v26.0"HEADERS = {"Authorization": "Bearer {ACCESS_TOKEN}"}def all_templates(waba_id):url = f"{GRAPH}/{waba_id}/message_templates"params = {"fields": "name,language,status", "limit": 100}while url:page = requests.get(url, headers=HEADERS, params=params, timeout=30).json()yield from page.get("data", [])url, params = page.get("paging", {}).get("next"), Nonetemplates = list(all_templates("{WABA_ID}"))limit = 250 # 6,000 once the portfolio is verified and a display name is approvedprint(f"{len(templates)}/{limit} templates ({len(templates) / limit:.0%} used)")print("by status:", dict(collections.Counter(t["status"] for t in templates)))print("rejected (delete or fix):",[f'{t["name"]} ({t["language"]})' for t in templates if t["status"] == "REJECTED"])
Run it on a schedule and alert well before the cap, not when a create call fails with 2388019.
Best practices for the template limit
- Alert at 80% of your limit so clean-up happens before a launch, not during one.
- Name templates by purpose, not by date —
order_shipped, notoct_campaign_v3— so they get reused. - Review rejected templates monthly: fix and resubmit them, or delete them.
- Let variables and media headers turn one approved template into many campaigns.
- Ask the list endpoint for its
summary, which can reportmessage_template_countandmessage_template_limitwithout paging through every template.
Template Limit FAQs
- How many templates can a WhatsApp Business Account have?
- 250 if the business portfolio is unverified. Up to 6,000 per WABA once the portfolio is verified and at least one of its WABAs has a phone number with an approved display name.
- Do different languages of the same template count separately?
- Yes. Each language version is its own template and uses one slot.
- What error do I get when I hit the template limit?
- Error 2388019, message template limit exceeded. Delete templates you no longer need to make room.
- Is the template limit the same as the messaging limit?
- No. The template limit caps how many templates a WABA stores; the messaging limit caps how many unique users you can message outside a service window in a rolling 24 hours.