specification: API Commons Rate Limits
specificationVersion: '0.1'
schema: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/interface-research/main/schema/api-commons.yml#/$defs/RateLimits
provider: Gupshup
providerId: gupshup
created: '2026-07-12'
modified: '2026-07-12'
reconciled: false
tags:
- Messaging
- WhatsApp
- CPaaS
- Rate Limiting
- Quotas
description: >-
  Gupshup does not publish a single fixed numeric request-rate limit for the
  messaging API. Throughput on WhatsApp is governed primarily by the underlying
  WhatsApp Business Platform: each business phone number has a Meta messaging tier
  (1K, 10K, 100K, or unlimited unique customers per rolling 24 hours) that
  increases automatically with quality and volume, and Meta enforces its own
  per-second throughput ceilings on template sends. Gupshup applies platform-level
  API throttling on top of that. Because messages are accepted asynchronously and
  correlated later via webhook events, senders should batch, respect HTTP 429
  responses, and back off. Numeric per-account API limits are not documented as of
  the review date.
notes: >-
  Confirm your number's current messaging tier and Meta's per-second send limits
  in the Gupshup dashboard / Meta Business Manager. Values here are qualitative
  because Gupshup does not publish exact per-endpoint request caps.
sources:
- https://docs.gupshup.io/reference/msg
- https://docs.gupshup.io/docs/whatsapp-api-introduction
- https://support.gupshup.io/hc/en-us/articles/38821010267673-WhatsApp-Pricing-Updates-2024-2025
responseCodes:
  throttled: 429
limits:
- name: Messaging API Requests
  scope: account
  metric: requests
  limit: not published
  notes: No fixed numeric request-rate limit is documented for the messaging API; platform throttling applies.
- name: WhatsApp Messaging Tier
  scope: phone_number
  metric: unique_recipients
  limit: 1K / 10K / 100K / unlimited per 24h (Meta tier)
  notes: Business-initiated conversations are capped by the number's Meta messaging tier, which scales with quality and volume.
- name: Template Send Throughput
  scope: phone_number
  metric: messages_per_second
  limit: Meta-enforced (varies by tier)
  notes: Meta enforces per-second throughput ceilings on template message sends.
- name: Inbound / Session Messages
  scope: phone_number
  metric: messages
  limit: no fixed cap within the 24h service window
  notes: User-initiated session replies are not subject to the business-initiated tier cap.
policies:
- name: Asynchronous Acceptance
  description: Messages are accepted asynchronously (HTTP 2xx with a messageId); final delivery status arrives via webhook events (enqueued, sent, delivered, read, failed).
- name: Backoff Strategy
  description: Clients should implement exponential backoff with jitter and honor Retry-After on 429 responses.
- name: Quality-Based Tiering
  description: Meta raises or lowers a number's messaging tier based on message quality rating and volume; low quality can throttle or restrict sending.
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com