> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://onextel-09023014.mintlify.site/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Template Categories Overview

> How Meta categorizes WhatsApp message templates into marketing, utility, and authentication, effective July 1, 2025.

Meta's template category guidelines define how every WhatsApp message template is
categorized. The category you choose is validated against these guidelines when you
submit a template for approval, and it determines how the template is priced and
what content is allowed in it.

<Info>
  These guidelines are effective **July 1, 2025**.
</Info>

## The three categories

Message templates can be categorized as:

* **Marketing** — Enable businesses to achieve a wide range of goals, from
  generating awareness to driving sales and retargeting customers. Examples can
  include new product/service/feature announcements; targeted promotions/offers;
  or cart abandonment reminders.
* **Utility** — Enable businesses to send non-promotional messages that are either
  specific to and requested by the user or essential or critical to the user.
  Examples can include order-related updates, payment reminders, or fraud
  awareness messages.
* **Authentication** — Enable businesses to verify a user's identity, potentially
  at various steps of the customer journey.

<Warning>
  Businesses can only send template messages to users who have subscribed to
  receive messages from them on WhatsApp.
</Warning>

## Category deep dives

* [Marketing templates](/guides/whatsapp/template-categories-marketing) — message
  objectives, example templates, and the mixed-content and unclear-content rules
  that pull templates into the marketing category.
* [Utility templates](/guides/whatsapp/template-categories-utility) — the
  non-promotional requirement, allowed message objectives, and the
  "essential or critical to the user" use cases.
* [Authentication templates](/guides/whatsapp/template-categories-authentication) —
  the most restricted category: preset templates, one-time password buttons, and
  content restrictions.

## Common categorization pitfalls

Meta applies two default rules that frequently surprise template authors. Both
result in a template being categorized as **marketing** even when you submitted
it as utility:

| Situation | Resulting category |
| - | - |
| **Mixed content** — the template contains both utility and marketing content (e.g. an order update with a promo/offer) | Marketing |
| **Unclear content** — the template contents give no context (e.g. contents are only `{{1}}` or "Congratulations!") | Marketing |

<Note>
  The example templates in these guides are illustrative only. Templates
  containing similar content, or content including the example text, may be
  categorized differently based on their exact content.
</Note>

## Reference

Meta's own guidelines on the WhatsApp Business Platform:

* [Pricing](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/whatsapp/pricing) on the WhatsApp Business Platform
* [Rates and volume tiers](https://business.whatsapp.com/products/platform-pricing#rates) on the WhatsApp Business Platform
* [Template category guidelines](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/whatsapp/updates-to-pricing/new-template-guidelines#template-category-guidelines) on the WhatsApp Business Platform
* [Message templates](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/whatsapp/cloud-api/guides/send-message-templates/) developer documentation


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