WhatsApp will curb the number of messages people and businesses can send without a response

WhatsApp is attempting to solve its spam problem by putting a curb on how many messages individual users and businesses can send to unknown people without getting a response.

While the app started as an easy way to send messages to personal contacts, over time, it has become more complex with groups, communities, and business messaging. With those changes, people are getting more messages than ever, and it is hard to catch up with all of them.

All messages users and businesses send to others will count against this new per-month limit, unless they get a response. For instance, if you meet someone at a conference and send three messages, that counts against the limit.

WhatsApp hasn’t said what the limit will be, as it’s testing different limits during this time.

However, when a business or an individual is about to hit the limit, the app will display a warning to those users with a pop-up showing the count, so they can avoid getting blocked from sending messages.

The company told TechCrunch that this test will be live in multiple countries in the coming weeks. It also said that average users won’t usually hit the limit, and their messaging experience won’t be affected. Instead, the controls are designed to be effective against people and businesses that blast messages and spam people.

Personally, when I look at my WhatsApp inbox, I often find over 50 unread messages. When I try to see who sent them, a number of them are from businesses and unknown people. People around me have had similar experiences as WhatsApp acts as a multi-use communication tool for a market like India, where I’m based.

Over the last year, WhatsApp has tried to curb some of this spammy behaviour through tools and guardrails. In July 2024, the company started testing limits on how many marketing messages a business can send to people in a month. In 2024, it started floating an option for users to unsubscribe from marketing messages from businesses. This way, they can receive updates or get support from a business without getting spammed.

Earlier this year, WhatsApp started experimenting by putting a limit on the number of broadcast messages users and businesses can send to others. The company said that it has started expanding this experiment in more than a dozen countries, including India, one of the company’s biggest markets with over 500 million users.