The WhatsApp 24-Hour Rule for Gyms: What You Can Send

The window opens the moment a member or lead sends your gym a message on the WhatsApp Business Platform. From then on you have 24 hours.

Three things to know about the timer:

• Their messages reset it. Each new message from Lisa starts a fresh 24 hours.
• Your messages do not. Replying, even five times, does not add a minute.
• When it runs out, free text stops. From that point only an approved template can go out.

So a live conversation never hits the rule. As long as Lisa keeps writing, the window keeps renewing. The rule bites in the gaps: the weekend, a busy evening, a question nobody picked up.

Inside the window your gym can reply with anything: text, a photo of the timetable, a link to the booking page, a price list. No template, no approval.

The reply does not have to come from a person. Meta's policy allows automation inside the window, as long as there is a prompt, clear way to reach a person. An AI agent can answer Lisa at 21:41 on Friday, while the window is wide open, and hand her over to your team on Monday if she needs one.

That is the simplest way to live with the rule: answer while the window is open. At night or at the weekend that means an AI agent answering, or someone checking the chats before closing. If you go the AI route, test it on the questions people really ask before it goes live.

Meta's policy is plain about this: "Outside the 24-hour customer service window, you may only send messages via approved Message Templates". The same goes for starting a conversation: your gym can only send the first message as an approved template.

A template is a message you write once, submit to Meta, and reuse. It can carry blanks for a name, a class or a time.

Utility or marketing

Meta sorts templates into three categories: marketing, utility and authentication. Authentication is for login codes, so for a gym the choice is between the other two:

• Utility follows up on something the person did or asked for, such as a booking or a question, and must not promote anything.
• Marketing is everything that promotes: offers, renewals, inviting someone back.

Meta decides the category, not you. If it judges a utility template promotional, it moves it to marketing.

Approval takes up to a day

Meta reviews each new template automatically, and a decision can take up to 24 hours. A rejected template can be edited and resubmitted, or appealed.

Only to people who opted in

Templates go only to people who gave your gym their number and agreed to WhatsApp messages from you. The opt-in has to say that they agree to messages, and it has to name your gym. The natural places to collect it are the sign-up form and the trial booking. When someone asks you to stop, you stop.

Most gyms meet the rule in the same four places. The question each time is the same: is this a reply, a follow-up to something they did, or an invitation?

Meta decides the category in every case; the right-hand column is what fits its definitions, not a promise.

The weekend lead. Lisa Jansen wrote on Friday at 21:40. By Monday morning the window has closed. Send an approved template that refers to her question about a trial. When she answers it, a new window opens and you can talk freely again.

The trial no-show. Lisa Jansen booked a trial for Wednesday and did not come. The booking was her action, so a follow-up that offers a new slot, without an offer attached, fits utility.

The class reminder. A reminder for a class someone booked fits utility, as long as they opted in. It can go out by itself before the class, triggered by the booking.

The quiet regular. Someone who has not visited for two months did not ask you anything. A message inviting them back is marketing. Send it only to people who agreed to promotional messages, sparingly, with an easy way to say no.

Every message your gym sends on the Platform now costs money, replies included.

Meta has charged per delivered message since 1 July 2025, with the rate set by the template category and the country of the person receiving it. Replies inside the window were the exception: free since November 2024.

That changed on 1 October 2026. Replies inside the window are now charged per message, at the same rate as utility messages in that country, and utility templates sent inside the window stopped being free on the same date. Marketing templates always cost money.

Some pages still say these replies are free, Meta's main pricing page among them. Check your invoice for October, and check Meta's rate card for the country of the people you message rather than any number on a blog.

No, the window is a rule of the WhatsApp Business Platform, the version that connects your gym's number to software, so an inbox, an AI agent and automatic reminders can run on it. The free app is used on a phone and its linked devices.

Which of the two your gym needs is a different question. The guide on WhatsApp Business app or API walks through the signs and the costs.

Meta restricts numbers in steps. It starts with a warning, then blocks templates for 1 or 3 days, then blocks all messages for 5, 7 or 30 days, and after that it can lock or disable the number. What triggers it is spam, templates in the wrong category, and too many people blocking or reporting you.

The safest messages are the ones people asked for, such as a reminder for a class they booked. A short checklist:

1. Collect opt-in at sign-up and trial booking, naming your gym.
2. Get two or three utility templates approved before you need them: a weekend follow-up, a trial follow-up, a class reminder.
3. Keep anything promotional in marketing templates, for people who agreed to promotions.
4. Never send a template only to keep a window open. Each one costs a message, and people who feel pestered block.
5. Stop the moment someone asks you to.
6. Answer inside the window whenever you can.

On a busy Monday, the hard part is knowing which chats are about to close and which already have.

In our inbox, every chat shows how long the window has left, in a green bar such as "Chat window: 23h 18m remaining". In the last hour the bar turns orange, so the team can see which conversations to answer first. On Monday at 09:15 Lisa Jansen's chat says "24-hour window closed. Use a template or send for Meta approval." before anyone types, and the composer switches from Message to Template.

Connected to your booking system, Regymo can send a class reminder by itself when something happens there, as an approved template. WhatsApp and email land in one inbox, and the AI agent for gyms is optional: it can answer at night and hand over to your team. If you are working out who on your team answers which chat, the guide on WhatsApp Business with multiple users covers that.