My number or account is restricted

Meta restricts numbers that upset people. It is not arbitrary and it is not permanent, but it does need you to change something.

Working out what happened

Check Phone numbers for the number's standing, and your email — Meta usually warns before it acts.

Three different things, often confused:

	What it means
Quality rating dropped	A warning. Nothing has been taken away yet.
Messaging limit reduced	You can start fewer conversations per day than before.
Number restricted	Sending is stopped or severely limited.

They usually arrive in that order, which means a quality warning is your chance to fix it cheaply.

What causes it

Nearly always the same thing: messages people did not expect.

Marketing to contacts who never properly opted in
Messaging a list that has gone cold — people who have forgotten you
Too frequent, especially promotions
Content that does not match what people signed up for
Buying or importing a list from elsewhere

What does not cause it: sending a lot, sending long messages, or sending expensive ones. Volume is fine. Unwanted volume is not.

What to do

1. Stop marketing sends. Today.

Do not "try a smaller batch". Stop, until the rating recovers.

Utility messages to people expecting them — order updates, appointment reminders — are generally fine to continue and help demonstrate normal use.

2. Work out who is blocking you

You cannot see blocks directly, but you can infer:

Which broadcasts preceded the drop?
Which audience did they go to?
How long since those people last heard from you, or replied to anything?

The answer is nearly always one campaign to one cold list.

3. Cut the list back hard

Rebuild around people who have actually interacted — replied, ordered, or opted in recently and deliberately. Everyone else comes back later, or not at all.

4. Fix how you collect permission

If opt-in was vague, this recurs. Set up an opt-in page and put links and QR codes where customers find them, so people arrive having asked.

5. Restart slowly

Wait for the rating to recover — usually a week or two of good behaviour. Then resume at a fraction of the old volume, to your best contacts only, and watch for another week before scaling.

Do not just switch to a new number

The new number starts at the lowest tier, unproven, and the same list will do the same thing to it. Fix the audience, not the sender.

What we can and cannot do

We cannot reverse a Meta restriction, raise your limit, or restore a quality rating. Those are Meta's, driven by your sending.

We can help you read what happened, look at which broadcast triggered it, and work out what to change. Open a ticket with the number and roughly when it started.

Preventing it

Only message people who asked. See Who you're allowed to message.
Keep marketing infrequent and relevant.
Make leaving easy — "Reply STOP to unsubscribe" costs you a contact instead of a block.
Prefer smaller, targeted groups to one big list.
Watch delivery rate in Analytics. It slides before anything formal happens.