WhatsApp data, access and sending limits: Who sees what, what is kept, how sending is limited.
For whoever signs off on a rollout, with every default as it ships.
Review
What a security review checks first.
- access
- Five roles enforced on the server, and access set number by number.
- audit trail
- Who changed roles, members, teams, number access, campaigns, settings, API keys and CRM connections, and when.
- sign-in
- Personal logins, passwords of at least 12 characters, a lock after 5 failed attempts, and sessions that end after 24 hours.
- retention
- Message content kept 30, 90, 180 or 365 days, forever, or not at all; a year unless you change it.
- data
- Processed in India, unless your agreement says otherwise.
- separation
- Each workspace’s data kept apart, and covered by automated tests.
- dpa
- A data processing addendum, with notice before a new sub-processor and the current list on request.
- questionnaire
- Your security questionnaire, answered in writing.
- nda
- An NDA on request.
Access
A role for every person. A reach for every number.
Both are checked on WavesFlo’s servers, so a chat outside someone’s reach is not there for them.
- Five roles: Admin, Manager, Team leader, Agent and Viewer.
- Open or restricted: each number open to all, or to the teams and people you name.
- See or operate: read a number’s chats, or reply, send and assign as it.
What each role sees and can do
- admin
- Every conversation and every action. Only Admins link numbers, connect a CRM, change workspace settings or change roles.
- manager
- Every conversation: reply, assign and hand chats on, and manage the inbox’s own settings.
- team leader
- Their own and their teams’ chats: reply, and hand chats on within their teams.
- agent
- Only the chats assigned to them: reply and add notes.
- viewer
- Every conversation, read only: no reply, assignment or change of state.
- invitations
- A link you share yourself, in the role you choose. It works once and expires in seven days.
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| Sara Khan | Admin |
| Rahul Sharma | Manager |
| Meera Pillai | Team leader |
| Joseph Mathew | Agent |
| Tara Menon | Viewer |
Data
What is kept, and for how long.
- Conversations. Kept as long as you choose; then the text and attachments are cleared, and the record stays.
- Scoping. Every query is scoped to one workspace; no workspace’s data informs another’s.
- Logs. Error reports are scrubbed of phone numbers, tokens and keys before they are stored.
- What is stored. Contacts, lists, campaigns, messages, and the delivery and read receipts reports come from.
What else is held
Groups. The groups your numbers belong to, their member counts, and the join and leave events behind the membership timeline.
Connection state. What keeps a linked number linked, with its health and connection history.
Keys. API keys are issued per workspace and revoked one at a time, interrupting nobody else.
Sending limits
Limits on every number, from the day it is linked.
They are checked as each message goes out, whether a campaign, a schedule or an integration sent it.
- Approval first: a campaign can wait for a person’s sign-off.
- A pre-send check: problems are reported before anything is queued.
- Every hold counted: each delayed or refused send is logged with its reason.
- Yours to change: each default, within floors no setting removes.
The defaults, limit by limit
| Limit | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Delay between messages | 30–300 s | Varies within the range, so a list never goes out as one burst. |
| Daily ceiling per number | 500 | Once it is reached, the number waits for its day to reset while your other numbers keep sending. |
| Hourly ceiling per number | 60 | Spreads a number’s daily allowance over hours, not minutes. |
| Per-recipient cooldown | 24 h | Nothing else reaches a person until it ends, across campaigns, not just within one. |
| Quiet hours | 22:00–08:00 | Campaigns send only in the hours and weekdays you allow, in your timezone. |
| Posting window | 09:00–18:00 | A narrower window inside the allowed hours, for recurring campaigns meant for the working day. |
| Collision protection | Weekly | A number avoids the same minute slot twice in a week, and takes the next free one. |
| Typing indicator | On | The recipient sees the number typing, briefly, before each campaign message. |
Replies typed in the inbox
A typed reply still passes four checks: the opt-out list (if it can’t be checked, nothing goes), the emergency pause, the daily allowance of the number it leaves from, and the check that takes a failing number out of service.
It skips the campaign rules: quiet hours and sending days, the per-person cooldown and the gap between sends, so it goes out at once, at any hour.
Large sends
A large send starts small, and can pause itself.
- About 5% first: on a list campaign to 200 or more people.
- Pauses itself: if more than 20% fail, or if at least two people and more than 2% reply STOP.
- One emergency pause: halts every campaign on every connected number at once.
- Slack or Microsoft Teams: approval requests, campaign results and number alerts, in the channel you choose.
What it cannot do. Said up front.
A linked number can drop
When one does, you are told, it stops sending, and campaigns carry on from your other numbers. Reconnecting fixes it, from the dashboard.
Read data depends on the recipient
Anyone can switch read receipts off, so read rates are a floor, and the reports label them that way.
A group message reaches the whole group
No member can be left out of a message sent into a group. Where that matters, send to a list instead.
What teams ask about sending limits.
All questionsWhat are WavesFlo's default sending limits?
WavesFlo ships with a randomised delay of 30 to 300 seconds between a campaign's messages, a ceiling of 500 sends a day and 60 an hour per number, a 24-hour cooldown per recipient across campaigns and quiet hours from 22:00 to 08:00, plus a 09:00 to 18:00 posting window for recurring campaigns, weekly collision protection, a typing indicator before each campaign message and an emergency pause that halts delivery on every number. Every default can be changed within fixed bounds.
What happens when a number reaches its daily limit in WavesFlo?
When a connected number reaches its daily limit, that number sends nothing more until its daily window resets, and the campaign carries on from your other numbers. The default daily ceiling is 500 sends per number, alongside an hourly ceiling of 60, so a day's allowance cannot be spent in twenty minutes. Both ceilings are set per number.
Why does WavesFlo randomise the delay between messages?
WavesFlo randomises the gap so a list is never messaged in one burst: at the default Normal speed, each gap between a campaign's messages is drawn from a range, 30 to 300 seconds as shipped, and both ends of the range are yours to set, above a fixed minimum. The gap is applied as each campaign sends, not by the screen that started it.
What is the difference between quiet hours and the posting window?
In WavesFlo, quiet hours are when campaigns do not send: 22:00 to 08:00 by default, in your timezone, alongside the weekdays you allow. A campaign due during quiet hours waits until they end. The posting window is narrower: the hours a recurring campaign sends within, 09:00 to 18:00 by default, for campaigns that should only go out in working hours.
How does WavesFlo enforce opt-outs?
WavesFlo enforces opt-outs at send time, across every campaign. A message to someone who has opted out is refused and counted as blocked by an opt-out. A reply typed in the WavesFlo inbox passes the same opt-out register, which fails closed: if it cannot be read, the message does not go.
Does WavesFlo record the sends its limits held back?
Yes. WavesFlo counts every message its sending rules delayed or refused and keeps the reason: delayed by a rule, held for quiet hours, blocked by an opt-out or blocked by a limit. The counts are in the dashboard, and the compliance report exports blocked and delayed sends as CSV or JSON, with the rule that caught each.
See every setting on your own numbers.
A walkthrough on two of your own numbers, with your rollout questions answered.