WhatsApp Cloud API marketing will end in 2027: what should you do?

Meta has started emailing developers and WhatsApp partners an "early notice": marketing messages on the Cloud API will sunset on 13 October 2027. From that date, every marketing template sent through the WhatsApp Business Platform has to go through the Marketing Messages API for WhatsApp (Meta shortens it to MM API). Service, authentication and utility messages keep working on the Cloud API as they do today.

So the official API is splitting in two. Marketing templates move to their own endpoint, and everything else stays put. Meta gives businesses up to twelve months to make the switch, and estimates that most integrations take about two weeks.

This post is based on the email and on Meta's developer documentation for the MM API, which we read on 14 October 2026.

What changes and what doesn't

Both APIs live on the same Graph API host and use the same phone number. What differs is the endpoint you call.

The /marketing_messages endpoint only accepts marketing templates. Free-form text and utility, authentication or service messages sent to it come back with an error, so the move only touches your promotional sends.

Nothing changes for the free WhatsApp Business app, for a personal account, or for click-to-chat links. If you aren't sure which of these you use, our comparison of the API, the Business app and a personal account sorts that out. Sending personalized wa.me links from your own phone with the bulk WhatsApp link generator doesn't touch the API at all.

What the Marketing Messages API is

It isn't new. Meta launched it in 2024 as "MM Lite", renamed it and made it generally available on 19 November 2025. According to Meta's documentation, it uses "a similar technical schema and same billing model as Cloud API", works with your existing phone numbers and templates, and sends to https://graph.facebook.com/<version>/<phone-number-id>/marketing_messages. In webhooks, messages sent this way are labelled with the category marketing_lite.

Meta's own feature comparison lists what the MM API has and the Cloud API lacks:

• Quality-based delivery: Meta weighs how engaging a message is when deciding whether to deliver it. Its A/B test reports up to 9% more marketing messages delivered than through the Cloud API.
• Automated creative optimizations, still a pilot and off by default since April 2026: Meta may animate an image, add a text overlay or change the background to improve clicks.
• GIF headers and Android app deep links in marketing templates.
• A time-to-live of 12 hours to 30 days, so a flash-sale message isn't delivered after the sale ends. The Cloud API only allows this for utility and authentication templates.
• Benchmarks, recommendations and conversion metrics: read and click rates compared with similar businesses in your region, and events such as Add to Cart or Purchase tracked after a message.

In Europe, most of the extras switch off

Before you count on those improvements, check where your customers are. Meta's geographic availability table says that for messages to or from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, Nigeria and South Africa, there are no delivery optimizations and no click or conversion metrics in Ads Manager or the Insights API. Basic metrics stay in WhatsApp Manager.

For a business messaging customers in Spain, Germany or Italy, then, the upgrade is mostly a change of endpoint. Meta's email marks the optimization features with an asterisk for this reason.

Two other restrictions apply to every WhatsApp business API, not only this one. Marketing templates to US phone numbers have not been delivered since 1 April 2025 (error 131049), although a US business can still message users elsewhere. And businesses in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela and the Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine can't onboard at all.

The safety net that ends in 2027

Some businesses have already switched without noticing. Since September 2025 the /marketing_messages endpoint accepts messages from businesses that haven't accepted the MM API terms and quietly sends them through the Cloud API instead. Meta's email calls this auto-routing, and it is why nothing looks broken for a business that never signed up.

That fallback ends on 13 October 2027. After that date, a marketing template from a business that hasn't accepted the terms has no route left. So the work splits in two:

1. The business accepts the MM API terms. The simplest way is in WhatsApp Manager, which Meta recommends. Partners can also do it through Embedded Signup, or through the Intent API, which emails every admin of the business portfolio and keeps reminding them until they accept or decline.
2. The integration sends marketing templates to `/marketing_messages`. Everything else keeps going to /messages.

You can rehearse the cutoff now. Since April 2026, a business can set disable_marketing_messages_on_cloud_api to true, after which the Cloud API rejects marketing templates with error 131063. On a single message, "product_policy": "STRICT" blocks the fallback to the Cloud API. Either one shows you, today, which sends would fail in October 2027.

Templates that change category

A template doesn't keep its category forever. If WhatsApp decides that an approved utility template is really promotional, it reclassifies it as marketing, and from then on it has to go to /marketing_messages. Meta's routing guide asks integrations to keep an up-to-date map of each template name to its latest category and route by that map, not by the category you picked when you created it.

This catches out the messages people think of as transactional: an order confirmation with a discount code at the bottom, or an appointment reminder that suggests booking the next one. A reclassified template is also billed at the marketing rate, which is higher than the utility rate in every market on the current card. Our post on the October 2026 pricing changes has the current utility rates.

What it will cost

For now, the same. Marketing messages through the MM API have been billed per delivered message since 1 July 2025, like the Cloud API, at the marketing rate for the recipient's country. The WhatsApp API pricing calculator uses those published rates.

There is a pricing change in the pipeline, though, and it sits close to the sunset. Meta is rolling out a max price on the MM API: you set a ceiling per delivery and Meta charges "that max price or lower". It entered open beta in October 2026. Meta's pricing documentation says that at general availability, planned for the second quarter of 2027, "the max price feature will become required in eligible geographies and fixed, published rates for marketing messages will only apply on the Cloud API". Meta doesn't say which geographies are eligible, or what replaces fixed marketing rates there once the Cloud API stops carrying marketing in October 2027. We'll add it to the pricing change history when Meta publishes it.

What to do in the next twelve months

If you send through a provider such as Twilio, 360dialog or Wati, most of the endpoint work is theirs. Ask them when their integration moves marketing sends to /marketing_messages, and accept the MM API terms when they ask you to. Accepting the terms is the one step a provider can't do for you.

If you call the API yourself:

1. Accept the MM API terms in WhatsApp Manager for every business that sends marketing templates.
2. Send templates whose latest category is MARKETING to /marketing_messages, and keep everything else on /messages.
3. Watch for template reclassifications and update your category map when one arrives.
4. Turn on disable_marketing_messages_on_cloud_api in a test account (or send with product_policy: STRICT) and look for errors.
5. Make sure your webhook handling accepts the marketing_lite category, so delivery and read statuses still reach your reports.

If you use a no-code tool, the built-in WhatsApp Business Cloud modules in Make, Zapier and n8n are built on the Cloud API. Check whether your tool adds MM API support before the deadline. If it doesn't, a generic HTTP request step can call /marketing_messages with the same template payload. Our n8n and Cloud API guide shows how that setup fits together.