Quiet hours
Avoid reaching out during inconvenient or inappropriate hours.
Quiet hours are periods of the day when you should not send marketing messages. There are two good reasons for this:
Country-specific regulations: Many countries have specific laws regarding when you can send marketing messages via SMS. WhatsApp is unregulated, but we recommend that you set up your own custom WhatsApp quiet hours, and follow the SMS guidelines.
Marketing effectiveness: Marketing is much less effective during quiet hours. Since customers have a higher engagement rate during non-quiet hours, focus on sending messages during that period.
How quiet hours work
If a marketing message is sent, or scheduled to be sent, to a recipient with a phone number, we automatically check the quiet hours in the recipient's country.
If the message is scheduled to be sent during their quiet hours, the message will be queued.
The queued message will be sent immediately after the quiet hours end.
Example: Sending an SMS marketing campaign message to France
You schedule an SMS marketing campaign message to be sent to recipients in France. You schedule it to be sent on Thursday at 5:30 AM CET.
Since this is during France's quiet hours, the message will be queued. Quiet hours in France end at 8:00 AM CET. Your SMS marketing campaign message will be sent on Thursday at 8:00 AM CET.
Example: Sending a WhatsApp marketing campaign message to Brazil
You set up custom quiet hours for WhatsApp from 5:00 PM to 10:00 AM, in line with Brazil's SMS regulations. You schedule a WhatsApp marketing campaign message to be sent to recipients in Brazil. You schedule it to be sent on Thursday at 7:30 PM BRT.
Since this is during the quiet hours you configured for WhatsApp, the message will be queued. Your WhatsApp campaign message will be sent on Friday at 10:00 AM CET.
Supported platforms and activation
WhatsApp
To activate quiet hours for WhatsApp, go to Preferences > WhatsApp > Activate custom quiet hours.
SMS
Quiet hours will be automatically applied to every SMS number where the message type has been set to promotional. Promotional messages will not be sent immediately if scheduled during quiet hours. Instead, they will remain in a scheduled state until the next permitted sending window (typically the next business hour). During this waiting period, messages may expire.
If a country has no quiet hour restrictions in place, your message will not be affected by any quiet hour restrictions.
You may choose to disable quiet hours enforcement for promotional messages using the Journey Send Message step or the Channel API by setting the ignoreQuietHours parameter to true.
However, please ensure you fully understand the regulatory implications and potential risks. Disabling quiet hours may lead to non-compliance with local laws in certain countries
Regardless of your configuration, quiet hours are strictly enforced by local telecom networks in countries such as France and Uzbekistan.
This means that messages sent during restricted hours will always be queued and delayed until the quiet period ends — even if ignoreQuietHours is set to true.
Quiet hours and Bird products
To determine if a message should be subject to quiet hours, we examine ongoing interactions and assess if the content is marketing-related. The following sections describe what we check for each Bird product.
Journeys and Campaigns
SMS: If a number's message type is set as promotional, all messages sent via that number will be subject to quiet hours.
WhatsApp: When you customer manually activate quiet hours, all messages using pre-approved WhatsApp marketing templates will adhere to these quiet hours.
Flows, API messages and Inbox
SMS: If a number's message type is set as promotional, all messages sent via that number will be subject to quiet hours.
WhatsApp: When you manually activate quiet hours, and there is no ongoing conversation with the end-user, all messages using pre-approved WhatsApp marketing templates will be subject to quiet hours.
Channels API
SMS: If a number's message type is set as promotional, all messages sent via that number will be subject to quiet hours.
WhatsApp: When you manually activate quiet hours, and there is no ongoing conversation with the end-user, all messages using pre-approved WhatsApp marketing templates will be subject to quiet hours.
Countries with multiple time zones
For countries with multiple time zones, we offer the option to use area codes to send messages to users according to their local time.
To activate the usage of area codes, go to Preferences > WhatsApp (or SMS) > Activate Area Codes.
We provide area codes for the countries listed in the table below, allowing campaigns to be sent at specific local times. Some regions in the US and Canada have multiple time zones within a single area code.
We also indicate the default time zone used when area codes are disabled and the scheduling times for messages sent during quiet hours. When required, we extend the quiet hours over multiple time zone to ensure all receiver, regardless of their location, are covered. These are also marked in the following table.
Australia
Not Avaible
Extended time zone
9:00 PM -> 11:00 AM Australian Eastern Time (GMT+10)
Brazil
End-user's local time quiet hours start at 9:00 PM and end at 8:00 AM.
Extended Time Zones:
9:00 PM -> 11:00 AM Brasilia Time (GMT-3)
Canada
End-user's local time quiet hours start at 8:00 PM and end at 8:00 AM for most of the country.
Because these area codes span one or more counties in two time zones, quiet hours will end at 9 AM instead of the usual 8 AM to ensure consistency across regions
418: [Quebec, Quebec (La Haute-Yamaska), Portneuf, Limoilou (City of Quebec) - Canada]
306: [Alberta, Lloydminster (City), Creighton, Denare Beach - Canada]
Extended Time Zones:
6:30 PM -> 11:00 AM Toronto Time (GMT-5, GMT-4 during Daylight Savings Time)
United States of America
End-user's local time quiet hours start at 8:00 PM and end at 8:00AM for most of the country.
Because these area codes span one or more counties in two time zones, quiet hours will end at 9 AM instead of the usual 8 AM to ensure consistency across regions:
928: [Arizona, Coconino County, Navajo County, Mohave County, Apache County, Yavapai County - USA]
219, 928: [Indiana, Lake County, Porter County, LaPorte County, Newton County, Jasper County - USA]
541: [Oregon, Malheur County - USA]
775: [Nevada, West Wendover, Jackpot, Owyhee, Mountain City, Jarbidge - USA]
785: [Kansas, Sherman County, Wallace County, Greeley County, Hamilton County - USA]
906: [Michigan, Dickinson County, Gogebic County, Iron County, Menominee County - USA]
Extended Time Zones:
8:00 PM -> 02:00 PM New York Time (GMT-4)
Mexico
End-user's local time quiet hours start at 8:00 PM and end at 8:00 AM.
Extended Time Zones:
7:00 PM -> 9:00 AM Mexico City Time (GMT-5)
Spain
No mandatory quiet hours present.
End-user's local time as defined on custom quiet hours.
Madrid Time (GMT+2)
Portugal
No mandatory quiet hours present.
End-user's local time as defined on custom quiet hours.
Lisbon Time (GMT+1)
Indonesia
No mandatory quiet hours presents.
End-user's local time as defined on custom quiet hours.
Jakarta Time (GMT+7)
Russia
No mandatory quiet hours present.
End-user's local time as defined on custom quiet hours.
Moscow Time (GMT+3)
Kazakhstan
10:00 PM to 9:00 AM
Extended Time Zones:
9:00 PM -> 9:00- AM Almaty time (GTM +6)
France
10:00 PM to 08:00 AM
All Sundays & Public holidays
Paris (GMT +2)
Custom quiet hours
You can define custom quiet hours, specifying when marketing messages should not be sent. For example, you can set messages to be held until 9:00 AM local time.
You can set customized quiet hours as part of the sender's preferences in the preference menu.
Example
For the Netherlands, if you set custom quiet hours from 8:00 PM to 8:00 AM, messages will not be sent during that period on any day of the week.
Supported countries 🌎
Currently, we support over 100 countries. This is not a definitive list: if you notice a country that needs support, please inform us.
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