# What is the "quality rating" of a WhatsApp channel?
The quality rating of your phone number, and hence your ability to transmit templates on WhatsApp, is determined by the sentiment of your users. You can find these quality insights in the [Facebook Business Manager](https://business.facebook.com/).\
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WhatsApp relies on user input to gauge the quality of a service because communications are encrypted (WhatsApp cannot read them). WhatsApp allows users to "report spam" and "block" a phone number. They keep track of this information in order to assign an internal quality rating to your phone number.
Your overall phone number status and messaging limit are affected by your quality rating.\
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ℹ️ *If your quality rating is low, WhatsApp will impose daily limits on the amount of users you can initiate conversation with using templates, unfortunately we won't be able to help in this case, but you will need to wait at least 24 hours and decrease the frequency of the messages.*
Let's take a closer look :\
**Quality Rating:**\
Your quality rating reveals how well your users have responded to your messages in the last 24 hours. Quality of communications can be divided into three categories:
**Green: Denotes high quality.**\
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This means that you have been sending messages that are interesting to the customers in an adequate frame of time:\
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**Yellow: Indicates a medium level of quality** \
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This means you can be at risk of being flagged and should slow down the frequency or evaluate the content you are sending to your customer:\
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**Red: Denotes poor quality**\
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This means your channel will likely be banned, and you won't be able to send messages for some time to your customers. We recommend if possible stop the traffic and re-evaluate the content, opt-in and pertinency of the messages you are sending your customers:\
If your quality rating reaches a low (red) state, you may receive an email from Meta informing you that your number status will change to **Flagged** or **Restricted.** It is your responsibility to proactively manage these warnings.
* **⚠️ Flagged** status occurs when the quality rating reaches a low state. If the message quality improves to a **high or medium state and maintains this for 7 days**, your status will return to Connected. If the quality rating doesn't improve, your status will still return to connected, but you'll be placed in a lower messaging limit tier.\
**🚫 Restricted** status occurs when you reach your messaging limit. During a Restricted phase, you can’t send any template messages until the 24-hour window is reset. You can still respond to any messages users initiate.\
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**ℹ️ Note: We cannot change or request a change to your quality rating.**\
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Here are some guidelines to help your messages comply with the [WhatsApp Business Policy:](https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/business-policy/?fbclid=IwAR1ec4FMqKNTvk3K6ZQ7jzrKhrZjqVl9JF8nheX_gnjSt5io8Jrj2hbBJXE)
* Make sure that your messages are clear, personalized, and useful to users. Avoid sending open-ended welcome, introductory or "hook" messages.
* Only send template messages to users that have opted in to receive messages on that specific topic. For example, if a user opted-in for Covid updates, but you start sending other health or promotion updates, the user may respond negatively because they didn’t opt in to that specific communication.
* Be mindful of your messaging frequency and schedule. Avoid sending users too many templates a day.
* Be thoughtful of informational messages, optimizing for content and length.
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