Don't burn your number

A burned number is not fixed by buying another one: the reputation travels with the business. This is the lesson that protects the investment, and almost all of it happens without you doing anything.

Five gates before a message goes out

Every send passes five checks, in this order: the feature is on your plan, the channel is active, the person has not asked you to stop, it is a decent hour where they are, and you have quota left. If one fails, the message does not go and the screen tells you which.

Whoever says STOP stops receiving

If someone replies STOP — or cancel, unsubscribe, quit and the other usual words — they are marked as opted out immediately, without anyone having to see it or act on it. From then on the platform sends them nothing on that channel.

This is not courtesy: it is the law, and the fine is per message.

Quiet hours

• The federal window allows messaging from 8:00 to 21:00 in the recipient's local time, not yours.
• Florida closes an hour earlier, at 20:00. When the number is a Florida area code, the platform always applies the stricter rule.
• A manual send can deliberately override quiet hours, because sometimes it is needed and you are the one deciding. Workflows and campaigns cannot: nobody is watching there.

And two more caps on automated sends: a client gets no more than one workflow message a day — transaction notices are exempt, because reminding you about a signature today cannot wait until tomorrow — and one plan does not touch the same person more than three times in 24 hours.

The WhatsApp 24-hour window

This is the rule that confuses everyone, and it is not ours: Meta sets it. Only the client opens the window. From the moment they write, you have 24 hours to reply with whatever you like, in free text. After 24 hours with no further message from them, the window closes.

With the window closed, all you can send is a pre-approved template. That is why templates exist: they are not a formality of ours, they are the only key to writing first again.

The templates

• When WhatsApp is connected, the agency receives twenty templates already written in Spanish and English, and submitted for approval. You do not start with a blank screen.
• None of them shows as approved unless it is. If it is waiting, it says so, and it says why.
• Each template carries its response rate: of the times it was sent, how many got an answer within 24 hours. That is what tells you which one opens conversations and which one is burning your number.

Quotas

• SMS is counted by segment, not by message: a long text is several. An attachment counts as three.
• WhatsApp is counted by marketing conversation opened, not by individual message.
• Receiving never uses quota and is never blocked. A client can always reach you, even if you have run out for the month.