WhatsApp error 131049: why Meta held back your marketing message, and what to do

What the error means

Since February 2024 Meta has limited how many marketing template messages one WhatsApp user receives from businesses. When someone is at the limit, a marketing message to them fails with 131049 and the words "This message was not delivered to maintain healthy ecosystem engagement." Meta sets the limit per person and does not publish it. It applies in India: Meta's page excludes only the EEA, the UK, Japan and South Korea.

What it does not mean

• It is not a block or a spam report against your number, and the person did not opt out — that is a different code, 131050.
• It does not touch utility or authentication templates — order updates, reminders and OTPs still go through.
• It does not apply to a marketing message sent inside a 24-hour window the customer opened by writing to you.

What to do

1. Don't retry within 24 hours. Meta says retrying sooner "will likely result in additional error responses".
2. Check the category. A message about an order, payment or booking the customer started is utility, not marketing — see why templates get rejected. Don't relabel promotion as utility, though: misclassified templates are one of the common reasons Meta restricts accounts.
3. Send fewer, better marketing messages. People who get one relevant offer a fortnight hit the cap less than people who get a daily blast — and block you less.
4. Sell inside the window when you can. A customer who just wrote to you can be offered something in the conversation, which does not count against the cap.
5. Never retry 131050. That code means the person turned off your marketing messages.

How Linkubit handles it

Meta accepts a marketing send and reports 131049 seconds later. Linkubit records the failure with its reason, shows failures grouped by reason on the campaign's page, and does not suppress the contact — it is a fact about the moment, not something the customer asked for. Service messages to the same person are unaffected. Every code is in WhatsApp API error codes explained.

Source: Meta — per-user marketing template limits.