Glossary
The 24-hour period after a customer's last message during which businesses can reply freely without templates.
The 24-hour customer service window, sometimes called the customer care window, is the period that opens each time a customer sends a message to a business on WhatsApp. For 24 hours from that last inbound message, the business can respond with free-form session messages — text, media, and interactive content — without using an approved template.
Once 24 hours pass with no new customer message, the window closes. After that, the business must use a pre-approved template to re-establish contact, which restarts the cycle when the customer replies.
This rule exists to keep WhatsApp conversational and customer-driven, preventing businesses from messaging freely without recent customer engagement.
The window decides when you can chat freely versus when you must pay for a template, so tracking it controls both experience and cost.
Defuser AI tracks every window automatically and switches between session messages and templates so no conversation stalls on your WhatsApp Business API.
The 24-hour period after a customer's last message during which businesses can reply freely without templates.
The window decides when you can chat freely versus when you must pay for a template, so tracking it controls both experience and cost.
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