Messenger Platform and IG Messaging API Policy Overview

Our Developer Policies apply to Messenger Platform and Instagram Messaging API and are designed to help people and businesses connect effectively through Messenger and Instagram to achieve meaningful outcomes. At the heart of this is the understanding that people and businesses need a seamless, reliable way to get something done - whether it is getting a question answered, making a purchase, or communicating important and relevant updates. We know people expect businesses to respond quickly, and businesses who respond to users messages faster can see better business outcomes. The policies and requirements are designed to encourage businesses and developers to:

1. Respond to customers in a timely fashion when they reach out
2. Share important updates that are personally relevant to their customers

Overview of Messenger Platform and IG Messaging API Policy

Here is an overview of our standard messaging, message tag, and news messaging policies. For complete details on applicable policies, please see the Platform Terms and Developer Policies.

• Standard Messaging - Businesses will have up to 24 hours to respond to a user. Messages sent within the 24 hour window may contain promotional content. We know people expect businesses to respond quickly, and businesses that respond to users in a timely manner achieve better outcomes. We highly encourage businesses to respond to people’s messages as soon as possible.

• Message Tags - Enable businesses to send important and personally relevant 1:1 updates to users outside the 24 hour Standard messaging window. We provide a number of Message Tags to support certain use cases. Some Tags are available on both Messenger Platform and IG Messaging API, while others are applicable only to Messenger Platform. The Message Tags include a Human Agent tag that allows businesses to manually respond to user messages within a 7-day period. Learn more here.

• One-time Notification - Enable businesses to request a user to send one follow-up message after the 24-hour messaging window has ended. Learn more here. One-Time Notifications are not available for IG Messaging API.

• News messaging - Only Pages that are registered with the News Page Index (NPI) will be allowed to send non-promotional news messages. Note that News messaging is not available for IG Messaging API.

• Sponsored Messages - Sponsored messages allow businesses to send promotional content outside the standard messaging window. Sponsored Messages are not available for IG Messaging API.

Standard Messaging

Businesses will have up to 24 hours to respond to a user. Messages sent within the 24 hour window may contain promotional content. Users have the option to block or mute a conversation with a business at any time.

Here are examples of the user actions that open the 24 hour Standard Messaging window on Messenger Platform:

• User sends a message to the Page
• User clicks a call-to-action button like Get Started within a Messenger conversation
• User clicks on a Click-to-Messenger ad and then starts a conversation with the Page
• User starts a conversation with a Page via a plugin, such as Send to Messenger plugin or the Checkbox plugin.
• User clicks on an m.me link with a ref parameter on an existing thread
• User reacts to a message. See Replies and Reactions

For information on how you may be able to send messages outside the 24-hour messaging window, see Message Tags, and Sponsored Messages.

Accepting Page Contact Terms to use Custom Labels

In order to use the Custom Labels API after October 1st, 2021 businesses (Page admins) need to accept our new Page Contact Terms. These terms describe Meta’s data practices for the Custom Labels created by the business. We will be rolling out the Page Contact Terms acceptance requirement to Facebook Pages on a rolling basis starting October 1st.

Here’s our recommendation on how you can be better prepared for this upcoming change. It’s vital that you follow the below steps to avoid any business disruption.

• Step 1: Developer partners can provide an option within their tools to inform Page admins that they need to accept the Page Contact terms if the business wants to add/edit/delete labels for any of their customers. Our suggestion is to provide an interstitial/dialog within your app and have the page admins/business click on a Call to Action button that redirects the page admin to the Page Contact Terms landing page. Here’s the suggested copy in the interstitial/dialog box.

  [Partner to translate as appropriate] Hi Page name, To use labels that sync with your Facebook Page Inbox, you must first accept the Page Contact Terms. You can continue to create, update and delete labels once you've accepted these terms.

• Step 2: Call the custom labels endpoint. If the Page hasn’t accepted the terms, the API call will return an error (see details below) with a link to the Page Contact Terms. When the API returns an error, you can surface a pop-up in your tool as suggested in step 1. Note that the Page needs to accept the Page Contact Terms only once when they are using labels via your platform.

One-Time Notification

Messenger Platform's One-Time Notification API (Beta) allows a page to send a time-sensitive and personally relevant notification for use cases (e.g. back in stock alert) where someone has explicitly requested to receive a one-time follow up message. Once the user asks to be notified, the page will receive a token which is an equivalent to a permission to send a single message to the user. The token can only be used once and will expire within 1 year of creation. Learn more here. Note, One-Time Notification is not available for IG Messaging API.

Private Replies

When users create a Post Comment or a Visitor Posts on a Page, Private Replies allows the Page to send a single message as a reply using Messenger Platform. Private replies are currently allowed within 7 days of the referenced user action. Along with the message sent, the user will also receive a reference to their Post Comment or Visitor Posts. For Private Replies using Instagram Messaging API, see Private Replies.

Message Tags

Message Tags enable sending important and personally relevant updates to users outside the 24-hour Standard messaging window, for a set of approved use cases. For complete details on allowed use cases, see the list of supported Message Tags. Use of tags outside of approved use cases may result in restrictions on your ability to send messages. Please note, some Message Tags are available only for Messenger Platform and not IG Messaging API.

News Messaging

News messages allow news publishers to send regular news updates to their subscribers in Messenger. This feature is only available for registered news Pages under the News Page Index (NPI) and is not available for Instagram Messaging API. Pages registered with the News Page Index don’t need to apply for news messaging permission.

News messaging apply to news content only, and must not be used for promotional content, including but not limited to subscription offers, deals, coupons, discounts or content produced by or that promotes a third party (e.g., branded content, affiliate marketing). To send news messages, NPI registered pages need to use the NON_PROMOTIONAL_SUBSCRIPTION message tag. Use of news messaging outside of these approved use cases may result in restrictions on your ability to send news messages.

Note that News messaging is not available for IG Messaging API.

Sponsored Messaging

Sponsored Messages allow businesses to reengage with people who have an open conversation with their Page in Messenger. Sponsored Messages can be sent outside the 24 hour standard messaging window and can include both promotional and non-promotional content. Sponsored messages are annotated in the conversation with the word 'Sponsored' above the message.

Sponsored message content must comply with advertising policies. For more information on sending sponsored messages, see Sponsored messages.

Please note, Sponsored Messages are not available for IG Messaging API.

Messenger Platform Policy Violation Notifications

If a Page is restricted from sending messages due to a violation of Developer Policies, the Page will receive an explanation of the Policy violation in an email sent to the Page Support Inbox for the app. To ask questions about a policy violation notification, respond to this email and one our our Policy team members may respond.

To access the Page Support Inbox, click 'Page Support Inbox' the left sidebar of your Page settings: