Getting approved
In one sentence
Once you submit a template, Meta reviews it; MsgBuddy tracks its journey from Draft to Approved (or Rejected, which you can fix and resubmit) right on the template page.
The approval lifecycle
| Status | Meaning | Can you send it? |
|---|---|---|
| Draft | Still being written | No |
| Pending | Submitted, waiting on Meta | No |
| Approved | Meta accepted it | Yes |
| Rejected | Meta declined it | No — edit and resubmit |
| Paused | Temporarily halted for low quality | No, until it recovers |
| Disabled | Stopped for a policy breach | No |
How long it takes
- Utility and Authentication: often just a few minutes.
- Marketing: usually fast, but can take up to ~24 hours.
MsgBuddy shows the live status and notifies you when it changes — no need to keep refreshing.
If it’s rejected
Rejection isn’t the end — it’s a quick loop:
- Open the template; MsgBuddy shows Meta’s rejection reason inline.
- Fix the issue (wording, category, links, variable samples).
- Resubmit — this creates a new version to review.
Read the rejection reason literally. “Category mismatch” almost always means a promo sneaked into a Utility template — switch it to Marketing and resubmit. “Invalid parameters” usually means missing sample values for your variables.
Category can be auto-corrected
Meta sometimes reclassifies a template’s category if it thinks you chose wrong (e.g. moves a “Utility” that’s really promotional into “Marketing”). MsgBuddy reflects the corrected category so you know how it will be treated and billed.
Once approved, it’s locked
An approved template version is locked (frozen) so its wording can’t silently change after Meta blessed it. Want to change it? You edit it into a new version, which goes back through review — your live version keeps working in the meantime. See Versions & rollback.
Approval isn’t forever. A template can later be paused (if its quality drops) or disabled (for a policy breach). The next page explains how to keep yours healthy.
How this connects
Next: quality & pausing →.