After adding your phone number and verifying your business, the next step to increase your daily messaging limit to 1,000 messages per day, you need to get your display name approved by WhatsApp.

When you add your phone number (with a display name) during API setup, the name is automatically sent to WhatsApp for review. It may take up to 24 hours for them to review and either approve or reject your Display Name.

You can check the status of your display name from the Phone Numbers page in WhatsApp Manager.

If you added the display name as per the Display Name Guidelines, the number should get approved within a day and your limit should get increased to 1,000 automatically.

But in case you did not follow the guidelines earlier, the name might be rejected and you’ll need to re-submit a new name for their review.

To re-submit display name for review, click on the Edit icon next to the Display Name, enter the name in popup as per guidelines given below and submit the form. 

Display Name Approval Guidelines

Following is a summary of Display Name Approval Guidelines given by WhatsApp. Do make sure to follow these guideline to get your Display Name approved.

1. Display names should not violate WhatsApp’s Commerce and Business policies.
2. If your company has separate divisions with different WhatsApp Business accounts, only those divisions that comply with WhatsApp’s Commerce policy can have a WhatsApp Business account.
3. Display names should accurately represent a business, its service, product, department, or be associated with a test or demo account.
4. Display names should not be an individual’s full name, a generic term, a generic geographic location, a slogan, or a long description.
5. Organizations with a government affiliation need approval from the WhatsApp team for their display names.
6. Display names should maintain consistency with external branding, such as a company’s website or marketing material. Extra emojis, character symbols, or words should not be added unless they indicate a country, region, department, function, or refer to a test or demo account.
7. Display names must clearly reflect the business they represent. The business name should be referenced on the company’s website or in external media.
8. If the association between a company and a brand isn’t obvious, the relationship must be indicated using the format “by [company name]”.
9. If the display name represents a business that the company is collaborating with (like an agency, distributor, partner, or parent company), the relationship between the businesses must be clear and evident on both parties’ websites.
10. If a company wants to use the display name of its subsidiary, they must submit links to both websites that clearly state the subsidiary relationship.

Display Name and Green Tick Verification

Note that after the display name is approved, the end user will still see your phone number in the message list and after opening the message (unless they’ve saved your number in their contacts). The display name will only be shown on the profile page when they open your it from their WhatsApp app.

If you want to show your display name on the message list and during chat, you’ll need to first get your display name approved (by following the instructions mentioned above) and then get your phone number green tick verified.