Opt-outs

An address stops receiving your WhatsApp messages in one of two ways: a suppression scoped to a business account, or a person-level opt-out preference that covers every business account in your workspace. Both live on WhatsApp > Suppressions, on separate tabs, and either one blocks a send.

From the Suppressions tab, create a suppression for a phone number and pick the business account it applies to. Only messages from that account are blocked; the address still hears from every other account in your workspace. The list's Business account column names the account a suppression is scoped to, or reads All accounts for one that covers your whole workspace.

Some recipients want out of every business account in the workspace at once rather than one at a time. That's a stated preference, not a suppression, and it lives on the Preferences tab instead of the list above. Record it there with Every business account in the workspace: the address stops receiving WhatsApp messages from every account in your workspace, including accounts you connect later. An opt-out recorded on this tab covers all messages; to record one that stops only marketing, use the workspace-wide Contacts > Preferences page, whose dialog offers the coverage choice.

Ending a suppression, rather than deleting it, is what the Delete action on a suppression row does: the block stops, but the record is kept and stays readable, with when it ended and who ended it.

A preference on the Preferences tab follows who stated it. One you recorded yourself, you can remove there once the recipient asks you to resume sending. One the recipient stated themselves is theirs to reverse: Bird refuses a workspace's attempt to end it.

Both stores are checked before a WhatsApp send goes out. A suppression blocks every message to the address. An opt-out preference blocks what its recorded coverage says: All messages stops everything, while Marketing only keeps transactional messages such as verification codes flowing. Since sending and delivery are separate stages, the block does not surface as an immediate error: the send is still accepted, then fails asynchronously with a whatsapp.rejected event carrying error.code: "recipient_suppressed".