> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://wiredesk.ai/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Message limit per conversation

> Stop the agent answering one chat, email, WhatsApp or Zendesk Messaging conversation after a set number of messages, without billing the messages past it.

A conversation that runs to hundreds of messages is rarely a customer getting help. It's usually a bot, someone testing the agent, or someone using it as a free chatbot, and every reply counts as usage. The message limit stops that one conversation without stopping the agent.

Set it in the **Message limit** card on **Agents → your agent → Instructions**. You need the Owner or Admin role.

## Set a limit

1. Switch on **Limit messages per conversation**. It starts at 50, which is well past what a real support conversation needs.
2. To change the number, type it and click **Save**. Any whole number from 1 to 1,000.
3. Switch it off to remove the limit. New agents have no limit.

The limit counts the customer's own messages in one conversation. With a limit of 50, the agent answers fifty messages and the fifty-first gets the fixed reply. Greetings, the agent's replies and your team's replies don't count.

## What the customer sees

Past the limit, the agent doesn't run. The channel replies with a fixed line instead, which says how to carry on:

| Channel | The fixed reply |
| - | - |
| **Website chat** | "This conversation has reached its message limit, so I can't reply here any more. To keep going, start a new chat from the menu at the top. Our team can still see this conversation if you need a person." It is the reply to every further message in that chat. |
| **Email** | "This conversation has reached its message limit, so I can't reply in this thread any more. To keep going, send us a new email rather than a reply. Our team can still see this conversation and may follow up." Sent once; later emails in the thread are stored without a reply. |
| **WhatsApp** | "This conversation has reached its message limit, so I can't reply here any more today. Our team can still see this conversation and may follow up." Sent once; later messages are stored without a reply. A new WhatsApp conversation starts after 24 hours without messages. |
| **[Zendesk Messaging](https://wiredesk.ai/docs/integrations/zendesk-messaging.md)** | No fixed reply: the conversation is handed to your team in Zendesk, as when the agent can't answer. Once they end it, the customer's next message starts a new conversation with the agent. |

The fixed reply, or the handover, isn't billed and uses no AI. Every message the customer sends is still saved, so you can read the conversation in **Conversations** and reply from there yourself (from Zendesk, for Zendesk Messaging).

## What it doesn't cover

* **Phone calls** have their own time limit, so the message limit doesn't apply to them.
* **A conversation a teammate has taken over** isn't affected: the agent is already staying out of it.
* **The [API](https://wiredesk.ai/docs/developers/api.md)** doesn't apply it, because those conversations come from your own code, which can set its own limit for its users.

The limit works alongside the other protections: the per-visitor [rate limits on the chat widget](https://wiredesk.ai/docs/channels/website-chat.md), the hourly reply limits on [email](https://wiredesk.ai/docs/channels/email.md) and [WhatsApp](https://wiredesk.ai/docs/channels/whatsapp.md), and your workspace's [spend cap](https://wiredesk.ai/docs/account/spend-cap.md). See [plans and limits](https://wiredesk.ai/docs/reference/plans-and-limits.md) for all of them.


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