# Scheduling

> When a campaign sends, how fast, and what happens to messages queued outside your sending hours.

Source: https://docs.amomic.in/campaigns/scheduling

---

The **When should it go out?** block on the last step of the [campaign wizard](/campaigns/create) sets when a campaign starts, the hours it may send in, and how fast it goes. None of it can be changed after launch; pause or cancel instead.

## Start now, or later

Leave **Start** empty and a campaign begins the moment you press **Send it**. Pick a date and time and the button reads **Schedule it**; the campaign shows as **Scheduled** until then.

A scheduled campaign that comes due outside your sending hours doesn't send early and isn't dropped. It waits for the next open hour.

## Quiet hours

Messages go out between **09:00 and 21:00**; calls between **10:00 and 19:00**. Both are read in your campaign time zone.

Your workspace's [sending rules](/campaigns/sending-rules#workspace-sending-rules) can narrow that, and so can each campaign's **Earliest send** and **Latest send**. Neither can widen it. A wider window is **narrowed** rather than refused, and the wizard shows the hours that will really be used, for example *Messages will go out between 10:00 and 19:00 Asia/Kolkata — narrowed to stay inside the quiet-hours limit*.

::: info Nothing is lost to quiet hours
A recipient queued at 23:00 stays queued and goes out when sending opens. The campaign stays **Sending**, and its page shows the time of the next batch, so a campaign sitting still overnight is visibly waiting rather than apparently broken.
:::

The time zone is your workspace's, not the recipient's. If you send across time zones, pick a window that's reasonable in all of them.

## Pace

**How should the messages go out?** offers two speeds.

**Gradual** (recommended, and the default) starts at 4 recipients in the first minute and grows by about 60% a minute (4, 7, 11, 17, 27…) up to your **Upper limit per minute**, and never beyond 40 a minute. Full speed arrives within about five minutes. For calls, a gradual batch also leaves 3 of the workspace's call lines free, so your team can still make calls while it runs.

**As fast as allowed** goes at the full **Messages per minute** from the first minute, up to 120 at a time. Use it for something genuinely urgent. Repeated bursts make a number look automated and are hard on a new number.

The number you set is a ceiling, not a promise. WhatsApp's own limits and the workspace's free call lines still apply. A campaign held back by them stays visible with its next attempt time; it doesn't skip anyone.

The pace a campaign launched with shows on its row in the Campaigns list as **Gradual** or **Burst**, and on its page as **Gradual delivery** or **As fast as allowed delivery**.

## Workspace defaults

**Campaigns → Sending rules** sets the rules every campaign in the workspace follows, including those Duesly sends: **Earliest send**, **Latest send**, **Messages per minute**, **Most messages one person gets a week** and the **Time zone**. Each can only be made stricter than the platform's limits. See [Workspace sending rules](/campaigns/sending-rules#workspace-sending-rules).

The time zone follows the workspace's own zone, set under **Settings**, unless you turn **Use the workspace time zone** off and choose another.

## When a campaign stops on its own

| Status | Why |
|---|---|
| **Sending** | Working through the list a batch at a time, or waiting for the next open hour or a free line. |
| **Scheduled** | Waiting for its start time. |
| **Paused** | Someone paused it. **Resume** carries on. |
| **Stopped** | Something that affects *every* remaining recipient went wrong, usually a disconnected sender. The recipients not yet reached stay queued. Find it under **Needs attention**, and see [It stopped halfway](/campaigns/troubleshooting#it-stopped-halfway). |
| **Done** | Every recipient reached a final outcome. |
| **Cancelled** | Someone cancelled it. Final. |
| **Draft** / **Archived** | Never launched, or moved to **Archive**. |

A campaign that stops for a shared cause stops **once**, loudly, rather than burning through thousands of recipients discovering the same problem.