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

# Understand the engine's sending rules

> Quiet hours and the daily message cap — the rules that apply to every flow, and why.

Before any flow message goes out, Cliqo's engine asks one last question: *should this contact receive this, now?* The rules below apply to **all** flows, automatically — they exist to protect the contact from message overload and your brand from burning out its own base.

Quiet hours and the daily cap have a default that each flow can adjust under **Sending limits**, in the trigger panel inside the editor. The same block holds **Enter once per lifetime**: anyone who has already been through the flow doesn't enter again.

## Quiet hours

By default, marketing messages **do not go out between 9 pm and 8 am**, in your account's time zone (Brasília time). A step that would come due in the middle of the night isn't lost: it **waits** and goes out when the window opens. Under **Quiet hours** you change the flow's window — a start equal to the end turns quiet hours off.

The exception is the first message of a **New Signup** flow that goes out immediately: someone who signs up at 11 pm gets the welcome right away, because they have the store open. The following steps of the same flow respect quiet hours.

## Daily cap, per channel

By default, a marketing flow step **waits until the next day if the contact has already received 5 marketing messages today on that channel** — campaigns and flows combined. Email and WhatsApp count separately: an email doesn't hold back a WhatsApp message, and vice versa. "Today" is in your account's time zone. Under **Daily cap, per channel** you choose another cap for the flow (1, 2, 3, 5, 8 or 10).

The step that hits the cap **is not skipped**: it waits for the next day and goes out (respecting quiet hours). The cap applies to flow steps: campaigns count toward it, but are not blocked by it.

There is no longer a wait between messages: the automation goes out right away, even if the contact got a campaign minutes before. Someone who abandoned their cart gets the reminder **and** the newsletter. And a campaign doesn't leave anyone out for having received an automation either.

## The exception: utility

The rules above apply to every step you build in the editor: today, all of them count as marketing. **Utility** messages — order confirmation, delivery status — would be exempt from the daily cap, but they're not available yet: the **Automations › Transactional** screen is marked **Coming soon**.

## What this means in practice

* A contact "didn't receive" a flow step? Before suspecting a bug, check the rules. Anyone waiting for quiet hours to end or for the next day (daily cap) **waits** — the live funnel shows who is **waiting now**, with the reason.
* The rules don't discard messages for no reason: what can be postponed waits; what would lose its meaning (the person left the segment, lost consent) is suppressed with the reason recorded.

## The safety nets

Three extra protections stop the engine before damage is done, and alert the Cliqo team:

* **Enrollment breaker** — if an abnormal flood of contacts enters a flow at once (the typical symptom of a broken integration), the flow pauses **before** sending anything.
* **Age brake** — if a step has been overdue for more than 24 hours (the typical case is reactivating a flow after a long pause), the flow pauses instead of delivering a stale message. Reactivating pauses it again while the backlog exists — write to us at [contato@cliqo.io](mailto:contato@cliqo.io) to decide what to do with those enrollments.
* **Volume breaker** — if an account's flow sends go past the hourly cap, every flow in the account pauses for investigation.

None of them resumes on its own: the flow only sends again once it is reactivated.

## Related articles

* [Understand the triggers and who enters the flow](https://docs.cliqo.io/en/automacoes/gatilhos.md)
* [Understand Cliqo's metrics](https://docs.cliqo.io/en/relatorios/entenda-metricas.md)


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