What is Meta App Review?

Meta’s test is about who logs in. If every user has a role on the app, such as admin, developer or tester, or a role in the business that has claimed it, no review is needed. Once the app is meant for anyone else, like shop owners signing up to a scheduling or inbox tool, each permission and feature it relies on has to be approved.

Instagram’s messaging API gives a concrete case. An app serving professional accounts that its owner doesn’t own or manage needs Advanced Access to instagram_business_basic and instagram_business_manage_messages, which means a trip through review.

A submission covers each permission and feature the app wants. For every one, the developer explains what the app does with it, normally backed by a screen recording of the feature in use, and tells reviewers how to log in and try it for themselves.

• Access. If Meta can’t get into the app at all, the entire submission is rejected.
• Something to test. If reviewers get in but can’t try a particular function, the permission or feature behind it is turned down, and the rest are judged on their own.
• A visible use. A permission the app never shows using gives reviewers nothing to approve, so request only what the product really does.
• A verified business. Since 1 February 2023, Advanced Access has also depended on business verification of the company behind the app.

• Approval is item by item. A permission added later starts at Standard Access and works only for the app’s own team until it passes review too.
• Consumer apps must also be in Live mode before people outside the team can grant permissions that have Advanced Access.
• Apps holding Advanced Access complete Data Use Checkup every year, an annual process covering how they use the data they receive.
• If a developer moves a permission back to Standard Access, it stops working at once for everyone without a role on the app.

Business owners don’t submit anything. When Meta’s login screen lists what a tool wants to do, such as manage your messages or comments, those are permissions its developer had to get approved for public use. A tool that works for its makers but fails for everyone else may not have passed yet, and an invitation to become a tester before you can connect points the same way.

Tip: Be wary of any service that wants your Instagram password typed into its own form. Apps that passed App Review send you to Meta’s login screen and never see your password.