Why did a user receive more push notifications in one day than our frequency cap allows?

Frequency capping in Pushwoosh is configured account-wide as Global frequency capping (Settings → Message delivery settings → Frequency capping). It is not limited to Customer Journeys: the limits apply to API-based messages, Customer Journey messages, one-time pushes and emails, In-App campaigns, and SMS/WhatsApp messages.

A user can still receive more messages than the cap for these reasons:

1. Transactional messages are never capped. Marketing messages are subject to capping; transactional ones bypass it entirely. In the API this is set explicitly — message_type: "transactional" in /createMessage, or email_type: "transactional" in /createEmailMessage. If you omit the type, capping applies.
2. Explicit capping overrides in the API. /createMessage also accepts capping_avoid (capping is not applied to this push) and capping_exclude (this push is not counted towards the cap for future pushes). A push sent with either flag can exceed the limit.
3. Journey elements that opt out. Inside a Customer Journey, a message element can be set to Send messages without global frequency capping, which skips the limit for that element.
4. Per-channel counting. Caps are counted per channel across all journeys and campaigns, so pushes, emails and in-apps are limited separately — a user can receive one of each within the same period.

When troubleshooting, check the Message History / delivery report for the extra sends and determine whether they were transactional, sent with capping_avoid/capping_exclude, or came from a journey element configured to ignore global capping.