Overview: 10DLC

10DLC is sanctioned business to consumer messaging which is governed by a set of industry standards and regulations that are intended to protect consumers from bad actors and unwanted text messages. 10DLC numbers are local phone numbers that are classified as A2P (application-to-person). 

All A2P traffic must be registered with the industry for approval.

The messaging ecosystem was largely unregulated until 2017, when the CTIA stepped in to create the Messaging Principles & Best Practices. These guidelines were created to help the industry begin to self-regulate in an effort to protect consumers from fraudsters and other bad actors. In 2021, A2P 10DLC was formally adopted by the industry. This requires businesses to declare their traffic and to have it verified as compliant.

Since the industry’s adoption of 10DLC, message deliverability has been easier to ensure, and the number of bad actors has generally decreased.

If you choose to send messages to customers from a local number, you will be required to submit your brand and campaign for approval to the industry. The process for submitting includes:

1. Register the brand

2. Register the campaign

3. Assign phone numbers to the campaign once the campaign is approved.

For more information on this process, see: Register a 10DLC brand and campaign.

Be sure to read our Messaging Best Practices for a better understanding of the rules and requirements that regulate the messaging ecosystem. 

Note: The Brand registration process will assign a trust score to the brand. Based on that trust score and the campaign content itself, a throughput volume is determined for the numbers submitted.

Before sending out messages, you must receive consent from the end user that they want to receive your messages. A clear call to action should ensure that receiver are aware of:

• The program or product description;

• The phone number(s) from which messaging will originate;

• The specific identity of the business being represented in the initial message;

• Clear and conspicuous language about opt-in and any associated fees or charges; and

• Other applicable terms and conditions (e.g., how to opt-out, customer care contact information and any applicable privacy policy)

• A clear opt-in mechanism is necessary to prevent unwanted messages to receivers. Receivers may also choose to unsubscribe from future messages by sending stop words such as STOP or UNSUBSCRIBE. Senders have up to 24 hours to remove the recipient from the list.

To help demonstrate, sending the following message without an explicit opt-in is prohibited. Simply providing an opt-out is not a substitute for obtaining consent. 

“Here’s your coupon for 99 cents off your next order at [COMPANY]. [LINK]. Reply STOP to opt out.”

• Low Volume

• Sole Proprietor

• Standard

• Special

Continue reading the subsections below to learn more about these campaign types.

Low Volume campaigns are designed for sending fewer than 15,000 messages a month across all carriers.

Sole Proprietor campaigns are available for customers who don’t have an EIN number.

Standard campaigns include the following examples:

• 2FA: Any one-time use passcode, authentication, or verification.

• Account Notifications: Standard notifications for account holders.

• Customer Care: Customer interactions, including account management and customer support.

• Delivery Notifications: Status of delivery of a product or service.

• Fraud Alert Messaging: Notifications about potentially fraudulent activity on a user's account.

• Education: Messaging on behalf of colleges or universities, as well as school districts and educational institutions. 

• Marketing: Communications that include marketing or promotional content (ex: sale notifications, discount codes, etc).

• Mixed: Any messaging campaign containing 2 to 5 standard use cases.

• Polling and Voting: The sending of surveys and polling/voting campaigns in non-political arenas.

• Public Service Announcement: Informational messaging to raise an audience's awareness about important issues.

• Security Alert: Notification that the security of a system, either software or hardware, has been compromised and action is needed.

Special campaigns include the following examples:

• Charity: Communications aimed at providing help and raising money for those in need. 501(c)(3) Tax-Exempt Organizations only.

• Proxy: Peer-to-peer app-based group messaging with pooled/proxy numbers. Supports personalized services and non-exposure of personal numbers for the enterprise of A2P communications (aka: Conversational Messaging).

• Sweepstakes: Gambling and sweepstakes messaging. 

• Group messaging: Peer-to-peer group messaging and/or supporting personalized services with non-exposure of personnel numbers for the enterprise.

• Emergency services: Public Safety notifications are designed to support public safety/health during natural disasters, armed conflicts, pandemics, and other national or regional emergencies.

• Agents, franchises, local branches: Brands that have multiple agents, franchises, or offices in the same brand vertical, but require individual localized numbers per agent/location/office. 

• Political messaging: Part of an organized effort to influence the decision-making of a specific group. All campaigns must be verified.

​​Senders should avoid sending a high frequency of messages to subscribers. Senders may not send more than 10 messages to a recipient in any 24 hour period unless the following conditions are met:

• The recipient has engaged in two-way communication over SMS such as for a chat feature.

• The customer has explicitly opted in to receiving frequent messages.

Senders may not represent or identify themselves as another individual or business in any way. More specifically, you may not use the message body or the phone number in a way that would lead the recipient to believe you are another individual or business.

Sending messages with fraudulent information or phishing to get confidential information from a recipient is explicitly prohibited.

No! Whitelisting is when a number is added to an approved list while denying other numbers that are not on the list. Verification is similar in that the number gets identified as verified and added to an approved list, however it does not mean that the number will never experience filtering or blocking. Especially if there are a lot of customer complaints (7726 complaints) or content that violates industry best practices.

In short, carriers want to be sure that their customers will not receive unwanted, dangerous, and spam-like text messages. An independent agency will assign your business a trust score based on whether your use case is low or high risk. A “low-risk” use case may be something like two-factor authentication. A high-risk use case may be sending messages about debt relief.

Mobile operators do follow the same set of industry best practices and guidelines, however there is some variation in how they implement them. The main difference is between AT&T and T-Mobile.

• AT&T is focusing on the campaigns registered to each brand and building out throughput restrictions based on the type of campaign and use case. 

• T-Mobile focuses on the brand rather than the campaign with a daily allowance for throughput allocated to the brand itself. If a brand has multiple campaigns under it, then the allowance is shared across all campaigns. They have a single flat rate when it comes to surcharges.

This is referred to as a mixed campaign (instead of a dedicated campaign). This is allowed with special considerations for your use case and campaign type. Please note; when use cases share a campaign, non-compliant messaging on one use case could suspend service for the entire campaign.