Every business that texts from a regular 10-digit US phone number has to be registered with the mobile carriers first. The system is called A2P 10DLC, and it is not optional. This page covers what registration is, what it costs, how long it takes, and which parts we handle for you.
What A2P 10DLC actually is
A2P stands for application-to-person: any message sent by software rather than typed by a human on a handset. 10DLC is the standard 10-digit long code, the ordinary local number your customers see. Put together, A2P 10DLC is the carriers’ framework for business texting on normal phone numbers.
Carriers built it because they could not otherwise tell the difference between a dentist confirming appointments and a scammer running a phishing campaign. Registration attaches a real, verified business to every number sending automated traffic. Spam gets harder, and legitimate senders get treated better.
What happens if you skip it
Your messages stop arriving. Enforcement arrived in stages rather than all at once:
- July 2023 — carriers began throttling traffic from unregistered numbers, so messages went out slowly or intermittently.
- August 2023 — throttling became outright blocking for unregistered senders.
- February 2025 — the major carriers moved to blocking effectively all unregistered 10DLC traffic.
There is no warning message and no bounce-back. From your side the send looks fine. The message simply never reaches the handset, which is why unregistered senders often spend weeks assuming their list has gone cold.
You register two separate things
People assume registration is one form. It is two, and the second depends on the first being approved.
Your brand
This is who you are: legal business name, tax ID, address, website, industry, and a real contact person. The details have to match your official records. A brand name that does not match your EIN filing is the most common reason a submission comes back.
Your campaign
This is what you send and how people agreed to receive it: your use case, sample messages, and evidence of opt-in. Carriers care as much about consent as content, so a campaign gets judged on whether your opt-in language is real and whether STOP and HELP are handled properly.
Standard and Sole Proprietor brands
There are two paths, and which one applies comes down to whether you have a tax ID.
Standard is for businesses with an EIN. It supports multiple campaigns and higher throughput, and it is what most companies register under.
Sole Proprietor exists for individuals and small operations in the US and Canada without a business tax ID, who file under their own Social Security number. It uses alternative identity verification, such as a mobile phone bill, and it is capped: one campaign, and low message volume.
We support both paths, so not having an EIN does not shut you out of business texting. It does mean accepting the caps that come with a Sole Proprietor brand.
One rule catches people out in the other direction. If your business does have an EIN, you have to register as Standard. Choosing Sole Proprietor to dodge the paperwork will cost you money and limit how much you can send.
Campaign types worth knowing about
Your campaign gets classified, and the classification affects throughput and scrutiny. Most businesses land on Standard or Low Volume. A few types are worth calling out:
- Franchise — for businesses with multiple locations or franchisees sending similar but localized content. It requires disclosure of every subentity, so a location network needs to decide up front how it is structured before anyone submits anything. Our franchise texting page covers what that means across locations.
- Charity — for 501(c)(3) nonprofits, and it needs proof of tax-exempt status.
- Emergency — public safety alerts from government bodies, schools and utilities. Tightly regulated.
- Low Volume — limited traffic, suited to small businesses that send occasionally.
What it costs
Registration is a one-time $19 with us, broken down as:
- $15 campaign vetting — an industry-wide charge intended to reduce spam and fraud. We are required to run it.
- $4 brand registration — the fee for registering your brand with The Campaign Registry once vetting clears.
None of that $19 is ours. We collect it and pass it through without markup to our telecom partners. There are recurring monthly carrier fees on top of registration, and we pay those on your behalf as part of your subscription rather than billing them separately.
Registration fees are charged when you submit and are not refundable, whatever the outcome. That is a Campaign Registry rule rather than ours, and it is the reason it pays to get the details right the first time.
How long it takes
Brand approval usually runs two to three business days. Campaign approval typically takes another three to five after the brand clears. Accurate submissions land at the fast end of that. Mismatched details, a website that does not describe the business you registered, or vague opt-in language add days.
Where to register
The form lives in your TextSpot account under the My Account menu, top right. It appears for paid subscribers only, so it will not show on a trial. Once you complete it, the form disappears, because it only needs doing once.
What you will be asked
Have these ready before you start and the form takes a few minutes.
About the business: whether you are messaging on behalf of a business, legal company name, country, your EIN if you have one, business type (LLC, corporation, non-profit, sole proprietorship), company type (private, public, government, non-profit), industry, website URL, and physical address.
About you: first and last name, email, phone number, job title, and job position.
About your messages: which kinds you plan to send — appointment reminders, marketing messages, event reminders and information, transactional notifications, or service information.
What gets a submission rejected
The failures are boringly consistent, which is good news, because they are all avoidable.
- A legal name or EIN that does not match IRS records.
- A website that does not exist, does not load, or does not describe the business on the form.
- Sample messages with no opt-out instruction.
- Opt-in language that cannot be evidenced — describing a checkbox on a form that is not actually there.
- A use case on the form that does not match the samples underneath it.
Consent is a separate obligation
Registration and consent are two different tracks and you need both. Getting a campaign approved does not give you permission to text anyone; it tells carriers who you are. The permission has to come from the recipient, and the TCPA governs that side.
In practice: people opt in knowingly, every message identifies you, STOP works immediately and permanently, and HELP returns something useful. Carriers audit against your registered samples after approval, so what you actually send needs to keep matching what you said you would send.