This article outlines the essential requirements for achieving compliance with 10DLC and Toll-Free verification. Establishing a robust opt-in/opt-out consent process, along with clearly accessible privacy policies and terms & conditions pages, is critical to meeting carrier and regulatory standards.
We also highlight best practices, provide real-world examples, and address common pitfalls that businesses often encounter during the registration process. By presenting thorough documentation and clear evidence of your opt-in/opt-out strategy, you not only strengthen your compliance efforts but also ensure a smoother and more successful verification for 10DLC and Toll-Free messaging.
Before submitting your 10DLC registration, it’s important to review your messaging practices and ensure full compliance with carrier and industry requirements. Currently, there are three key steps to confirm compliance:
- Explicit opt-in consent – Collect opt-in through forms or keywords, and ensure your opt-in language clearly discloses your company name, message frequency, data rates, and instructions for opting out (STOP) and requesting help (HELP).
- Privacy Policy – Your Privacy Policy must be easily accessible, kept up-to-date, and transparent about how customer data is collected, stored, used, and shared.
- Terms & Conditions – Your Terms & Conditions must also be easily accessible and up-to-date, clearly outlining message and data rates, message frequency, types of messages to be expected, help and opt-out instructions, and contact information for customer support.
By making sure these three elements are in place before registration, you’ll not only meet compliance standards but also build trust and transparency with your customers
What is opt-in and opt-out consent?
Opt-in consent for text-messaging refers to how an individual explicitly agrees and provides consent to receive text messages from a business or entity. Opt-out refers to how the individual can withdraw their consent, and ensure they no longer receive any more text messages. (You can read more on our blog post What Do Opt In and Opt Out Mean?).
Do these compliance requirements even apply to me?
Having strong opt-in and opt-out processes to manage your contacts is a crucial part of your business messaging strategy. Not only does it keep your contacts organized, but it is actually a mandatory requirement from carriers and messaging providers to prove you have adequate consent to message your contacts.
Whether you are a small or large business, whether it's your internal staff or customers you are messaging, whether its promotional marketing or not, compliance applies to everyone! A common misconception is that compliance and opt-in collection only applies to promotional or mass-marketing text messaging.
Carriers need to know who you are, why you are messaging, how you got permission to message your contacts, and will continue to monitor your traffic to ensure you are abiding by compliance regulations.
How does this relate to 10DLC (ten-digit long code) numbers?
10DLC (ten-digit long code) phone numbers sending traffic to the US must be registered for 10DLC. This registration process involves submitting information about your business, messaging objectives, opt-in/opt-out processes, and more (You can read more on the 10DLC registration process here). Opt-in consent collection is an extremely important component of the 10DLC registration, as carriers and messaging providers have a stringent set of reviews to judge whether your opt-in collection is adequate. Failing to provide adequate proof of opt-in consent can lead to registration delays, message blocking, and message filtering down the line.
How does this relate to Toll-Free Numbers?
Similar to 10DLC, Toll Free numbers also go through a verification process where you must submit information about your business, messaging objectives, opt-in/opt-out processes, and more. Opt-in consent is also an extremely important component of the Toll Free verification process as well, for carriers and messaging providers to judge whether your opt-in collection is adequate.