Set up text messaging

Register your business for A2P 10DLC — the brand, campaign, and number steps carriers require before your texts get delivered.

Before you can text customers from a Hey Quad number, US and Canadian carriers require your business to be registered through a program called A2P 10DLC. This article walks through the whole process: what to gather first, the three registration steps, what it costs, how long it takes, and what to do if a submission is rejected.

Why this exists

Carriers block or filter text messages from business phone numbers that haven't been registered. This isn't a Hey Quad rule — it's how AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon protect their networks from spam. An unregistered number can still send a text, and the message will look like it sent successfully in your console, but the carrier silently drops it before it reaches the recipient's phone. Registration is what tells carriers your traffic is legitimate.

Before you start — gather these

Registration goes faster (and gets approved on the first try more often) if you have this ready before you open the form:

• Your legal business name, spelled exactly as it appears on your IRS EIN confirmation letter. "Acme Inc" and "Acme, Inc." are treated as different names and are the single most common cause of rejection.
• Your EIN (or, if you're a sole proprietor, see the section below instead).
• A business address — carriers reject PO boxes.
• A live website whose content matches your brand name, with a privacy policy on it that states mobile phone numbers collected from customers are not shared with third parties for marketing.
• The exact wording (and ideally a screenshot) of how customers agree to receive texts from you — for example, a checkbox on a booking form or a line in your terms of service. The consent checkbox in the screenshot must be unchecked, since a pre-checked box isn't valid consent.
• Two real example messages you actually plan to send, such as an appointment reminder or an order update.

Step 1: Register your brand

Go to Settings → Telephony → Messaging / SMS and start with the Brand step. Choose the path that matches your business:

• Registered business (EIN) — most businesses. You'll enter your legal company name, EIN, industry, address, support email and phone, and website.
• Sole proprietor — no EIN. See the next section for what's different about this path.

The form will warn you if your legal name and EIN don't look like they match IRS records exactly — take that warning seriously, since a mismatch is the top reason brands get rejected.

Cost: $5.00, one time. This is the carrier's registry fee plus a small fee for running the registration, charged once you submit, whether or not the brand is later approved on the first try. The wizard quotes your exact fee before you submit. See Text registration fees.

Timing: brand approval is usually near-instant, but can take up to 5 business days if the carrier flags anything for manual review.

Sole proprietors, specifically

If you don't have an EIN, the sole-proprietor path verifies your identity by text instead. A few things that don't apply to the EIN path:

• You'll get a one-time PIN by text to verify your mobile number. That PIN expires in 24 hours. If it expires before you enter it, you can't just retry — you have to restart brand registration from scratch.
• The verification mobile number can't be a Hey Quad number. Use a personal or existing business mobile.
• The same mobile number can only back up to 3 sole-proprietor brands. If you're registering brands for several small businesses, you'll need a different verification number for the fourth one onward.
• Sole-proprietor brands are limited to one campaign and one phone number, and carriers cap sole-proprietor sending at roughly 1,000 messages a day. If you expect to text from more than one number or need higher volume, register as a registered business (EIN) instead, even if that means getting an EIN first.

Step 2: Register your campaign

Once your brand is approved, the Campaign step opens. A campaign tells carriers what kind of messages you send and how people agree to receive them.

Use case. Pick the option that best describes your texts in plain terms:

Every option shows its live monthly price beside it, so you can see what each one costs before you choose.

• Most businesses should stay on Low volume (up to 2,000 texts/day), which is the default. It covers ordinary business texting — appointment reminders, order updates, customer service replies — and carries the cheapest monthly campaign fee at $2.00 a month.
• Move up only if you genuinely send more than 2,000 texts a day. The usual step up is Customer care (standard) at $10.50 a month, which is also what Marketing and most other use cases cost. You can start on Low volume and change later; there's no reason to pay for headroom you aren't using.
• Charity / 501(c)(3), Emergency and Agents & franchises require additional carrier pre-approval on top of the normal review, and they are priced separately — $3.50, $5.50 and $30.50 a month. Only pick one if that's genuinely what you're registering, since choosing it for ordinary business texting will slow you down, not speed you up.

Message flow. This is a plain-language description of how a phone number ends up in your system and what happens next — for example: "A customer books an appointment through our website or by phone. We text a confirmation immediately and a reminder 24 hours before the appointment. They can reply STOP at any time to opt out."

• Good: specific, names how numbers are collected, describes what gets sent and when, and mentions STOP.
• Bad: "We send texts to our customers." Too vague — this gets rejected almost every time. Carriers want to see the actual path a phone number takes from "customer gives it to us" to "we text it."

Sample messages. Provide 2–5 real examples of texts you'll send. Each sample must:

• Name your brand — "Acme Plumbing: your appointment is confirmed for..." not just "Your appointment is confirmed for..."
• Include opt-out language on at least one sample — something like "Reply STOP to opt out."
• Read like something you would genuinely send, not a placeholder.

Opt-in confirmation. The message customers receive right after they opt in — for example, "Acme Plumbing: You're subscribed to appointment texts. Msg & data rates may apply. Reply STOP to unsubscribe." It must name your brand and mention STOP.

Opt-in URL or screenshot. A link to (or screenshot of) the exact place on your site or form where a customer agrees to receive texts, with the consent checkbox shown unchecked. Point to your privacy policy URL as well, so the reviewer can confirm it discloses that mobile numbers aren't shared for marketing.

Cost: $15 per review attempt. If a campaign is rejected and you resubmit, that's a new $15 charge — there's no free retry, so it pays to get the message flow and samples right the first time.

Step 3: Assign numbers

Once your campaign is approved, go to the Numbers step and assign each phone number you want to text from. A few things to know:

• Numbers you buy later must be assigned here manually once your campaign is active — a newly purchased number does not start texting automatically just because your brand and campaign are approved.
• Allow 24–72 hours after assigning a number for the registration to propagate to the carrier networks. Texts sent from a freshly assigned number may still be filtered during that window.
• Registered business (EIN) campaigns can hold up to 49 numbers; sole-proprietor campaigns are capped at 1 number.

Timelines and costs

A typical business pays $20.00 one time and $2.00 a month. These are carrier costs plus a small fee, and they appear on your invoice as "Text registration" lines. Carriers bill the first three months of the monthly campaign fee upfront, then monthly after that — budget for a slightly larger first bill than the quoted monthly rate suggests. Full breakdown: Text registration fees.

Registration fees are separate from what it costs to send. Sending comes out of your pooled text segments — see How texting is billed.

If you're rejected

A rejection shows the carrier's stated reason and lets you edit and resubmit — there's no need to contact support first for a straightforward fix. The most common reasons, and the fix for each:

1. Legal name or EIN doesn't match IRS records exactly. Re-check your EIN confirmation letter character by character, including punctuation like commas and periods.
2. Message flow is too vague. Rewrite it to describe the actual path a phone number takes into your system and what you send.
3. Sample messages don't name the brand. Add your business name to the start of each sample.
4. No opt-out language in the samples. Add "Reply STOP to opt out" (or similar) to at least one sample.
5. Missing or invalid opt-in URL/screenshot. Make sure the link points at the actual page where customers consent, and that any screenshot shows an unchecked box.
6. No privacy policy, or it doesn't mention SMS. Add a line stating mobile numbers aren't shared with third parties for marketing.
7. Wrong use case for a Charity or Emergency campaign. These need extra documentation — don't select them unless that's genuinely your use case.
8. Address is a PO box. Carriers require a physical business address.

If you've fixed all of the above and are still being rejected, or the rejection reason isn't listed here, contact support with the campaign ID and the carrier's stated reason.

After approval

Once your numbers are assigned and past the propagation window, you can send and receive texts from:

• The Inbox
• A contact or company record's Text button
• Ticket replies
• The softphone's Messages tab

Decide where each number's texts go

Before you hand a number to the team, set "Text messages go to" on it. Find it on the Phone numbers page next to the number, or on the Phone numbers tab of any extension.

• Pick an extension for a number that belongs to one person. Only they (and owners and admins) see those conversations.
• Pick a shared inbox for a number the whole front desk answers. Everyone in that queue sees every conversation on it and any of them can take one.
• Pick the AI receptionist for a number you intend the receptionist to answer once it handles texts.

A newly bought number is set for you: if its calls ring one extension, its texts go to that extension; otherwise they go to your shared inbox, which starts out containing everyone in the organization. Change it whenever the number changes hands. Full detail is in Where texts go.

STOP, START, and HELP are handled automatically — you don't need to do anything for a customer who opts out or back in. See Send and receive texts for day-to-day use, and Opt-outs and consent for how STOP and opt-in work.

Troubleshooting

A teammate can't see a conversation I can.

That number's texts are routed to somebody else — another extension, or a shared inbox they aren't in. Change the number's "Text messages go to" setting, add them to the shared inbox, or move the individual conversation into a queue they belong to from the Inbox.

My texts aren't arriving.

1. Check the status strip on the Messaging / SMS settings page — is your brand and campaign both approved?
2. Check that the specific number you're sending from is assigned to your campaign, and that it's past the 24–72 hour propagation window.
3. Check whether the recipient has texted STOP to your number in the past — opted-out numbers won't receive texts until they reply START. See Opt-outs and consent.

If all three check out and delivery still fails, contact support with the phone number and approximate send time.