How did we get here?
In the "post-compliance" era of SMS in North America, special consideration needs to be made for building the strategy for mass texting. Gone are the days of 'plug-and-play' SMS solutions to import a list, type in a message, and hit 'send'. Customers have grown weary of spam texts and the cell carriers have had enough customer complaints to institute new standards for any business looking to use an application (A2P), like Salesmsg, to send texts at scale using local phone numbers (10-digit long code, 10DLC).
In order to drive down spam texts, the carriers now require any business looking to use SMS to deliver texts to their customers to register for SMS compliance, either using a Toll-Free number or Local phone numbers. With this new standardized compliance comes increased thresholds for how fast your messages can be delivered on a given number, commonly referred to as "throughput".
With 10DLC approval, your texts using local phone numbers can be sent as fast as 75 messages per second, based on being a well-recognized brand and achieving a high trust score. For companies looking to scale their business, there's a smaller digital footprint and therefore a lower trust score issued by the carriers which has a direct result on how fast your messages can be delivered.
Send Limits:
Beyond messaging speed, a business's trust score has a direct impact on how many messages can be delivered on carrier networks in 24 hours.
The limits that T-Mobile will offer based on your Trust Score (after secondary vetting) are shown below.
Trust Score | T-Mobile message limit (SMS segments + MMS) outbound |
75-100 | 200,000/day |
50-74 | 40,000/day |
25-49 | 10,000/day |
1-24 | 2,000/day |
🤔 Not sure where to start?
Book an SMS Consultation with our Customer Success team to review your goals for SMS and what number and strategy makes the most sense to accomplish those goals.
How can I send mass texts?
There are options to facilitate your large-format (mass texting) campaigns!
Local Numbers - Based on your daily limits and throughput, you can always use our advanced scheduling feature in Broadcasts to batch send your texts.
Toll Free - Toll Free numbers (once verified) are not subject to daily send limits on T-Mobile's network* and can be used as an alternative to local phone numbers to send to larger contact lists.
One consideration with using Toll Free numbers is that a base throughput for this number type is 3 messages per second. For a list of 30,000 people, a Toll Free number would take 167 minutes minimum to deliver all messages to a list of this size.
Need to go faster? 🚀
Salesmsg can help you increase the base speed (messages per second, MPS) of a Toll Free number from 3 MPS to 25, 50, or even 75 MPS. There is a direct passthrough fee from the carriers to increase this speed but this has proven to be a valuable option for customers looking to send larger SMS campaigns.
Short code - A short code number is a 5-6 digit number that is optimized for mass texting. The base speed of a short code is 100 MPS, ideal for regular mass text campaigns. You have likely received an order update from UPS/FedEx from a short code number. This number type is commonly used by major brands who need to send out hundreds of thousands of texts per day.
A key consideration of using a short code number is the cost and timeline for acquisition. Unlike local or toll-free numbers, short code numbers must be applied for and approved by each US cell carrier before being activated. The ability to "spam at scale" goes up exponentially with a number that can send 100 MPS. The cost of a shortcode ranges from $3000 - $4500 per QTR. Direct passthrough fee from the carriers to host a short code number.
Although not the cheapest option, if your business is using SMS heavily to engage with thousands of customers daily, a short code may be right for you. If your team is curious if a short-code phone number is right for your needs, connect with us and we can make a recommendation.