How to Get Approved for 10DLC: A Plain-English Guide (2026)

What 10DLC actually is

10DLC stands for "10-digit long code" — a regular local phone number used for application-to-person (A2P) texting, which is any text a business sends through software rather than from a person's handset. In 2021 the US carriers (AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and the rest) started requiring every business that texts this way to register through The Campaign Registry (TCR), the industry database that tells carriers who is sending what.

Registered traffic gets delivered with real throughput. Unregistered traffic is filtered, throttled or blocked outright — often silently, so your messages look sent on your end and simply never arrive.

Who needs to register

Any US business sending texts from a local number through a platform: appointment reminders, follow-ups after a quote, promotions, review requests, two-way sales conversations. If a CRM, scheduling tool or marketing app is sending the message, it is A2P and it needs 10DLC.

The only common exception is texting from a phone's native messaging app, person to person. Toll-free numbers and short codes have their own, separate verification programs.

The two registrations: brand and campaign

Registration happens in two steps, and keeping them straight removes most of the confusion.

• Brand

  Who you are. Legal business name, EIN (tax ID), address, website, a business email and a contact. The registry checks these against official records, so this is where typos and nicknames hurt.

• Campaign

  What you will text. A use case (for example "Marketing" or "Mixed"), a description of the program, how customers opt in, sample messages, and confirmation that you include opt-out and help instructions. A brand can have several campaigns; most small businesses need one.

Your messaging provider submits both to the registry on your behalf — you never deal with TCR directly. In Ignite CX the two steps are one guided form, and we file it for you.

What the carriers are really checking

Strip away the jargon and the reviewers are asking five questions:

• Is this a real business?

  Name and EIN match tax records, a working website on HTTPS, a business-domain email rather than a personal Gmail or Yahoo address.

• Did the recipients agree to this?

  A clear description of how people opt in — a form, a keyword, a checkbox — and proof it exists, usually a link to the page.

• Is the program described honestly?

  The use case you picked, the campaign description and the sample messages all say the same thing. "Appointment reminders" with promotional samples is a classic mismatch.

• Can people stop it?

  STOP and HELP instructions, and your messages actually honor them.

• Are the required disclosures there?

  On your opt-in: who is texting, roughly how often, "message and data rates may apply", and links to your privacy policy and terms.

Why first-time applications get rejected

Rejections are almost never about the business being unfit. They are paperwork. The ones we see most:

• Brand mismatch

  A DBA where the legal name should be, a missing suffix like LLC, or an EIN that belongs to a different entity.

• Website problems

  No site, a site without HTTPS, or a site with no privacy policy and no visible opt-in language. Reviewers do open the link.

• Personal email address

  Use an address on your own domain.

• Samples that do not match the use case

  Pick "Mixed" or "Marketing" if you will do more than one thing. Make the samples look like what you will send, placeholders included: "Hi {first_name}, …"

• Missing compliance language

  No STOP/HELP in the samples or the opt-in, no frequency disclosure, no "message and data rates may apply."

• Privacy policy that shares mobile data

  Your policy must state that mobile opt-in data is not shared with third parties for marketing. Many generic templates say the opposite.

• Restricted content

  The SHAFT categories — sex, hate, alcohol, firearms, tobacco — plus things like debt relief and high-risk financial offers are rejected or need special handling.

A rejection is not the end: you fix the issue and resubmit. But each round costs days, and some providers charge a fee per attempt, so it pays to get it right the first time.

What it costs

Fees are set by the registry and the carriers and passed through by every provider; they change occasionally, so treat these as typical ranges rather than quotes. Brand registration is a small one-time fee (a few dollars). Campaigns carry a monthly fee by use case — roughly $1.50 a month for low-volume mixed programs up to about $10 a month for standard marketing campaigns — and some downstream carriers add a one-time campaign vetting charge in the $15 range.

Ignite CX bundles the application into a flat $20 one-time fee and does not add a monthly compliance subscription on top of your seat.

How long it takes

Brand verification is usually fast — minutes to a day when your details match records. Campaign review typically takes a few business days and can stretch to two weeks when the carriers are backed up. Budget two weeks from "we should register" to "we are texting", and do not plan a launch around a faster outcome.

Filling in the form itself takes most people under an hour when the website pieces already exist — which is exactly why the website comes first.

Pre-submission checklist

1. 1.Legal business name exactly as it appears on your tax paperwork, with the suffix
2. 2.EIN that belongs to that entity
3. 3.A business-domain email address and a working phone number
4. 4.A live HTTPS website that mentions the business by the same name
5. 5.Privacy policy that says mobile opt-in data is not shared with third parties for marketing
6. 6.Terms of service linked from the site
7. 7.A visible opt-in (form, checkbox or keyword) with express-consent wording
8. 8.Opt-in disclosures: who is texting, how often, "message and data rates may apply", STOP and HELP
9. 9.A use case that covers everything you will send (when in doubt, Mixed or Marketing)
10. 10.Two to five sample messages that match that use case and include an opt-out line
11. 11.A campaign description written for a human reviewer, not a lawyer

If you build your site with the Ignite CX Website Builder, items four through eight are generated for you and the links are pasted into the application automatically.

After approval: staying compliant

Approval is the start of the relationship, not the end. Keep sending what you registered to send. Honor STOP immediately and reply to HELP. Text during reasonable hours in the recipient's time zone. Keep your opt-in records — a consent timestamp and the exact language shown — because carriers and regulators can ask. And pace large sends: registered numbers have real but finite throughput, and a sudden blast looks like spam to the filters even when it is legitimate.

Ignite CX enforces the basics for you: automatic opt-out handling, quiet hours, consent captured on every form submission, and broadcasts paced to carrier limits.

FAQ