If your agency uses SMS to follow up with prospects, there's a registration requirement standing between your messages and your leads' phones. It's called A2P 10DLC, and it's how carriers like T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon decide whether your texts get delivered, or quietly dropped into a filter where no one ever sees them.
Most agencies buy leads from aggregators and vendors, then live or die on speed-to-lead and follow-up. If your texts get blocked or throttled because you never registered your campaigns, you're spending money to contact people who never hear from you.
Carriers enforce this actively, but the penalty isn't a fine. It's lower contact rates and wasted lead spend, every single month.
This guide covers everything you need to know: what A2P 10DLC is, what to gather before you start, how to register your brand and campaigns step by step, what each major carrier wants, how trust scores set your throughput, and the mistakes that trip up insurance agencies most often.
A2P 10DLC stands for Application-to-Person messaging over 10-Digit Long Codes. It's the system carriers built to regulate business text messages sent from standard phone numbers.
Two parts:
A2P (Application-to-Person): Any text sent by a business application, like a CRM, texting platform, or lead follow-up system, to a consumer's phone. Different from P2P (Person-to-Person), which is two people texting each other.
10DLC (10-Digit Long Code): A standard local phone number with a regular area code. Businesses used to send bulk texts from these numbers with no registration at all. Carriers ended that.
Carriers built A2P 10DLC to tell legitimate business texting apart from spam, as a way to protect consumers from spam and fraud. Registration is how they confirm you're the real thing.
The framework works like this: Businesses register their brand and their messaging campaigns with a central registry called The Campaign Registry (TCR). Carriers use that data to verify your messages are legitimate, assign you a trust score, and set throughput limits based on that score. Without following the steps, the carriers treat your messages like spam, because they have no way to know the difference.
If your agency sends any automated or semi-automated texts, follow-ups, appointment reminders, quote notifications, renewal alerts - you're sending A2P traffic. If that traffic isn't registered, carriers are getting more aggressive every quarter about blocking or throttling it.
Here's what non-compliance actually costs you:
Undelivered messages. Your texts leave your system and never reach the lead. You won't even know unless you're tracking delivery rates at the carrier level.
Wasted lead spend. You pay vendors and aggregators for leads. If your follow-up gets filtered, you're paying for people you can never reach.
Lower contact rates. We all know that if your first text doesn't land in seconds, a competitor's does. Carrier filtering adds unpredictable delays or flat-out blocks.
Per-message fees and surcharges. Carriers now charge per-message surcharges on A2P traffic. Unregistered traffic faces higher fees or outright rejection.
Reputation damage. Repeated filtering and spam complaints tank your sender reputation, which makes every future message even less likely to be delivered.
There's more to the picture than just carrier rules. Recent legal developments are reshaping how businesses think about consent and SMS:
Court rulings on TCPA consent: Recent federal court decisions have questioned parts of TCPA consent requirements, but none of that has touched carrier-level A2P 10DLC enforcement. Your registration obligations are the same regardless of how federal consent rules shake out.
FCC activity (May 2026): The FCC dismissed several TCPA-related petitions, signaling a regulatory pause that leaves carriers' own A2P 10DLC requirements as the primary compliance framework for now.
What it means for your agency: even as federal rules move around, carrier-level compliance through A2P 10DLC is the baseline. Your texts don't get delivered without it, no matter what happens at the FCC.
Want to avoid a rejection that sets you back by weeks? Gather these before you register.
Legal business name (must match your IRS records exactly)
Employer Identification Number (EIN), your federal tax ID
Business address (physical, not a P.O. box)
Business website URL (carriers check this during vetting)
Business phone number and email
Use case description. A clear explanation of why you're texting. For most agencies that's "lead follow-up and appointment scheduling" or "policy renewal reminders."
Sample messages. Two to five examples of texts you actually plan to send. Make them real and specific. "Hi [Name], your auto insurance quote is ready. Ready to review it?" beats "Hello, we have information for you."
Opt-in method. How do people consent to your texts? Web form, paper application, verbal consent on a call? Document it clearly.
Opt-out instructions. Every campaign needs a way for recipients to stop messages (for example, "Reply STOP to unsubscribe").
You'll register through whatever SMS provider or platform you use, whether that's Twilio, Bandwidth, Sinch, - or a platform like Mav that handles the process for you.
The process has four steps. Your texting platform handles most of the technical work. You're on the hook for accurate business information and a clear description of how you use SMS.
Brand registration proves your business exists and is legitimate. It connects your company's legal identity to The Campaign Registry (TCR).
Log into your SMS provider's dashboard or admin panel.
Go to the 10DLC or messaging compliance section.
Enter your business details.
Submit. Your provider sends it to TCR.
What happens next: TCR checks your information against public business databases. Standard registration usually takes a few minutes to a few hours. If your EIN doesn't match your legal name, or your address can't be verified, the registration fails.
Use your exact legal entity name. If you operate as "Smith Insurance Group" but your EIN is registered to "Smith Insurance Group LLC," that mismatch alone can get you rejected.
Make sure your website is live and professional. TCR and carriers check your URL. A broken site or a parked domain is a red flag.
Have your EIN ready. This is the single most common delay. Agencies start the process, then stall out digging for their tax ID.
Once your brand is registered, you register individual messaging campaigns. A campaign describes how you use SMS: what you send, who gets it, and how they opted in.
Mixed. Covers multiple use cases like lead follow-up, appointment reminders, and quote delivery. The most common choice for agencies.
Marketing. Promotional messages like policy upgrade offers or referral programs. Carriers scrutinize these more heavily.
Customer Care. Policy service, claims updates, billing reminders. Less scrutiny, but you can't use it for lead engagement.
Common insurance use cases:
Lead outreach: Texting new leads from vendors or web forms to schedule quotes
Appointment reminders: Confirming upcoming calls or meetings
Policy notifications: Renewal reminders, billing alerts, claims updates
Re-engagement: Following up with older leads who didn't convert the first time
Campaign description. A plain-language explanation of your messaging. Example: "We text new insurance leads to schedule quote consultations and follow up on pending applications."
Sample messages. At least two realistic examples. Carriers read these.
Message flow. Describe the opt-in. Example: "Leads submit a web form requesting an insurance quote and check a box consenting to receive text messages."
Opt-out handling. Confirm you support STOP and HELP keywords.
Volume estimates. Roughly how many messages per day or month.
If your campaign is "approved," but your delivery rates suggest otherwise, your trust score is why. After you register your brand and campaign, TCR assigns a trust score that directly controls how many messages you can send per second and how reliably carriers deliver them.
Business age and size. Established businesses with verifiable histories score higher.
EIN verification. Matching your EIN to public records is the baseline.
Website quality. A professional, active site with clear business information helps.
Industry. Insurance is a recognized, legitimate vertical, which works in your favor. Carriers still evaluate your specific use case.
Campaign clarity. Clear descriptions, realistic samples, and documented opt-in all move the number up.
High: 75-225+ messages/second (full throughput)
Medium-High: 40-75 msg/sec (good delivery, some limits)
Medium: 15-40 msg/sec (standard delivery, moderate limits
Low: 1-15 msg/sec (heavy throttling, potential filtering)
Apply for enhanced vetting. For a one-time fee (typically $40-$50 through your provider), you can request a manual review that often moves your score up.
Clean up your website. Add a clear privacy policy, terms of service, and contact info. Carriers check.
Sharpen your campaign description. Be more specific about your use case and opt-in process.
Make your business info match everywhere. Your EIN, legal name, and address should be consistent across TCR, your website, and public business directories.
Once TCR sets your trust score, the individual carriers (T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon) approve your campaigns. This is the last gate before your messages flow freely.
Your SMS provider shows campaign status as "Active" or "Approved" per carrier.
Throughput limits apply automatically based on your trust score.
You can start sending through verified channels right away.
Brand registration: Minutes to hours
Campaign registration and carrier review: 1-7 business days (varies by carrier and campaign type)
Enhanced vetting (optional): 1-5 business days after submission
Plan on one to two weeks start to finish. If you need to send sooner than that, start the process now, not when your next lead batch lands.
Want to know exactly what each carrier expects? Here's where the three majors stand on A2P 10DLC.
Registration required for all A2P traffic on 10DLC numbers
Per-message surcharges apply (check your provider for current rates)
Throughput limits based on trust score. Low-trust brands get throttled hard; high-trust brands send at much higher volumes
Content filtering that blocks messages reading as spam, even from registered senders
Daily and per-minute caps enforced at the campaign level
Per-campaign fees typically passed through by your provider
Registration required through TCR
Surcharges similar to T-Mobile's structure
Campaign-level throughput tied to trust scores
Stricter content policies around financial services messaging. Keep your sample messages free of misleading or high-pressure language
Generally quick approvals. AT&T leans on TCR's trust score and filters less aggressively than T-Mobile, but it still blocks unregistered traffic
Registration required for A2P traffic
Filtering algorithms that flag unregistered or suspicious traffic
Throughput aligned with TCR trust scores
Opt-out compliance strictly enforced. Every message has to include or honor STOP functionality
Straightforward review for registered brands
For a typical insurance agency running lead outreach and follow-up, a moderate-to-high trust score gives you plenty of room. If you're buying 500 leads a month and texting each one three to five times across a standard sequence, that's 1,500 to 2,500 messages a month, well inside standard limits.
Register properly, earn a solid trust score, and carriers deliver your messages reliably. Skip it, and every text is one filter away from disappearing.
The problem: Your business name on the TCR registration doesn't match your EIN records, state insurance license, or website. TCR flags the mismatch and either lowers your trust score or rejects the registration outright. This bites agencies that changed names, merged, or restructured without updating their IRS records.
The fix: Before you register, confirm your legal business name, EIN, and address are consistent across your tax records, state filings, and website. If you operate under a DBA, register your legal entity name, not the DBA. Verify your EIN against your most recent tax return so you have the exact legal name.
The problem: You describe your campaign as "texting customers" with no specifics. Carriers want clear descriptions that match your actual messaging behavior.
The fix: Get specific. Instead of "We text our leads," write: "We send automated outreach messages to consumers who submitted an insurance quote request through our website or a lead vendor. Messages confirm receipt of their inquiry, ask qualifying questions, and schedule a call with a licensed agent."
The problem: "Hi, this is an important message from our company" tells carriers nothing about what you actually send.
The fix: Write samples that read like real conversations. Example: "Hi Sarah, this is Mike from Apex Insurance. Your home insurance quote is ready. Are you free for a 10-minute call to review it this afternoon?"
The problem: You can't clearly show how consumers opted in. Even with the recent shifts around TCPA consent, carriers still expect documented opt-in flows in your campaign registration. "They called us" doesn't cut it.
The fix: Document and keep your consent mechanism up to date. For web leads, that means a clear disclosure on the form where the consumer enters their phone number. For vendor leads, confirm your provider's forms include SMS consent language. Keep proof: screenshots of web forms, the written consent language, or a description of your verbal consent script. Include it in your campaign registration and hold onto the records.
The problem: Some agencies cram lead follow-up, appointment reminders, billing alerts, and marketing into one mixed campaign, and carriers read mixed-use campaigns as higher risk. Others register a separate campaign for every tiny variation, creating compliance overhead for no real benefit.
The fix: Split genuinely different use cases into separate campaigns. A lead follow-up campaign and a policy renewal campaign should be registered separately. But if your campaigns do basically the same thing, consolidate into one mixed campaign instead of fragmenting.
The problem: If you run multiple agencies or DBAs, using a parent company's EIN for a subsidiary's campaigns creates verification problems.
The fix: Match your registration to the entity on your SMS provider account. Register the entity that actually sends the messages.
The problem: Your messages skip opt-out instructions, or your system doesn't honor STOP requests promptly. This is one of the fastest ways to get a campaign suspended.
The fix: Honor STOP, CANCEL, and UNSUBSCRIBE keywords automatically, every time. The moment someone opts out, your system stops messaging them. No exceptions, no delays.
The problem: Standard vetting hands a lot of small or new agencies a low trust score that strangles your throughput.
The fix: Budget $40-$50 for enhanced vetting through TCR. If you're texting hundreds or thousands of leads a month, the throughput bump pays for itself almost immediately.
The problem: Don't wait until your messages start getting filtered to begin registering. By then you've already lost leads and burned spend.
The fix: Start now, even at low volume. The process takes one to two weeks, and you want to be ready before you scale, not after.
On Mav, you don't have to figure out A2P 10DLC registration on your own.
Mav is built as an operating layer for insurance agencies, and compliance is part of how the system works, not something you bolt on after the fact.
Mav is set up for carrier-compliant operation from day one:
Opt-in and opt-out flows built into every conversation
Carrier-compliant message formatting that steers clear of spam triggers and content filtering
Onboarding support to get your registration squared away
Insurance-specific campaign structure aligned to lead follow-up, qualification, and appointment setting
You don't have to become an expert in carrier policy. Mav runs on industry-vetted playbooks that are built with compliance in mind from the start, and we have years of experience with registration, following proper consent laws, TCR submission, and industry standard best practices for texting.
The point is simple: convert more of the leads you already bought. Every text that gets blocked is a lead you paid for and never reached. Every delayed message is a speed-to-lead miss that costs you a quote.
With Mav handling compliance:
Your messages get delivered, to every major carrier, consistently
Your follow-up runs at the speed leads expect, with 30% higher lead conversion rates
Your cost per acquisition drops, 24% lower on average
You spend less time managing carrier policy and more time closing
Your time should go to the people who are ready to talk.
This is the difference between having a system and having a feature. Mav doesn't just send texts. It engages leads, qualifies interest, follows up consistently, and hands ready prospects to your agents. A2P 10DLC compliance is what keeps the whole thing running reliably.
Non-compliant texting is a call center with half the phone lines dead. You're paying for leads and staff and getting nothing back on half the effort. Mav handles the chasing. You handle the closing.
Reliable SMS delivery comes down to A2P 10DLC compliance. Without it, your texts get filtered and your lead spend leaks out the bottom.
The process is manageable: brand registration, campaign registration, vetting, carrier approval. It just rewards attention to detail, especially around business verification, campaign descriptions, and consent documentation.
If you'd rather skip the learning curve and get it right from day one, Mav builds compliance into the system. You launch in days, your messages land, and you start converting more of the leads you already buy, with 50% lower cost of service and 30% higher lead conversion rates.
Your time should go to people who are ready to talk. Mav handles everything that comes before that conversation.
A2P 10DLC stands for Application-to-Person messaging over 10-Digit Long Codes. It's the carrier-mandated system for registering business text messages sent from standard local phone numbers. Any time a business application texts a consumer, lead follow-up, appointment reminders, policy updates, that's A2P traffic, and it has to be registered.
Yes. If your agency sends any automated or semi-automated texts, through a CRM, texting platform, or lead follow-up system, you're sending A2P traffic and you have to register. This holds regardless of your volume. Even low-volume senders face filtering and surcharges without registration.
Plan on one to two weeks start to finish. Brand registration usually clears in minutes to a few business days. Campaign registration and carrier approval take another 1-7 business days. Enhanced vetting, if you request it, adds 1-5 business days.
Fees vary by provider, but typical costs include a one-time brand registration fee ($4-$10), a monthly campaign fee ($10-$25 per campaign), and optional enhanced vetting ($40-$50 one-time). Your SMS provider or platform may bundle these into your plan or pass them through separately.
Carriers will increasingly filter, throttle, or block your messages. Especially T-Mobile, which runs the strictest 10DLC enforcement. You may also pay higher per-message surcharges. The practical result: your leads don't get your texts, your contact rates fall, and you waste the money you spent acquiring those leads.
A2P 10DLC and TCPA are separate but related. TCPA is a federal law governing telemarketing calls and texts, including consent requirements. A2P 10DLC is a carrier-industry framework for registering business messaging. You need both: TCPA compliance for your consent practices and A2P 10DLC registration for carrier deliverability. Recent court decisions are changing how TCPA consent gets interpreted, but carrier-level A2P 10DLC requirements are unchanged.
Your trust score is assigned by The Campaign Registry based on your business verification, industry vertical, and campaign quality. It sets your throughput, how many texts you can send per second and per day. A higher score means higher limits and better deliverability. Agencies with verified EINs, clear use cases, and proper consent flows typically land a moderate-to-high score.
Yes. Your brand registration covers your business entity, and a single campaign registration can apply to multiple phone numbers as long as they share the same use case. You don't need to re-register every number in your agency.
You can, but it means working through TCR's portal, understanding campaign types, preparing compliant sample messages, and managing approval with each carrier. Most agencies find it easier to use a messaging platform that handles registration during onboarding. With Mav, A2P 10DLC registration is built into the launch process.
Mav is the AI-powered call center layer for insurance agencies. Convert more of the leads you already buy, with 50% lower cost of service and 30% higher lead conversion rates. Get Started
