A2P 10DLC is the registration system U.S. carriers require before a business can text customers from a regular 10-digit number. For insurance agencies, it's mandatory. If you're not registered, your follow-up texts can get filtered or blocked before a lead ever sees them, which quietly burns the lead spend you already paid for.
You buy a lead, you text it in the first minute, and the message never lands. The prospect fills out three other forms, talks to the agency that actually reached them, and binds elsewhere. You never find out why. The lead just went cold.
A lot of the time, the lead was fine. Your texts got silently gatekept by the carriers, because your numbers weren't registered under A2P 10DLC.
Texting is how you reach leads now. People screen calls from unknown numbers, but they read their texts. So when your SMS follow-up gets throttled or dropped at the carrier level, you lose contact rate on leads you're still paying full price for.
This guide walks through what A2P 10DLC is, what carriers require, how registration works step by step, and where agencies get tripped up. If you'd rather have the compliance work handled for you, we'll cover that too.
A2P 10DLC stands for Application-to-Person 10-Digit Long Code.
A2P means messages sent from an application or automated system to a person, rather than one human thumb-typing to another. Your CRM firing off a follow-up text is A2P. A producer texting a client from a personal phone falls outside it.
10DLC is a standard 10-digit local phone number, the same format your agency already uses, as opposed to a short code or a toll-free number. A2P 10DLC is the framework carriers use to approve and monitor business texting sent over those everyday local numbers.
If your agency sends texts through a CRM, a dialer, or a texting platform, those messages are A2P traffic, and they need to be registered.
Carriers built A2P 10DLC to cut down on spam and give legitimate businesses a clear lane. Registration runs through The Campaign Registry (TCR), the central body that vets brands and campaigns for the major U.S. carriers.
When you register, you get a trust score. That score, along with your registered use case, sets your throughput: how many messages per second the carriers will let you send. Higher trust, higher throughput, better delivery. Unregistered or poorly registered traffic gets filtered, throttled, or blocked outright.
So treat this as load-bearing. Clean registration is what stands between your texts landing and your texts disappearing.
Insurance runs on speed-to-lead and consistent follow-up, and both of those depend on text. If your messages don't deliver, your whole follow-up engine leaks.
Skipping registration, or registering badly, costs you in ways that show up straight in your numbers:
Undelivered messages that never reach the lead, with no bounce-back to tell you.
Wasted lead spend, because you're paying for leads you then can't actually contact by text.
Lower contact rates across your whole book, since text is often the only channel that connects.
Per-message carrier fees and filtering penalties on unregistered traffic.
Reputation damage when your number gets flagged as spam and stops delivering for everyone.
Every one of those is a leak in the money you already spent to get the lead in the door.
The rules around business texting keep moving, and agencies feel it. The way TCPA consent rules apply keeps shifting as courts and the FCC rework them, which is exactly why documenting how you collect opt-in still matters. In May 2026, the FCC dismissed 11 long-pending TCPA-related petitions, clearing dormant docket items without taking new action on consent.
Here's the part agencies miss. None of that federal activity changes carrier-level A2P 10DLC enforcement. Registration is a carrier requirement, separate from TCPA, and it's fully in force regardless of how the FCC petitions shake out. You need both: documented consent under TCPA, and registered traffic under A2P 10DLC.
This is compliance territory, so take the conservative position and loop in your own counsel or compliance review on anything specific to your agency. Treat this guide as operational background, not legal advice.
Registration goes faster when you have your details ready. Gather these before you begin.
Your legal business name, matching exactly what's on file with the IRS.
Your EIN (federal tax ID).
Your physical business address.
Your website URL.
A business phone number and email.
A description of your use case (what you'll text leads and clients about).
Sample messages that reflect what you'll actually send.
Your opt-in method (how leads consent to receive texts).
Your opt-out instructions (how they stop, usually "Reply STOP").
You register through an SMS provider. That can be a carrier aggregator like Twilio, Bandwidth, or Sinch, or a platform like Mav that handles the registration and the messaging in one place. Either way, the brand and campaign details above are what feed the registration.
Registration moves through four stages. Here's what each one involves and where agencies should pay attention.
First you register your brand with The Campaign Registry. This is where your business identity gets verified: legal name, EIN, address, and contact details.
Register through The Campaign Registry or your provider. For agencies, the tip that saves the most rework is simple: make your legal name and EIN match your IRS records character for character. A mismatch here is the single most common reason a brand gets rejected or scored low, and it's completely avoidable.
Once your brand is approved, you register a campaign, which describes the kind of messaging you'll send. Campaigns fall into use-case types like Mixed, Marketing, and Customer Care.
Common insurance use cases include quote follow-up, appointment and renewal reminders, policy servicing, and re-engagement of aged leads. Some of those are transactional, some are promotional, and carriers evaluate them differently, so map your messaging to the right campaign type instead of lumping everything together.
What you submit for a campaign: a clear use-case description, real sample messages, your opt-in and opt-out language, and how consent is collected. Specific beats generic every time here.
After submission, your campaign gets vetted and your brand gets a trust score. That score drives your throughput.
What affects your score: the completeness and accuracy of your brand info, your business's track record and public footprint, and the clarity of your campaign and consent flows.
Trust score tiers and roughly what they mean for throughput:
High (75-225+ messages per second): strong delivery, room to scale.
Medium-High (40-75 messages per second): solid for most agencies.
Medium (15-40 messages per second): workable, some headroom concerns at volume.
Low (1-15 messages per second): limited, and a sign something in your registration needs fixing.
If you land low, you can improve it. Tighten your brand accuracy, clean up your campaign description and consent flow, and consider enhanced vetting through a third-party evaluator, which typically runs $40-50 and can raise your score and throughput.
Finally, the individual carriers approve your registered campaign and activate it on their networks. Brand and campaign registration often clears within a few business days, though carrier activation timelines vary and can stretch longer during periods of high volume. Once activated, your registered numbers are cleared to send at your assigned throughput.
Want to know exactly what each carrier expects? Here's where the three majors stand on A2P 10DLC.
T-Mobile runs the strictest program. It enforces daily message caps tied to your trust score and is the quickest to filter traffic that looks unregistered or spammy. Clean registration matters most here.
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
AT&T ties throughput directly to your trust score tier, so a higher score translates fairly directly into more messages per second on its network.
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
Verizon applies its own filtering and per-campaign review, and expects your registered use case to match what you actually send.
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 agency, these limits are not the constraint you might fear. Run the math. Say you buy 500 leads a month and send 3 to 5 texts per lead across your follow-up cadence. That's 1,500 to 2,500 messages a month, well within even a Medium-tier throughput allowance.
The throughput ceilings mostly bite very high-volume senders. For most agencies, the real risk is getting filtered because the registration was sloppy. Get registered cleanly and you're protecting delivery, which is what actually reaches your leads.
Most registration problems trace back to a handful of avoidable mistakes. Here are the ones that trip up agencies most.
1. Mismatched business info. The problem: your legal name or EIN doesn't match IRS records, so the brand gets rejected or under-scored. The fix: copy your details straight from your IRS paperwork, exactly as written.
2. Vague campaign descriptions. The problem: a description too thin for carriers to understand what you send. The fix: describe your actual messaging in plain, specific terms, including the insurance use case.
3. Generic sample messages. The problem: placeholder samples that don't reflect real traffic. The fix: submit the messages you'll actually send, personalization tokens and all.
4. Missing or weak consent flows. The problem: no clear record of how leads opt in. The fix: document your opt-in method and make it verifiable, since consent is where TCPA and carrier review overlap.
5. One campaign for everything, or too many campaigns. The problem: cramming marketing and servicing into one campaign, or fragmenting into dozens. The fix: map campaigns to distinct use cases, keeping marketing and transactional traffic separated.
6. Registering with the wrong entity. The problem: registering under a DBA or personal name instead of the legal business. The fix: register the legal entity that matches your EIN.
7. Ignoring opt-out compliance. The problem: not honoring STOP requests, which carriers and TCPA both penalize. The fix: process opt-outs automatically and immediately on every campaign.
8. Skipping enhanced vetting when you need it. The problem: living with a low trust score and throttled delivery. The fix: pay for enhanced vetting ($40-50) to lift your score when your standard registration comes back weak.
9. Waiting until you have a problem. The problem: discovering you're unregistered only after delivery tanks. The fix: register before you scale texting, not after your numbers are already flagged.
Plenty of agencies already send texts through GoHighLevel, Podium, or raw Twilio. Those are capable messaging tools. Here's the part that catches owners off guard: using them doesn't make the A2P 10DLC work go away. It just leaves it on your desk.
With any of those self-serve platforms, you're still the one who completes brand and campaign registration. You own your trust score. You write the compliant sample messages, you set up the opt-in and opt-out handling, and you manage the rejections and carrier fees when something comes back wrong. They give you the pipes. The compliance work stays with you.
Mav is built for insurance, and it folds registration into onboarding so the work stays on our side. Opt-in and opt-out flows and carrier-compliant message formatting are built into every conversation Mav runs, and the campaign structure is set up around insurance use cases from the start. You're not learning The Campaign Registry's rules on a Tuesday night. That work is handled as part of the system.
GoHighLevel, Podium or Twilio (Self Serve) | Mav | |
|---|---|---|
Who completes brand + campaign registration | You submit yourself | Handled by Mav during onboarding |
Who owns the trust score and rejections | You own and manage | Managed as part of the system |
Opt-in & opt-out handling | You configure and maintain | Built into every conversation |
Carrier-compliant message formatting | Your responsibility to get it right | Built in by default |
Insurance-specific campaign structure | You design it from generic templates | Structured for insurance from the start |
What you manage vs what's handled | Compliance burden stays with your agency | Compliance handled as part of the operating layer |
The honest difference comes down to where the work lives. GoHighLevel, Podium, and Twilio are messaging tools, so the registration and compliance load stays with your agency. Mav is an operating layer built for insurance, so that load comes off your team.
How Mav Handles A2P 10DLC Compliance
Compliance is only useful if your texts actually land. That's the whole reason Mav builds it in rather than bolting it on.
Mav handles the pieces that trip up self-registration. Opt-in and opt-out flows are built into every conversation, so consent gets captured and STOP gets honored automatically. Message formatting follows carrier-compliant standards by default. Onboarding includes the registration support to get your brand and campaigns set up correctly the first time. And because Mav is built for insurance, your campaign structure is organized around real insurance use cases you can use right away.
You can dig into the details in our Compliance Center.
Clean compliance protects the money you've already spent. When your traffic is registered correctly, your messages get delivered to leads on every major carrier instead of getting filtered on the way. That means your follow-up actually reaches people, at speed, every time a lead comes in.
That reliability shows up in results. Mav customers see a 30% higher lead conversion rate and a 24% lower cost per acquisition. Delivery that you can count on is a big part of why.
Compliant delivery is wired into how Mav engages, qualifies, and follows up. You get consistent, carrier-cleared text follow-up on every lead, and your producers get live transfers of the prospects who are ready to talk. Mav does the chasing so your licensed agents can do what they do best: advising and closing.
Texting is how you reach the leads you pay for, and A2P 10DLC decides whether those texts land. Skip registration and your follow-up leaks silently, draining contact rate and lead spend you can't get back. Register cleanly and you protect the whole engine.
You can absolutely handle A2P 10DLC yourself. Register your brand, register your campaigns to the right use cases, keep your details matched to your IRS records, document consent, honor every opt-out, and stay ahead of carrier rules that keep shifting. Done right, it works.
Or you can let Mav handle it as part of the system. Mav builds compliance into every conversation, gets your registration right during onboarding, and keeps your text follow-up delivering across every carrier, so your producers spend their time closing instead of managing a call center. Mav customers see a 50% lower cost of service, a 30% higher lead conversion rate, and a 24% lower cost per acquisition.
Forget wrestling with The Campaign Registry on your own. Get Started and let Mav handle it.
What Does A2P 10DLC Stand For?
Application-to-Person 10-Digit Long Code. It's the system carriers use to approve and monitor business texts sent from standard 10-digit local numbers.
Is Registration Required For Insurance Agencies?
Yes. If your agency sends automated or application-based texts to leads and clients, that traffic has to be registered. Unregistered messages get filtered, throttled, or blocked.
How Long Does Registration Take?
Brand and campaign registration often clears within a few business days, but carrier activation can take longer, especially during high-volume periods.
How Much Does 10DLC Registration Cost?
Expect roughly $4-10 for brand registration, $10-25 per month per campaign, and $40-50 if you opt into enhanced vetting to raise your trust score.
What Happens If I Send Texts Without Registering?
Your messages get filtered or blocked at the carrier level, often with no notice to you. Your number can get flagged as spam, which hurts delivery going forward.
How Does A2P 10DLC Relate To TCPA?
They're separate. TCPA governs consent to contact people; A2P 10DLC is a carrier registration requirement. You need documented consent under TCPA and registered traffic under A2P 10DLC.
What Is A Trust Score?
A rating assigned during vetting that reflects how trustworthy your registered traffic is. It sets your throughput, so a higher score means better delivery and more messages per second.
Can I Use The Same Registration For Multiple Phone Numbers?
Yes. You can associate multiple numbers with a registered campaign, so your team can send from several numbers under one approved registration.
Can I Register On My Own?
Yes. You can register directly through a provider like Twilio, Bandwidth, or Sinch. It's doable, but the registration, trust score, and ongoing compliance are all on you.
Do I Still Have To Register For A2P 10DLC If I Use GoHighLevel, Podium, Or Twilio?
Yes. Those platforms still require you to register your brand and campaigns and own your compliance and trust score. Mav is different: it handles registration during onboarding and builds compliance into every conversation.
Do I Need Separate Campaigns For Marketing And Transactional Texts?
Generally yes. Carriers evaluate promotional and transactional messaging differently, so mapping them to separate campaigns keeps your delivery clean and your registration accurate.
Last Updated: July 9 2026
