Direct Brand US A2P 10DLC Onboarding Guide

US A2P 10DLC Overview

This “direct brand” guide is for companies who want to register their own business for A2P 10DLC messaging capabilities.

If you are an independent software vendor (ISV) undergoing this process for a client, please read our ISV US A2P 10DLC Onboarding Guide.

US Application-to-Person 10-Digit Long Code (A2P 10DLC) messaging is the latest offering from US carriers to help support the growing ecosystem of businesses texting their customers while protecting end-users from unwanted messages. 10-digit long codes have traditionally been designed for Person-to-Person (P2P) traffic only, causing businesses to be constrained by limited throughput and heightened filtering.

The launch and support of A2P 10DLC across all carriers in the United States provides good actors with increased deliverability and throughput, but also requires additional registration to build trust with carriers. There are associated fees with this registration process and also per-message carrier fees.

Please see our support article for associated fees.

It’s best to think of US A2P 10DLC in two main categories: routes, and registration. First, carriers prepare their routes ready for traffic on 10-digit long codes, after which they pass through additional fees per outbound message segment. Second, the carriers require that a message originator register their US A2P brand and messaging campaign use cases. Registered traffic immediately benefits from reduced filtering. Twilio has created a centralized process allowing customers to add and manage all necessary information via the Trust Hub.

Standard Brand vs. Starter Brand

Twilio offers two options for registering your business for US A2P 10DLC messaging: Starter Brand and Standard Brand registration. To determine which of these is best for you, you should primarily consider your current and expected messaging traffic volume.

Your business would be better suited for the Starter Brand if:

• You send fewer than 3,000 messages per day to the US
• You use at most five US 10DLC phone numbers to send messages to the US

In this guide, you will find a detailed explanation of how to register for as a Standard Brand. If your business needs do not surpass the limits of a Starter Brand, you can follow the Starter Brand Registration steps instead. You can also register for a Starter Brand and upgrade to a Standard Brand in the future if you outgrow the Starter Brand limits.

Direct Brand Standard Registration Steps

Onboarding your US A2P brand and campaign use cases typically requires a single day of work, involving form fills and click-throughs. After you complete this process, you will benefit from lower filtering. When increased rate limits launch, you will automatically inherit those capabilities.

Actions required (see below for step-by-step instructions):

• Within the Trust Hub in the Twilio Console, create a Twilio Primary Business Profile.
• Register a “US A2P brand” for US A2P10DLC capabilities.
• Register new campaign use case and link to a Messaging Service.

Pre-requisite: gather required information for A2P10DLC registration

Before you begin the registration process for A2P10DLC, collect the following information to ensure a smooth onboarding flow:

1. Create a Twilio Business Profile in Trust Hub

Within the Trust Hub in the Twilio Console, create your Twilio Business Profile. This step validates your business identity, and you will only need to do this once.

You will need to include:

• Under Business Details: the Business name.
• Under Business Address: the Business Address and other metadata.
• Under Business Information: the Business’ identity within the ecosystem, the Business type, ID, industry, website URL, and region information.

While registering your business information, you will also provide:

• Under Authorized Representatives: information about Authorized Representative(s) associated with your Business Profile.
• Under Notification Settings: an email address for notifications about the status of your Business Profile.

Make sure to review your business profile information under Review and Submit before submitting.

Business Profiles for Government agencies

Prior to brand registration, Government entities will still create a Business Profile as normal. We recommend that Government customers should choose Non-profit corporation from the Business Type dropdown, and Government from the Business Industry dropdown, as shown below:

Business Profiles for non-profits

Prior to brand registration, non-profit organizations will still create a Business Profile as normal. We recommend that non-profit customers should choose Non-profit corporation from the Business Type dropdown, and Not for Profit from the Business Industry dropdown:

2. Register your US A2P brand

Next, register your newly created Business Profile for A2P 10DLC capabilities by creating a US A2P brand. This step will register your business for US A2P10DLC capabilities, as well as calculate your Trust Score. For more information on Trust Scores, see below.

You will need to include:

• Your registered Business Profile (from Step 1).
• Your Company type and stock information (if public).

Once you hit the Register button, Twilio will submit your application for approval. Approval typically occurs within a few minutes of submitting.

Registration for Government agencies

To successfully register and unlock increased throughput, it is critically important that public sector customers select Government as their Company Type during registration:

Providing accurate information about your agency and selecting Government as the company type during brand registration will trigger automatic vetting of your organization. If confirmed by TCR as a Government entity, the above increased throughput will be applied.

Government agencies can begin to register with all Standard Campaign use cases, and will also be eligible for the Emergency Special Use Case. If you will be sending alerts that meet the definition of the Emergency use case, please see our support article on Special Use Cases for more information.

Registration for non-profits

To successfully register and unlock increased throughput, it is important that non-profit organizations select Non-Profit as their Company Type during registration:

Registering as a non-profit will ensure that you are able to qualify for special use cases that are reserved for non-profit entities. These special use cases offer additional pricing and/or throughput benefits.

When registering your brand with the Non-Profit company type, TCR will automatically perform vetting to confirm the specific non-profit tax status of your organization: for example, 501(c)(3), 501(c)(4). The specific 501c status will have an impact on which campaign use cases your non-profit will qualify for.

Examples of this are:

• 501(c)(3) non-profits will qualify for the Charity/501(c)(3) special use case, which will provide substantial discounts on A2P carrier fees.
• 501(c)(4), 501(c)(5), and 501(c)(6) non-profits will qualify for the Political special use case, which will provide increased messaging throughput for advocacy-related messaging.

Once you’ve registered your brand as a non-profit, you can move on to registering campaign use cases for non-profits.

Registration for 527 Political Organizations

Campaign Verify

All 527 Political Organizations including political action committees (PACs) sending political communications on behalf of a Federal, State, or Local political campaign must be verified by Campaign Verify in order to onboard successfully onto 10DLC and unlock the "Political" Special Campaign Use Case with increased messaging limits. Campaign Verify is a secure, non-partisan verification solution for U.S. Political organizations who wish to engage with voters via text messaging.

Listed below are some important pieces of information about Campaign Verify registration:

• There is a one-time $95 fee from Campaign Verify per entity verification per two-year election cycle.
• If a Committee EIN is set during Campaign Verify verification (for state, local, or tribal verification only), this EIN will be cross referenced with the EIN used to register your A2P brand and must match.
• If you have additional questions about Campaign Verify registration, please refer to their FAQ or email support@campaignverify.org

Campaign Verify Tokens

Verification will involve submitting information about your political organization to Campaign Verify, as well as verifying your identity as an authorized person associated with the political organization. Successfully importing a Campaign Verify token will assert your brand status as a verified 527 Political Organization with the carrier ecosystem.

After completing verification with Campaign Verify, you will receive a Campaign Verify Token (CV token) that you will then use during A2P 10DLC registration. A full CV token is composed of 6 pipe (|) delimited fields, for example:

cv|1.0|tcr|10dlc|9957c339-d46f-49b7-a399-2e6d5ebac66d|GQ3NMEjED8xSlaAgRXAXXBUNBT2AgL-LdQuPveFhEyy

Listed below are some important pieces of information about CV tokens:

• CV tokens expire after a period of time and will need to be periodically updated.
• A single Campaign Verify token cannot be imported or used across multiple brands. If a 527 organization is a customer of multiple text messaging providers that will each create an A2P brand on their behalf, a unique CV token will need to be generated and provided to each vendor.

Console Registration

In the TrustHub of the Twilio Console, providing a Campaign Verify token is done as part of the A2P brand registration step. You must select "Nonprofit" as your Company type on this screen. CV tokens will only be accepted for brands with this entity type. Then, select Yes to confirm that you are a registered 527 Political Organization. You will then need to paste your CV token to verify your Organization's identity.

API Registration

Alternatively to using the Console to register, you may use the ISV APIs to register your 527 Political Organization. Please note that you will still need your Campaign Verify Token in order to complete registration and unlock the "Political' special use case.

Important Notes on 527 Political Registration

As you register an A2P brand for your 527 Political organization, please note the following:

• 527 status will not be automatically detected and applied upon brand registration, unlike 501(c)(x) nonprofit and government entity verification. Importing the Campaign Verify token proves 527 status and activates the special A2P benefits for this entity type.
• Updating a Campaign Verify token after brand registration is currently only available via Twilio’s A2P APIs and not in the Twilio Console.
• Once a Campaign Verify token is imported, the A2P brand will qualify for the Political use case and all other standard use cases will be disabled.

Trust Score calculation

When you register your A2P Brand, you will receive a Trust Score that determines your long code messaging throughput to US networks as well as daily message limits with T-Mobile. To help ensure that you receive the highest possible throughput, Twilio provides an additional vetting process.

Automated Secondary Vetting

As a direct brand registering with a primary Business Profile, Twilio offers Automated Secondary Vetting and will automatically submit your brand for secondary vetting at no cost to you as part of the brand registration process. Secondary vetting is an automated additional review process which can lead to increased throughput and messaging limits. With Automated secondary vetting, you don’t have to take any additional action to benefit from this additional review process upon completing your US A2P brand registration.

For more information, please see our support article on Secondary Vetting for A2P 10DLC.

Submit your business data properly

In order to obtain the best possible Trust Score, you should provide accurate, up-to-date information. This includes:

EIN/Tax ID

All companies creating a Business Profile must provide their Tax ID. For non-US companies, a Tax ID from your respective country is preferred.

For private and public companies, the provided EIN and Legal Company Name has to match registration sources. The most common errors are:

• The incorrect name is added, including the name of the messaging provider, or a trade or fictitious name of the company instead of the official legally registered name.
• The number entered in the EIN field is not a valid EIN or home country company ID number.
• The DUNS number has been added into the EIN field.

The following information will help you prepare accurate US EIN and Tax ID information for review:

• For companies with presence in the US, a US EIN is required.
• For non-US companies, the number provided in the EIN/Tax ID field has to match any of the fully automated sources available.
• A Dun & Bradstreet DUNS number is accepted only if no tax number is available, or if you do not wish to register for US A2P messaging and only want to register for Shaken/Stir.
• For non-profit and political organizations, the EIN has to match the Legal Company Name available in the list of Tax-Exempt Organizations or Registered Political Organizations.

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For all entity types, a mismatch in one of the following may result in a lower Trust Score:

• Address/Street line
• 住所3(市区町村)
• State
• Postal Code/Zip Code
• Country

Submitting the address of a local branch or any address that is different from the official registered company address may produce a mismatch that lowers your Trust Score.

Stock ticker

Public companies’ stock ticker symbol and their designated stock exchange must match available sources. Available stock ticker values are:

• NONE
• NASDAQ
• NYSE
• AMEX
• AMX
• ASX
• B3
• BME
• BSE
• FRA
• ICEX
• JPX
• JSE
• KRX
• LON
• NSE
• OMX
• SEHK
• SGX
• SSE
• STO
• SWX
• SZSE
• TSX
• TWSE
• VSE
• OTHER

Other factors

The following factors will impact the Trust Score, but cannot be influenced by data submitted:

• Company size — For all companies, points are earned for the detected size of the company based on independent sources of employee count and revenue.
• Years in operation — All companies earn points for their years in operation and domain age.

3. Register your campaign use case(s)

Once you have created and registered your Business Profile and US A2P brand, it’s time to register a campaign use case for sending messages over A2P 10DLC routes.

Examples of campaign use cases are marketing messages and order confirmations. A specific US A2P brand — like the one you created in Step 2 — may have one or more campaign use cases associated with it, such as one for marketing notifications and another for order confirmations. However, the registration process is the same for each campaign use case that you create. For more information on campaign use cases, please see our Support FAQ on A2P 10DLC.

Campaign use case registration may take several minutes to complete. After that, any phone number within the connected Messaging Service will be identified as A2P 10DLC with the associated campaign use case; you should see lower filtering.

For more information on how to add a phone number to your Messaging Service, please read our PhoneNumber Resource API reference page.

You’ll need the following information for the campaign use case creation process:

• The Messaging Service to be associated with the campaign.
• The A2P use case type — you can view the full list in this List of Campaign Types.
• The use case description.
• Two sample messages, each up to 1024 characters long.
• At least one Twilio Phone Number to add to the Messaging Service’s Sender Pool.

You can purchase a Twilio Phone Number ahead of time by either visiting the Phone Numbers section of the Twilio Console or from the command line with the Twilio CLI:

twilio phone-numbers:buy:local --country-code US --sms-enabled

When you’re ready to register a campaign use case, decide whether you want to Create a new Messaging Service or Use an existing Messaging Service, then click Continue:

To register a campaign use case, you must link it to a Messaging Service. If you selected Create a Messaging Service on the last page, you wil need to create a Messaging Service by providing a memorable name, and select what you will be using the Messaging Service for:

Remember: each Messaging Service should map to a single campaign use case.

When you’ve finished editing your campaign use case, don’t forget to hit the Save and continue button.

In the Add Senders section, select the phone numbers to add to your Messaging Service Sender Pool. If you already have available numbers — those not attached to other Messaging Services — you can select them under Numbers available for association.

If you do not have any available numbers, click the Buy a new number link, which will take you to the Phone Numbers section of the Twilio Console to purchase one. Once you have purchased an SMS-capable number, you can return to the Trust Hub and reload the page.

In the Set Up Integration section, you will configure how your Messaging Service will integrate with your application and handle inbound messages. There are four options:

• Defer to sender’s webhook will use the HTTP webhook as defined for the given Phone Number (“sender”). This is default option.
• Drop the message will ignore incoming messages.
• Send a webhook will send an HTTP webhook request for incoming messages.
• Autocreate a Conversation will create new Conversations — please see Twilio Conversations Autocreation documentation for more details.

You also use this section to set up delivery status callbacks and set the validity period for unsent messages.

After hitting Save and continue, you’ll go to the Register Campaign Use Case screen. Here, you will need to enter:

• The A2P campaign use case.
• A description of the campaign use case.
• Two sample messages for the campaign use case.
• Select whether your messages will include embedded links and/or phone numbers.
• Agree to the terms and conditions, as well as the monthly carrier fees associated with your campaign use case.

Don’t forget to hit the Register campaign use case button at the end.

Once your campaign use case registration is approved, you will see an on-screen message indicating that your registration flow is complete:

At this point, you can register additional campaign use cases and view all of your registered US A2P brands.

Congratulations, you have successfully registered for US A2P Messaging capabilities by creating a Business Profile, submitting a US A2P brand, and registering a campaign use case associated with a Twilio Messaging Service!

Registering campaign use cases for non-profits

501(c)(3) organizations

501(c)(3) brands vetted by TCR will be able to register for the following 10DLC use cases:

• Charity/501(c)(3) — Communications from a registered 501(c)(3) aimed at providing help and raising money for those in need.
• Emergency — Notification services designed to support public safety/health during natural disasters, armed conflicts, pandemics, and other national or regional emergencies.

A majority of 501(c)(3)s should register using the Charity/501(c)(3) special use case, unless your messaging meets the definition of Emergency above. Charity/501(c)(3) is a dedicated campaign type for 501(c)(3)s that provides significant carrier fee discounts to support social impact messaging.

501(c)(4), 501(c)(5), and 501(c)(6) organizations

501(c)(4), 501(c)(5), and 501(c)(6) organizations will be able to register for the following 10DLC use cases:

• Political — Part of an organized effort to influence decision making of a specific group.
• Standard — For all other messaging that doesn’t meet the definition of Political or Emergency.
• Emergency — Notification services designed to support public safety/health during natural disasters, armed conflicts, pandemics, and other national or regional emergencies.

Any advocacy-related messaging should be registered using the Political special use case. Political campaigns will receive increased messaging throughput. 501(c)(4)s, 501(c)(5)s, and 501(c)(6)s will not be required to provide a Campaign Verify token to register with the Political special use case.

All non-political messaging should be registered with either standard use cases or the Emergency special use case.

Please see our support article for detailed information on fees and throughput for special use case types.

Other 501(c) Non-profit Designations

All other non-profit designations should register their campaigns using standard use cases.

527 Political Organizations

527 political campaigns, parties, or action committees are required to register their organization with Campaign Verify (CV) and provide a CV token during A2P brand registration before registering campaign use cases. See the "Register Your A2P Brand" section for more details on importing a Campaign Verify token.

A2P brands with a Campaign Verify token successfully imported will be treated as a 527 Political Organization — and receive the increased message limits afforded to these entity types. Once a Campaign Verify token has been imported, the brand will qualify for the "Political" special use case, and all other use cases will be disabled for the brand.

"Political" will be the only campaign use case under which verified 527 organizations will be able register their 10DLC messaging traffic. This is both so political organizations can take advantage of increased messaging limits associated with the Political campaign use case, and all messages from 527s are correctly categorized as political traffic.

Emergency Use Cases

Please Note: Emergency use case registration requires additional carrier approval.

K-12 Education Messaging Platforms

Note: Public, Private, Nonprofit, and Government entity types all qualify to register for the K-12 Education Use Case.

K-12 Education is a special use case for messaging platforms that support schools from Kindergarten through 12th grade (K-12). The K-12 Education use case includes increased throughput and pricing discounts and also requires additional carrier review (post approval) to ensure that the campaign you are registering meets the criteria defined for the K-12 Education use case. Refer to the Carrier Post-Approval section below to learn more about this additional review process.

A2P 10DLC Messaging Limits

For the K-12 Education use case, throughput will be enforced per phone number. Daily message caps on T-Mobile will depend on your brand score.

Please see this support article for more information on current campaign registration fees and messaging throughput for the K-12 Education Special Use Case.

Carrier Post-Approval

There are 6 Special Campaign Use Cases which require additional carrier review (post-approval) of all attempted registrations immediately following registration:

• Agents, franchise, local branches: brands that have multiple agents, franchises or offices in the same brand vertical, but require individual localized numbers per agent/location/office.
• Proxy (formerly Conversational): peer-to-peer app-based group messaging with proxy/pooled numbers.
• Emergency: notification services designed to support public safety/health during natural disasters, armed conflicts, pandemics, and other national or regional emergencies.
• Social: communication between public figures/influencers and their communities.
• Sweepstakes: all gambling and sweepstakes messaging.
• K-12 Education: Messaging platforms for grades K-12 and schools. Note: Post-Secondary institutions should continue to use the "Higher Education" use case.

Post-approval for these special use cases is required before the phone numbers on the campaign are registered for A2P 10DLC and before unlocking associated pricing or throughput benefits available. Carrier review for post-approval campaigns takes an average of 7 days.

Registering Post Approval Campaign Use Case

During the "Register Campaign Use Case" section of the registration process, click the Available A2P campaign use cases dropdown menu. The campaign use cases types that require post-approval are categorized as Requires Carrier Review:

Select your A2P campaign use case and continue with the setup process for your Messaging Service.

Monitoring Status of Post Approval Campaign

After registering a campaign requiring post-approval, your campaign will be updated with a status of "In Progress" while the carriers review it. Your traffic will not be moved to registered A2P routes until approved by carriers. If you are already sending messages using the associated Messaging Service on unregistered SMS routes, this will continue to function as normal in this state.

You will receive an email from Twilio with the results of the carrier review after it is completed. Carrier review takes an average of 7 days.

You will either be approved or rejected by the carriers.

If approved, your messaging traffic will be successfully registered on A2P routes in accordance with the pricing and throughput of the selected campaign type. Your campaign will be marked as "Verified" in the Console.

If rejected, you will have the opportunity to resubmit your campaign with a different use case that will be automatically approved by the carriers. Your campaign status will be marked as "Failed" in the Console.

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To learn more about US A2P 10DLC, please read the following resources:

• What is A2P 10DLC? (Support)
• List of campaign use case types for A2P 10DLC registration (Support)
• How do I register to use A2P 10DLC messaging? (Support)
• How to Send SMS Messages with Messaging Services