A2P 10DLC campaign registration: use cases and fees

A campaign declares what you will actually send and why, registered against an already-registered brand. This covers every self-serve use case, the complete fee table, what carriers review in your message content, and the four special classes that require carrier approval outside our self-serve flow.

Prerequisite: a registered (or in-review) brand

You cannot register a campaign without a brand behind it. See Register an A2P 10DLC brandfirst if you haven't already. The campaign wizard lets you start drafting against a brand that is still mid-review, so you don't have to wait idle, but a campaign cannot be submitted to the registry until its brand reaches registered status.

Choose a use case

A use case is a declared category for what a campaign sends. Carriers use it to assign throughput and to review whether your sample messages and opt-in flow match what you claim you'll send. Every value below is the exact wire spelling TCR expects; picking the closest match rather than a technically-different one matters for review.

Standard use cases

All standard classes carry the same monthly fee.

Reduced-throughput, discounted classes

Two classes trade lower carrier-assigned daily throughput for a lower monthly fee. LOW_VOLUME is available to any brand; SOLE_PROPRIETOR is specifically for campaigns registered against a sole-proprietor brand and is priced at the same discount tier as LOW_VOLUME, never the standard-class rate.

Special classes: carrier approval required, contact us

The four classes below carry their own TCR eligibility gates: proof of nonprofit status, proof of government emergency-services status, political disclosure requirements, or a verified parent-brand relationship. None of these has a self-serve registration path today. We list them honestly rather than hide them or invent a price we cannot fulfill: if your traffic genuinely belongs to one of these classes, contact us instead of picking the closest standard use case as a workaround, since a use case that doesn't match your actual traffic is itself a common cause of carrier rejection.

Message content: sample messages and opt-in

Carriers review your declared use case against the actual content you plan to send. The campaign wizard collects:

• 1 to 5 sample messages: real examples of what you'll send under this campaign, not placeholder text. A live character counter and segment estimate help you see exactly what a recipient receives and how many SMS segments it costs.
• Opt-in flow: a description of how a customer agrees to receive texts, for example a checkbox at checkout, a keyword-based SMS opt-in, or a signup form disclosure. Carriers want to see affirmative, documented consent, not an assumed opt-in from an existing customer relationship alone.
• HELP and STOP handling: every campaign must support the standard HELP and STOP keywords. STOP opts a recipient out immediately and permanently for that campaign; carriers require this regardless of use case.

Submit and pay

Submitting a campaign charges the card on file for a one-time $39.00campaign setup fee plus the declared use case's monthly fee, prepaid three months upfront. After those first three months, billing switches to monthly. As with brand registration, the charge happens at submission, and is refunded automatically if the registry rejects the campaign. A draft that is never submitted is never charged.

What that totals at submission, by tier:

{
  "campaign": {
    "id": "cmp_9tR2kM7pQ4nX1sW6",
    "brandId": "brd_4kQ9mN2pT7sX1cW8",
    "status": "submitted",
    "useCase": "ACCOUNT_NOTIFICATION",
    "sampleMessages": [
      "Your order #4471 has shipped and will arrive Thu, Jul 30.",
      "Reminder: your appointment with Acme Studio is tomorrow at 2pm."
    ],
    "optInFlow": "Customers check a box at checkout: 'Text me order updates.' Opt-in is logged with timestamp and IP.",
    "helpStopEnabled": true,
    "createdAt": "2026-07-26T14:10:00.000Z",
    "updatedAt": "2026-07-26T14:10:00.000Z"
  }
}

The exact numbers above (fees, upfront months) are the live schedule your workspace is billed against. Fetch it directly if you're integrating registration programmatically rather than hardcoding these figures; the dashboard's own fee table reads the same endpoint. See the Campaigns API reference for the endpoint shape.

Campaign status and throughput

A submitted campaign moves through submitted → pending_dca (carrier review) → active, or rejected with a reason. A number only sends real A2P SMS once its attached campaign reaches active; attaching a number to a still-pending campaign is allowed so you can prepare ahead, but sends are gated until the campaign clears review. Actual carrier throughput (how fast AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon accept your messages) is assigned by the carriers based on your brand's trust score and the campaign's vetting status, not something we set directly.

Next steps

• Register an A2P 10DLC brand: the prerequisite step, including the sole-proprietor path.
• What is A2P 10DLC?: why this registration exists at all.
• Verify API: a hosted alternative for one-time codes if you don't need to run your own registered sending campaign.