A2P 10DLC Registration

If you send text messages to US phone numbers from a 10-digit local number, the mobile carriers require you to register your business first. That registration is called A2P 10DLC. Until it is complete, your texts get filtered or blocked — and usually without an obvious error, so it looks like your customers are ignoring you when in fact they never received anything.

This article has two halves. Part 1 is carrier compliance — the same for every home-service business and every software platform, Rotor included. Part 2 is how registration works inside Rotor, where anything we can't confirm from Rotor's own documentation is flagged for you to check with support.

Part 1: What the carriers require

A2P means application-to-person — any message sent by software rather than typed on a handset. 10DLC is a 10-digit long code, the ordinary local number your customers see. AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile built the registry to cut down on spam and to know which business is behind every number sending automated traffic.

Registration ties your business, the number, and the kind of messages you send together in one record. Every provider — Rotor, your old CRM, a standalone texting app — submits the same information to the same registry.

Brand Registration vs. Campaign Registration

There are two separate approvals, and they get confused constantly.

• Brand registration — who you are. Legal business name, EIN, address, and contact details, checked against public records. Done once, and it produces a trust score.

• Campaign registration — what you send. A use case (customer care, marketing, mixed), sample messages, how customers opt in, and your opt-out handling.

One brand can have several campaigns, and every sending number attaches to a campaign. Brand approved but campaign not? You still can't send.

What you'll need to gather

Have all of this in front of you before you start. A single mismatched character in the business name is the most common cause of rejection.

• Legal business name — exactly as on your EIN letter, including punctuation and "LLC" or "Inc."

• EIN (federal tax ID)

• Business type — LLC, corporation, partnership, sole proprietor

• Legal business address — the registered address, not a job site or PO box

• Primary contact — name, business email, and phone

• Website or active social media page showing the business is real

• Two or three sample messages written out in full — a visit reminder and an on-my-way text, for example

• How customers opt in, plus proof: a link to (or screenshot of) the form where they check a consent box

If your business doesn't have an EIN yet, get one before you start. Rotor's Engagement guide is explicit that registration cannot be completed without it.

Opt-in, STOP, and HELP

Consent is the part carriers audit hardest. You need permission before the first message, and it has to be permission the customer actively gave — a checked box on your form, a signed agreement, or a reply to a message they started. Purchased lists are not consent.

Your templates also have to honor the standard keywords:

• STOP (with UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, and QUIT) opts the customer out. It is handled at the carrier level whether you build anything or not — but you must not message that person again.

• HELP must return your business name and a way to reach you.

• Identify yourself by business name in the first message of a conversation, and include "Reply STOP to opt out" in marketing messages.

Realistic Timelines

Brand vetting is usually fast — minutes to a day. Campaign approval is the slower half. Rotor's own guidance is that approval usually takes 2–3 days, sometimes up to a week. A rejection restarts the clock, so filling the form in carefully once beats resubmitting twice.

What happens if you skip it

• Filtering and blocking. The major carriers block unregistered application traffic to US mobile numbers, and delivery reports may still look fine on your end.

• Carrier violation fees. Carriers can charge per-message penalties for unregistered or non-compliant traffic, which get passed down to you.

• Damaged number reputation. A flagged number can keep having trouble even after you register, and occasionally has to be replaced.

Throughput and Daily Limits

Approval doesn't mean unlimited sending. Each brand gets a daily message allowance and a per-second send rate based on its trust score — a sole proprietor sits at the bottom of that range, a vetted LLC with a real website much higher. You notice it when you blast your whole customer list: the send is spread out rather than delivered at once. Rotor's Campaigns tool already batches large sends to protect deliverability.

Part 2: How registration works in Rotor

In Rotor, registration is part of setting up your texting number.

1. Go to Settings → Engagement.

2. In the Surge section, click the setup button. Rotor uses Twilio with Surge for texting and voice.

3. Complete the campaign registration form: EIN, legal business name (exactly as on your EIN letter), business type, legal business address, primary contact, and a website or social media page.

4. Choose an area code. If your preferred one isn't available, pick an alternative — support can check availability or change it later.

5. Save your progress at any point and come back.

Rotor supports multiple phone numbers, which helps if you run separate markets.

Proving consent with a Rotor web form

Registrars want to see the page where customers agree to be texted. Build it in Rotor:

1. Build a form under Forms → Web Forms and make the phone number field required.

2. Add a consent checkbox — this is the element registrars are looking for.

3. Save the form, copy its URL, and paste it into the phone registration section.

See Web Forms for how to build and publish the form itself.

How this relates to calling and porting

• Calling is separate. A2P 10DLC governs texting. Voice routing, voicemail, and call recording are configured on the same number, but registration is not what enables them — see Setting up calling and Mobile: Calling.

• Porting is separate too. Bringing your existing business line over is its own process — account number, transfer PIN, signed LOA, billing receipt, emailed to support — documented in Porting Numbers to Rotor.

• Register early. It is the long pole in getting texting live; templates, workflows, and campaigns are ready the moment approval lands.

Congratulations! You now know what A2P 10DLC registration requires, what to have ready before you start, and where to complete it in Rotor.

Have additional questions? Our team is ready to help you succeed. Contact us through the chat or drop us an email at support@getrotor.com.