Toll-free SMS verification, step by step
To text customers from a toll-free number, verify it with the carriers. On TextKit you give your legal business name, EIN, registered address and what you send; we fill in the rest of the form from your website, a person on our team checks it (usually the same business day), and we file it with the carriers. Approval usually takes days, sometimes weeks. There is no verification fee.
How it works
- Buy a toll-free number (800, 833, 844, 855, 866, 877 or 888) in the console.
- Open Numbers → Toll-free verification. Give your legal name, EIN, address and use case. We read your website's public pages and fill in your brand, contact, program description, volume, HELP and STOP replies and example messages. Everything stays editable.
- Sign for the business once: your name, your title and a short statement that you can act for it.
- We check the form, usually the same business day. Nothing goes to the carriers until a person has looked at it.
- We file it with a screenshot of your opt-in page. Carrier questions come to us; we answer what we can and forward what only you can answer.
- You are told when it is approved. The number then texts anyone who opted in, and its texts name your business.
Until it is approved, the number texts your own verified numbers, so you can build and test meanwhile.
Toll-free or 10DLC?
| Toll-free | 10DLC (local number) | |
|---|---|---|
| What the carriers review | Each number | The business and the campaign, once |
| Registration fees | None | Brand, vetting and monthly campaign fees (Terms §4.3) |
| Carrier fee per segment | $0.0035 to $0.005 | $0.0035 to $0.005 |
| More numbers later | Each new number gets its own form, copied from your last one | Up to 49 numbers join an approved registration with no new review |
| Looks like | A business line | A local number |
Common reasons a form is sent back
- The privacy policy has no SMS clause (opt-in data is not shared with third parties).
- The opt-in page is missing "Msg & data rates may apply", or has a pre-checked consent box.
When the carriers send a form back, the reason comes with it. Fix it and submit again.
Sending something else
An approved verification cannot be changed. To send something it is not verified for (marketing from a number verified for codes, say), add another toll-free number: its form starts as a copy and you pick the new use case.
By API
POST /v1/toll-free-verifications, then PATCH until ready is
true, then POST /v1/toll-free-verifications/{id}/submit. Every form is
still checked by a person before it reaches the carriers. Details in
Numbers: toll-free verification by API.