As of March 1, 2022 (3/01/2022) the US telecom carriers will begin issuing fines and penalties for violations of messaging policy under their A2P-10DLC SMS and messaging program. This article provides information on those types of fines and penalties, and your obligations under ActiveCampaign’s Terms of Services (TOS) and Acceptable Use Policies (AUP) and the 10DLC registration program. As a customer of ActiveCampaign sending SMS messages, you will be responsible for payment of any fines or penalties issued to your account.
If you plan to subscribe contacts from within the United States, make sure you have completed 10DLC registration by August 14, 2023 to avoid any lapse in SMS sending. You can register after this date, but you will not be able to send SMS to US users until the 3rd party approves the 10DLC registration.
Take Note
- ActiveCampaign accounts purchased or upgraded on or after January 3, 2023 must purchase the SMS Add-on to use SMS
- ActiveCampaign accounts purchased or upgraded before January 3, 2023:
- Plus and Professional plans receive 25 free SMS credits per month
- Enterprise plans receive 1,000 free SMS credits per month
A2P 10DLC review
All ActiveCampaign Customers who wish to send SMS/Text Messages to recipients with U.S. phone numbers are required to go through an industry-standard registration process referred to as A2P 10DLC. This process is a required compliance process introduced by the US telecom carriers and will have a significant impact on reducing text message spam and fraud – a challenge a lot of customers face today. For more information about A2P 10DLC with ActiveCampaign, please visit How to register for A2P 10DLC in ActiveCampaign or FAQs and Glossary for A2P 10DLC.
Content Violations
US telecom carriers are imposing fines per violation (some could be as high as $10,000) for content violations which include:
- Content that contains spam
- Phishing
- SHAFT violations (Sex, Hate, Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco).
These types of content violate ActiveCampaign’s AUP, TOS, and Consent agreements, which all govern your use of ActiveCampaign’s SMS service.
Messaging Program Evasion
US telecom carriers are imposing fines of up to $1,000 per violation for businesses that engage in tactics like snowshoeing and recycling numbers. For reference, snowshoeing is spreading similar or identical messages across many phone numbers with the intent or effect of evading unwanted messaging detection and prevention mechanisms. Recycling numbers is the practice of systematically releasing and/or purchasing new numbers.