Toll free verification: what carriers ask for, how long it takes, why it is rejected

Apply with the details exactly as they appear on your business registration, a working website that names your business, sample texts that start with your brand and read like what you will really send, and a link to the page where people agree to your texts. Expect a decision in about 1 to 5 business days. If it is rejected, the reason tells you which part to correct, and you resubmit the same number.

On Rasket the first toll-free number is included on paid plans and each extra one is $2 a month. The verification itself costs nothing extra. Texts are billed per message, $0.015 on Pro, and a failed text is never billed.

Toll-free numbers were built for calls. When they started carrying texts, they also started carrying spam: a number that anyone could rent and point at thousands of phones is exactly what a scammer wants. CTIA, the US wireless industry association, publishes the guidelines the carriers hold business texting to. Its Messaging Principles and Best Practices give text-enabled toll-free numbers their own section and ask every business sender to get consent, honour opt-outs and say who they are.

Verification is how the carriers enforce that before the first text rather than after the complaints. A verified number is tied to a named business with a stated purpose, so traffic that does not match it can be traced back to someone. An unverified number is blocked outright, which is why there is no grace period in which to send a few texts while you wait.

It also sits beside the law rather than replacing it. In the US, marketing texts sent by software need the recipient’s prior express written consent under the FCC’s TCPA rules (47 CFR § 64.1200), and a verified number does not change that. Verification is the carriers asking you to show you already follow those rules.

Every toll-free verification asks the same five kinds of question. On Rasket they are the two blocks of the request that buys the number, and the dashboard’s Get a number screen asks them in the same order.

This is the part reviewers read most closely, because it is the part that decides whether people wanted your texts. CTIA’s guidelines separate three kinds of text: conversational (the person texted first), informational (they gave you their number and asked to hear from you, such as for order updates) and promotional. For promotional texts, the guidelines say the person should agree in writing first.

A page that passes shows, in one place:

• the phone number field;
• an unticked checkbox, separate from any terms of service or email consent;
• the wording people agree to: your business name, what you will text, roughly how often, that message and data rates may apply, and how to stop (reply STOP) or get help (reply HELP);
• links to your privacy policy and terms.

The page must be one a reviewer can open. If your opt-in happens behind a login, at a till, or on a paper form, describe it in the opt-in description and attach a screenshot or photo of it. A checkout page with a texting box is fine; a page that pre-ticks the box is not.

Rasket’s own sign-up forms have a Phone step whose wording cannot be edited, and can ask people to reply Y to confirm, which is double opt-in for texts. Every change of a contact’s SMS consent is recorded with the page, the exact wording shown and the time, so you can show a reviewer or a regulator what each person agreed to. Consent and STOP has the details, and double opt-in for email explains why confirming is worth the extra step.

Review usually takes 1 to 5 business days. On Rasket the number is in_review during that time, and every admin on the team gets an email when the decision lands. An application the carriers are reviewing cannot be withdrawn; you wait for the answer.

You do not have to wait to build. While your own number is in review, Rasket sends test texts to your team’s verified phones from a shared test number that has its own toll-free verification. Add up to 10 phones, confirm each with a 6-digit code, and every test text arrives with [Test] in front. That is enough to finish an integration, check what your texts look like on a real phone, and write a campaign so it is ready to send on approval.

1. Verify your own phone as a test phone in Settings → SMS, or with the API.
2. Send a text to it from your code or the dashboard. It comes from the shared test number.
3. Read its status and cost back, and wire up the SMS webhooks your product needs.
4. When the number is approved, the same calls start reaching your customers.

On the Free plan the same test texts are how you try SMS at all: 50 a month to your own phones, no number needed. Texts to anyone else need a paid plan and a verified number of your own. The Get a number guide lists every status a number moves through.

A refusal arrives with the carriers’ reason, and Rasket translates it into one of a handful of plain reasons, each with the fields most likely to need fixing. These are the ones that come up, and what to change.

A toll-free verification rejected for any of these is corrected and sent again for the same number; you do not buy a new one, and toll-free number verification starts from what you already sent rather than from a blank form. Rasket includes three resubmissions after a rejection, and more go through support. A rejected application can also be canceled, which keeps the number in testing until you send it again.

Some businesses cannot be approved however the form is filled in. Carriers do not accept high-risk lending, debt collection, lead generation, gambling, cannabis, or texts sent on behalf of other companies. Rasket refuses the clearest of those when you apply, rather than let you wait days for the carriers to say no.

Approval covers the business and the use you described. Sending something else from the number, such as marketing from a number verified for order updates, is the quickest way to have it suspended. The rules that keep it in good standing are the ones the application promised:

• Text only people who agreed, and for marketing only people who agreed to marketing texts.
• Start every text with your brand. Rasket adds the brand prefix when a text does not already start with it.
• End marketing texts with “Reply STOP to opt out”. Rasket adds it and locks it in the composer.
• Honour STOP at once. Rasket stops every text from your team to that phone, and answers HELP with your business name and how to stop.
• Send marketing between 8 am and 9 pm in the recipient’s time zone, or the shorter hours some states set, and no more than one marketing text to a phone in any 16 hours. Rasket holds both rules for you.

If your use changes, for instance you start sending marketing from a number approved for transactional texts, update the application before you send. Transactional vs marketing email draws the same line for email, and the line is in the same place for texts.

Rasket fills in as much of the application as it can know, and never guesses the rest.

• Prefilled: the website from your first verified sending domain, and the address and tax ID from your account’s billing details.
• Drafted for you to edit: the brand name, two or three sample texts for the use you chose, and the opt-in description.
• Never guessed: the legal name, the kind of entity, the industry, the contact person and the opt-in page. A wrong guess there is a rejection, so you type them.
• Shown before you submit: what is still missing, so the application does not go out incomplete.

From there it is the flow above: the number is bought, the application goes to the carriers, you test from the shared number while it is reviewed, and you get an email when it is decided. If it is refused, the reason and the fields to fix are on the number in SMS → Numbers, and resubmitting is one click once they are corrected. The same steps work through the API for teams that provision numbers from code.

Texts from the number use the same API key, contacts, webhooks and logs as your email. The SMS feature page shows what a text costs on each plan and how it appears in the API, and the plans page covers the rest of what each plan includes. If you are still choosing between channels, SMS vs email marketing compares the two.