10DLC Set-up and Requirements for SMS

This page is part of the NOVA Manager Portal section.

What is 10DLC?

10DLC stands for “10 digit long code”. Also known as “commercial long codes”, these phone numbers are the new standard in A2P (Application-to-Person) text messaging for many organizations.

A2P 10DLC is the new standard for businesses to send messages in the United States. The larger carriers have all come to an agreement that any business will be considered A2P whether they are using application-to-person for the case of messaging.

To build trust with these carriers, businesses will have to register their brands and campaigns with a central organization called (TCR) The Campaign Registry [1].

Carriers and their role in 10DLC

• Verizon launched their 10DLC program in February 2020 without a pre-registration requirement for A2P senders.
• AT&T 10DLC registration process was available by the end of April 2021.
• T-Mobile’s 10DLC route went live in April, 2021.

Since March 1, 2023 the carriers agreed to start enforcing the new rules and started to drop unsigned text messaging. This caused a massive influx of providers to sign up for messaging campaigns at the same time and has more than tripled the wait time for getting new campaigns approved

Vested Networks and Messaging

Vested Networks [2] serves the CSP (Campaign Service Provider) role and will collect your business's data and submit it to the campaign registry on your behalf. Our team has spent months navigating the rule set and requirements necessary for campaign submission so that you don't have to. The Brand setup fee and monthly Campaign costs come included with your Vested Networks service.

10DLC throughput is set at 1 message per second (MPS). This is good for most business texting use cases. Because of the new registration requirement and the additional fees, 10DLC throughput will be vary but more than 1 MPS.

10DLC Fee by Mobile Carriers

The fee varies among the mobile carriers. This is an extra fee which does not exist previously.

Verizon: outgoing SMS the surcharge is $.00255 and for MMS it is $.0052.

AT&T: all outgoing SMS incur a $.002 surcharge and all outgoing MMS traffic will incur a $.0035 surcharge.

T-Mobile: T-Mobile charges $.003 for Inbound and Outbound SMS beginning on April 1, 2021. T-Mobile charges $.01 for Inbound and Outbound MMS beginning on April 1, 2021.

What does this mean to our business texting customers?

As business texting gets more popular, it is natural for mobile carriers to charge the extra fee and regulate the industry. Overall, this is a good change which allows A2P 10DLC texting industry to be healthy in the long run.