Getting your A2P registration approved

Registrations are reviewed by humans at the messaging registry and the carriers, against a specific rubric. Declines cost time (each review round takes hours to days) and campaign fees are not refunded when a submission is declined — so it pays to get the first filing right. This guide is that rubric, distilled from carrier review guidelines and real review feedback.

The three sections mirror the three steps on the A2P / 10DLC page: brand → campaign → numbers.

1. Brand: your identity must match your tax records exactly

Brand verification is an automated check of your legal identity against government records. The #1 failure: the legal company name doesn't match the EIN character-for-character.

• Use the name exactly as it appears on your IRS CP-575 (EIN confirmation letter) — including punctuation, "LLC" vs "L.L.C.", and abbreviations. Not your DBA, not your brand name — those go in the display name field.
• The address should match your tax filings too.
• Your website must be live and working at submission time — a broken link or "coming soon" page fails review. It should have an accessible privacy policy.
• Public companies additionally need ticker, exchange, and a business contact email.
• Sole proprietors (no EIN) verify by SMS one-time code to a real mobile number, are limited to one phone number, and face lower throughput.
  Sole-proprietor campaign registration isn't self-serve in the dashboard yet — contact support and we'll file it with you.

If verification fails, fix the mismatch against your tax documents and resubmit — a failed brand resubmits without paying the fee again.

2. Campaign: what reviewers actually read

The use-case description — be boringly specific

Vague descriptions are the single most common decline. Reviewers want to know exactly who sends what to whom and why they signed up:

❌ "Notifications for our users."

✅ "Acme Dental sends appointment reminders and rescheduling confirmations to patients who booked an appointment and opted in to SMS reminders during online booking at acmedental.com."

One campaign = one coherent purpose. Don't mix marketing into a customer-care campaign — mixed traffic on a single registration is a top cause of both declines and post-approval suspensions.

Who is the sender? If you're a platform whose customers message their end users, each customer generally needs their own brand and campaign. Register your own campaign only for messages you send first-party.

The opt-in flow (message flow) — evidence, not assertion

Reviewers verify how subscribers consent, and they want to see it. The message-flow field must describe every opt-in method, and for web forms reviewers expect a publicly accessible URL (or a public screenshot link if the form lives behind a login) showing:

• A phone-number field, with an SMS-specific consent checkbox that is unchecked by default, optional (not required to submit), and separate from Terms & Conditions
• The full disclosure next to it, containing all of: your brand name, the message types, "Message frequency may vary", "Message and data rates may apply", "Reply STOP to opt out, HELP for help", and "We will not share mobile information with third parties for promotional or marketing purposes"
• Working links to your privacy policy and terms

A form that pre-checks the box, buries SMS consent inside general T&C acceptance, or requires consent to submit will be declined.

Sample messages — real, branded, with opt-out language

• 2–5 samples that look like the actual production traffic
• Every sample names your brand ("Acme: your order #123 shipped…")
• Promotional samples include "Reply STOP to unsubscribe"
• No public link shorteners (bit.ly, tinyurl, goo.gl) anywhere — an instant red flag. Use a full branded domain, and fill the sample link field so reviewers can see where it goes.
• Fill the privacy policy URL and messaging terms URL fields — reviewers weight them, especially for marketing use cases.

The auto-reply messages — use the expected shape

Reviewers check the three keyword responses against a known structure. Safe templates (adapt the bracketed parts):

• Opt-in confirmation (after START or your opt-in keyword): "[Brand]: Thanks for subscribing to [use case]! Reply HELP for help. Message frequency may vary. Msg&data rates may apply. Consent is not a condition of purchase. Reply STOP to opt out."
• Opt-out (after STOP): "[Brand]: You are unsubscribed and will receive no further messages."
• Help (after HELP): "[Brand]: Please reach out to us at [support email / phone / site] for help." — the contact must be real and reachable.

Saperly answers STOP/HELP/START automatically on your behalf, but the registered wording is what reviewers read — keep it in this shape.

Content that can't be registered (or needs special handling)

Carrier rules prohibit or restrict SHAFT content: sex, hate, alcohol, firearms, tobacco/vaping — plus cannabis and (without proper licensing) gambling and lending. Age-gated content must be flagged as such. If your traffic touches these areas, talk to support before filing; a decline for prohibited content is hard to appeal.

3. After you submit

• Review is human and takes time: registry intake is usually fast; the full carrier review runs from hours to several business days. Statuses advance automatically on the A2P page (with a daily reconciliation safety net) — Refresh gives you an on-demand pull.
• If declined: the reviewer's reasons appear on the campaign card. Edit the campaign, address every reason (they re-check all of them), and resubmit. A resubmission is a new registration and is charged again — one more reason to over-prepare the first filing.
• After approval: assign your numbers on the same page. Keep sending consistent with what you registered — traffic that doesn't match the registered use case is the top cause of post-approval suspension and carrier filtering.

Pre-submission checklist

• Legal name + EIN match the IRS CP-575 exactly
• Website live; privacy policy reachable
• Use-case description names sender, audience, content, and opt-in origin
• Opt-in form: unchecked, optional, SMS-specific checkbox + full disclosure + policy links, publicly viewable (URL or screenshot link in the message flow)
• 2–5 realistic samples, each naming the brand; promo samples carry STOP language
• No link shorteners; sample link + policy/terms URLs filled
• The three auto-replies follow the templates above
• No SHAFT/restricted content (or support looped in first)
• One purpose per campaign; sender is first-party

See also

• Compliance — consent, disclosures, and the 10DLC status lifecycle
• Messaging — sending once your number is assigned