How does 10DLC affect my messaging?

This article details how the new messaging standard known as 10DLC will affect sending messages with Hustle.

For more information about 10DLC, see What is 10DLC?

Skip to:

• How many messages can I send on 10DLC?
• What does the TCR score do?
• How do carriers affect throughput?
  •  T-Mobile's daily throughput
  • AT&T's sending speed:
  • Verizon and all other carriers:
• How do campaign use cases affect throughput?
  • Standard campaign throughput
  • Special campaign throughput
• Frequently Asked Questions
  • What is a message segment?

How many messages can I send on 10DLC?

The answer to this question is influenced by a number of factors:

• The Carrier of the message recipient
• The use case of the TCR Campaign sending the traffic 
• The brand's TCR Score of the brand

This article will explain how each factor influences the amount of messages you can send and at what speed.

What does the TCR score do?

When a brand is registered with The Campaign Registry (TCR), its details are reviewed by additional third parties called Vetting Partners. 

• Most entities will receive a score of 0-100 from based on the Vetting Partner's review. This score is used by Carriers to determine how an entity's message throughput.
• Political Candidates, Parties, PACs and 527s will be vetted by Campaign Verify (CV). CV does not return a "score". Instead, Brands that have been successfully vetted using a Campaign Verify token will be marked as Active. Brands that register with Campaign Verify tokens will not have a TCR score. Throughput will be determined by the limits of the Political campaign special use case.

Message throughput defines how many messages can be sent in a given amount of time. Each Carrier decides throughput in different ways but in general, the​ higher your TCR score, the higher your messaging throughput will be with select carriers.

How do carriers affect throughput?

 T-Mobile's daily throughput

For most entities, T-Mobile enforces a daily cap on message segments sent per day (12am PST to 11:59pm PST) based on a brand’s TCR score. When a brand hits their T-mobile limit, Hustle will show a warning on the organization(s) and pause sending messages to T-mobile subscribers until the hours of operation resume the following day.

In some instances, T-Mobile does not use Brand scores to enforce daily caps. 

1. Political Campaigns, Candidates, Parties and 527s, that have registered their Brand using a CV token and registered a campaign with the Political special use case will have unlimited throughput on the T-Mobile network. For more info, see What is Campaign Verify?
2. Government entities, as confirmed by TCR, will receive unlimited throughput on T-Mobile

The following table includes a breakdown of T-Mobile’s daily message limits by TCR Score.

Note: T-Mobile’s daily segment caps are applied the same across all brands with a few exceptions:
• Brands that register with a Campaign Verify token and use the Political special use case are excluded from T-mobile’s daily segment cap
• Government entities, as confirmed by TCR, will receive unlimited throughput on T-Mobile and the highest available throughput on AT&T for Standard use case campaigns

AT&T's sending speed:

Instead of a daily cap, AT&T limits how many message segments are sent per second (MPS) can be sent by each campaign based on the brand’s TCR score and the campaigns use case. Below, we will explain how the combination of brand scores and campaign use cases determine AT&T sending speed.

Verizon and all other carriers:

Other carriers haven’t defined how they’ll approach throughput limiting as part of 10DLC. As more information becomes available this article will be updated.

How do campaign use cases affect throughput?

The availability of special campaigns is determined by the brand’s tax-exempt status. In some cases, brands with a particular tax-exempt status are limited to only a few special campaigns. See Which campaign should I choose for my brand? for more information.

Only AT&T enforces sending speed based on the brand score and the campaign use case. Verizon, T-Mobile and all other carriers do not use the campaign use case when determining throughput or daily limits. There are two types of use cases and they are used to dictate throughput in different ways:

Standard campaign throughput

The throughput available via standard campaigns is influenced solely by the TCR Score of the brand. The higher the TCR Score, the more messages brands can send over a given period of time.

Standard use cases: 

• 2FA
• Account Notification
• Customer Care
• Delivery Notification
• Fraud Alert Messaging
• Higher Education
• Polling & Voting
• Public Service Announcement
• Security Alert
  
• Low Volume Mixed
• Mixed
• Marketing

Special campaign throughput

For special campaigns, AT&T does not use the brand score to determine throughput and instead, throughput is set by the use case regardless of trust score.

Remember: T-Mobile’s does not enforce sending speed. Instead, they enforce a daily segment caps that are not influenced by campaign use cases. 

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a message segment?

When you send SMS, they are broken up into smaller sections called segments in order to be sent through the carrier network before they are reassembled on your contact's device. What is a message segment?

Why do segments matter for 10DLC? For the purposes of 10DLC, AT&T has instituted limits on the speed in which they will send segments for individual customers. Additionally, T-Mobile has implemented a daily segment cap for TCR brands (with a few exceptions); so messages with many segments can cause some entities to quickly reach their daily limit. As a rule of thumb:

• The more segments in a message, the longer it will take for messages to be delivered to audience members.
• Longer messages and messages containing non-standard characters in particular will use more segments to deliver your message. 

To see how many segments your script uses, you can use this Message Segment Calculator

Note: MMS messages, or messages containing media content, are handled differently. MMS messages are delivered as one segment regardless of character length but do have file size limits associated with them. For more information about these limits, see How do I text with MMS in Hustle?