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:

• What does the TCR score do?
• How many messages can I send on 10DLC?
  • How do carriers affect throughput?
  • How do TCR campaigns affect throughput?
  • What if my TCR campaign is pending? 
  • How does the TCR score affect throughput?
• How do I send messages on 10DLC?
• Frequently Asked Questions
  • Do I need to include opt out language in my messages?
  • Can I use links in my initial messages?
  • What’s considered an opt in?
  • What is a message segment?

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. 

• Some Vetting Partners assign a "score", from 0-100 based on their review. TCR then provides this score to carriers who use the score (in different ways) to determine how much message throughput should be allowed over their networks.
• Other Vetting Partners, like Campaign Verify, do not return a "score". Brands that have been successfully vetted using a Campaign Verify token will have Active under their TCR Score.

Message throughput defines how many messages can be sent in a given amount of time. So the​​ higher your TCR score, the higher your messaging throughput will be with select carriers.

A lower TCR score (sometimes called a “trust score”) typically means the brand will have lower throughput than brands with a high TCR score, but not always.

• Brands that register with Campaign Verify tokens will not have a TCR score. Throughput will be determined by the limits of the Political special use case campaign.

 

How many messages can I send on 10DLC?

Message throughput is the number of messages that can be sent in a given period of time.

With the changes related to 10DLC, the throughput available is influenced by a number of factors:

• the Carrier
• the TCR Campaign sending the traffic
• the TCR Score of the brand
  

This section will help admins understand their message throughput based on the above factors.

Skip to:

• How do carriers affect throughput?
  • T-Mobile Daily Throughput
• How do TCR campaigns affect throughput?
• How does the TCR score affect throughput?
  • Standard Campaigns
  • Special Campaigns
    

How do carriers affect throughput?

Different carriers throttle throughput in different ways.

• T-Mobile sets a daily cap on how many message segments can be delivered in a day (12am PST to 11:59pm PST) for a particular brand based on the brand’s TCR score.
  • T-Mobile ignores TCR Score in several circumstances:
    • Brands that register with a campaign verify token that select the Political special use case campaign will have unlimited throughput on T-Mobile. For more info, see What is Campaign Verify?
    • Sole proprietorships that select the Sole Proprietor special use case campaign will be limited to 1,000 segments a day. For more information about message segments, see What is a message segment?
    • Government entities, as confirmed by TCR, will receive unlimited throughput on T-Mobile
• AT&T limits how many message segments are sent per second (MPS) for a particular campaign based on the brand’s TCR score and the TCR campaign used.
  • The campaign type will also affect the message throughput.
  • AT&T does not use the TCR Score to determine throughput for Special Use Case Campaigns. For more information, see What are 10DLC campaigns?

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.

 

T-Mobile Daily Throughput

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

TCR Score	T-Mobile Daily Segment Limits
76 - 100	200,000 / day
51 - 75	40,000 / day
26 - 50	10,000 / day
1 - 25	2,000 / day

 

Note: T-Mobile’s daily segment caps are applied the same across all campaigns 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

 

How do TCR campaigns affect throughput?

The two types of TCR campaigns available are:

• Standard Campaigns
• Special Campaigns
  

For a list of campaigns, see What are the different TCR campaigns?

The two types of campaigns use trust scores in different ways:

• Standard Campaigns: Standard campaigns are pre-approved by carriers but must go through review by the downstream Direct Connect Aggregator (DCA). Qualification for standard campaigns is determined by the brand’s tax status (e.g. 501(c) designation, “For Profit”, Governments et al.). The throughput available via standard campaigns is heavily influenced by the TCR Score of the brand. The higher the TCR Score, the more messages brands can send over a given period of time.
• Special Campaigns: For Special Campaigns, AT&T ignores the trust score while T-Mobile does not for most use cases. Availability is determined by the brand’s tax status (e.g. 501(c) designation, 527, “For Profit” et al.) For special campaigns, AT&T does not use the TCR score to determine throughput.

What if my TCR Campaign is Pending?

As of January 26, 2023, all newly registered TCR campaigns will be subject to manual review by the downstream Direct Connect Aggregator (DCA) and will be placed in Pending status until this review is completed. The Pending status will show on the TCR Compliance page, and will change to Approved once the review is complete. 

Campaigns pending approval will not be available to apply to groups or to the Broadcast inbox until they are approved. 

 

Note: This manual review process will increase the time it takes for campaigns to be ready to send messages on the 10DLC routes, so please plan accordingly and register for 10DLC as early as possible. We expect campaigns to be approved within one business week, but approval could take longer. Please follow our guidelines in How do I register for 10DLC with Hustle to avoid delays in registration. If your TCR campaign is not approved after one week, please contact support@hustle.com for help. 

How does the TCR score affect throughput?

The following tables include a breakdown of MPS limits (message segments per second) by TCR Score and Campaign.

Standard Campaigns

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

TCR Score	Total MPS
75-100	75
50-74	40
1-49	4

 

*Contains Sub Use-Cases

 

Special Campaigns

• Agents & Franchises**
• Charity*
• Proxy* **
• K12 Education**
• Emergency**
• Political* **
• Social* **
• Sole Proprietor
• Sweepstake**

*Contains Sub Use-Cases
**Requires additional carrier approval (estimate 3 - 5 days)

Note: T-Mobile’s daily segment caps are applied the same across all campaigns 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
• Sole Proprietorships that use the Sole Proprietor special use case campaign are limited to 1,000 segments per day, regardless of their TCR Score
• 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

• For special campaigns, AT&T does not use the TCR score to determine throughput.

 

Campaign	Total MPS
Charity	40
Social	1,000
Proxy	60 per number*
K-12 Education	12 per number*
Political	75
Emergency Services	75
Agents, Franchise, local branches	60 per number*

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.

• At this time we generally do not recommend admins register campaigns using the Agents & Franchises, Proxy, or Social special use case campaigns. In addition to unknown wait times for carrier approval, these campaigns were designed for very specific types of customers as shared in the examples above. If your brand does not look like one of the examples shared above, it is likely your campaign will be rejected by carriers after a lengthy delay.

• At this time, if you plan on registering a Standard Campaign to use with your brand, we highly recommend choosing the Mixed campaign. With the Mixed campaign, brands will need to select at least two and up to five sub use cases, which reflect the other standard campaigns. This way, Mixed campaigns operate like five campaigns in one. 

 

How do I send messages on 10DLC?

Hustle groups with a TCR Campaign applied will send messages using the 10DLC routes. Admins are encouraged to apply their TCR Campaign(s) to Hustle groups they wish to continue using. 

Messages sent from Hustle Groups that are not associated with a TCR Campaign are eventually expected to be blocked more often by carriers.

For instructions on how to apply TCR campaigns to groups, see How do I apply TCR campaigns?

Note: Group Admins will not have permission to apply, remove or otherwise edit TCR Campaigns on groups they have access to. If you believe you would benefit from this feature please email product@hustle.com.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

Skip to:

• Do I need to include opt out language in my messages?
• Can I use links in my initial messages?
• What is considered an opt in?
• What is a message segment?

 

Do I need to include opt out language in my messages?

Initial messages for goals (including reminders) should include opt out language. At this time, opt out language is not required for response scripts, additional response scripts or free responses. Initial messages that do not include opt out language run the risk of being blocked more often by carriers.

 

For more information, see Should I include opt out language?

 

Can I use links in my initial messages?

With the introduction of 10DLC, public domain links such as bit.ly & tinyurl are expected to experience higher rates of filtration from carriers.

When using links in messages, we highly recommend using Hustle’s private domains available in the Share a link goal type or to use links that do not redirect (aka the longer links.)

Additionally, keep in mind that longer links can increase the segment count of your messages which can result in brands reaching T-mobile’s daily message segment caps sooner than expected.

• For more info on scripts see: How do I write scripts?
• For more info on the share a link goal type, see Goal Type: Share a link.

 

What is considered an opt in?

Brands are encouraged to follow CTIA guidelines when deciding, which audiences to message for a particular campaign. (Page 12, Section 5 offers guidance on with “Consent”)

 

What is a message segment?

Messages sent in Hustle are delivered to carriers as collections of symbols & characters called segments.

The number of segments that make up a message depends on how many characters were used and what kind were sent in the original text. To see how many segments a particular message script contains, you can use this message segment calculator. 

For the purposes of 10DLC, carriers are introducing limits on the number of segments they will deliver for individual customers over different periods of time. The more segments in a message, the longer it will take for messages to be delivered to audience members.

Additionally, as part of 10DLC, T-Mobile is implementing a daily segment cap for TCR brands (with a few exceptions); so messages with a lot of segments can cause some groups to quickly reach this daily limit. For more information, see How do carriers affect throughput? As a rule of thumb:

• A standard, ordinary text message consists of up to 160 characters per individual segment.
• Longer messages and messages containing special 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?