10DLC throughput: How to improve your rate limit

Wouldn't it be ideal if your business messages reached your audience every time you sent them? You’d never have to deal with low delivery rates or compliance woes.

If you’re using 10DLC numbers correctly, that’s definitely possible.

With 10DLC, businesses have a golden opportunity to upgrade their Application-to-Person (A2P) messaging. 10DLC offers a unique avenue for reaching your audience, balancing capacity, cost-effectiveness, and credibility.

However, navigating the intricacies of 10DLC throughput limits can be daunting. By learning more about this topic, you can optimize your messaging strategy, avoid penalties, and enhance customer engagement, all while staying compliant with carrier regulations.

In this post, we'll explore the significance of 10DLC throughput limits, why they matter for your business, and how you can leverage this knowledge to your advantage.

Plus, we'll shed light on common throughput limits set by major carriers like AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, providing you with actionable insights to boost your messaging capabilities.

What is 10DLC throughput?

10DLC (short for 10-digit long codes) are phone numbers designed for business messaging. They balance high message delivery capacity, cost-effectiveness, and credibility, making them ideal for businesses aiming to reach large audiences. The term "10DLC throughput" or "rate limits" refers to the maximum number of messages you can send using 10DLC per second (MPS) or per minute (MPM).

Why 10DLC throughput limits matter

Your throughput limits directly influence your ability to communicate with customers. These limits depend heavily on your "Brand Tier," a carrier classification that considers your business's size, message volume, and messaging nature. Adhering to these limits is crucial to avoid penalties, such as additional fees or decreased message delivery rates.

Effective campaign planning within these limits prevents penalties and optimizes customer engagement. Strategic campaign planning is particularly crucial for specific scenarios like two-factor authentication, where higher rates may be permissible. Moreover, proper segmentation and multimedia usage enhance dynamic interaction with your audience.

Familiarity with and adherence to 10DLC rate limits are key to ensuring efficient, compliant, and uninterrupted communication with your customers.

Factors determining 10DLC throughput limits

Several factors influence the rate limits applied to your 10DLC messaging, each tailored to ensure quality and compliance across networks.

Brand reputation and campaign type

The perception of your brand, the nature of your messaging campaigns, and your compliance with industry standards collectively determine your messaging capacity. Established brands with a history of trustworthy behavior and campaigns that clearly adhere to compliant messaging strategies are often eligible for higher throughput rates.

For campaigns, the specificity and clarity of your messaging purpose play an important role. Campaigns with well-defined objectives and target audiences, which transparently communicate their intent and adhere to regulatory guidelines, contribute positively to your brand's trust score and throughput capacity.

Trust score

The trust score (distinct from brand reputation) is a carrier-specific metric that assesses a brand's messaging compliance, reliability, and content quality. It signifies adherence to best practices, such as clear opt-in and opt-out procedures and the avoidance of spam, with improvement relying on refining practices based on vetting service feedback and industry standards.

While brand reputation reflects broader market presence and customer perception, the trust score measures specific compliance efforts. A strong reputation may indirectly boost the trust score, enhancing trust and quality, whereas a high trust score can directly improve messaging throughput rates by showcasing a brand's reliability to carriers.

Thus, focusing on both brand reputation and trust score is crucial for optimizing 10DLC throughput. It requires a strategic approach to general brand management and messaging compliance.

Carrier specifications

Understanding the specific requirements set forth by mobile carriers is essential for maximizing your 10DLC messaging throughput. Each carrier has its own guidelines, which can affect how your messages are delivered and the rate limits that apply to your campaigns. Brands need to stay informed about these guidelines, as they can vary significantly from one carrier to another.

Direct engagement with carriers or collaboration with third-party messaging providers can offer valuable insights into each carrier's unique specifications. Adapting your messaging strategy to accommodate these requirements is key to optimizing your throughput and ensuring successful delivery of your messages.

Brands looking to make the most of their 10DLC capabilities should concentrate on building a strong, compliant brand image, actively working to improve their trust score by adhering to best practices, and staying informed of and adapting to the specific guidelines of each mobile carrier.

Common 10DLC throughput limits by carrier

As we mentioned above, each carrier has its own rules and limits that impact how businesses communicate with customers. It’s important to understand throughput for your specific carrier.

Your vetting score sets the ceiling on both AT&T and T-Mobile.

AT&T

AT&T sets throughput per campaign using a message class it assigns from your use case and vetting score. A brand scoring 75 to 100 gets 4,500 SMS transactions per minute (TPM) and 2,400 MMS TPM. A score of 50 to 74 halves that to 2,400 SMS TPM, and anything from 1 to 49 drops to 240.

Low-volume mixed campaigns are capped at 75 SMS TPM regardless of score, and sole proprietor campaigns at 15. Some special use cases run higher: social campaigns reach 9,000 SMS TPM, and political campaigns 4,500.

T-Mobile

T-Mobile caps daily volume at the brand level rather than per campaign, so every campaign under one brand draws from the same allowance. The cap runs from 200,000 messages per day for brands scoring 75 to 100 down to 2,000 for brands scoring 1 to 24. Unvetted brands sit at that 2,000 floor, and sole proprietor brands get 1,000.

Segmentation counts against the cap. A standard SMS holds 160 GSM-7 characters, and longer messages split into 153-character segments to make room for the User Data Header, so a 300-character message spends two segments rather than one.

Verizon

Verizon has not published throughput numbers for 10DLC. It filters on message content rather than applying explicit rate limits, so traffic that matches your registered campaign use case generally moves without throttling.

Telnyx

Telnyx sets itself apart by offering customizable rate limits for 10DLC messaging, catering to the specific needs of businesses. Thanks to its private, global network, Telnyx allows companies to tailor their messaging throughput based on factors like message type, audience size, and timing, unlike traditional carriers. This flexibility enables businesses to optimize their messaging strategies for performance and compliance.

In addition to adjustable rate limits, Telnyx provides a suite of features, including:

• Detailed analytics for campaign monitoring
• Compliance support to ensure adherence to regulations
• Enhanced support for MMS, enabling richer messaging experiences

This approach gives businesses direct control over their messaging campaigns, allowing for more effective customer engagement.

After understanding the unique 10DLC rate limits of carriers like AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, and Telnyx, the next step is to focus on optimizing your messaging strategy. Here's how to improve message quality and efficiency within these constraints.

How to improve your 10DLC throughput

The goal of improving your 10DLC throughput isn't just to be able to send more messages. It's to send better messages more efficiently. Here are some strategies to maximize your rate limit:

Participate in external vetting

External vetting can boost your trust score with carriers. This process involves a detailed review of your messaging practices to ensure they meet carrier standards. A higher trust score can lead to better rate limits, allowing you to send more messages.

Look for reputable vetting services that can evaluate your practices and vouch for your compliance. Some vendors even allow you to request and complete vetting via API or a self-service portal.

Explain your use case clearly

Clearly explain the purpose of your messaging campaign to carriers. A well-defined use case helps carriers understand your messaging needs, which can influence them to offer you more favorable rate limits. Whether it’s for customer service, promotions, or alerts, a clear use case presentation can make a significant difference.

Stay up-to-date on carrier policies

Keep up with the latest in carrier policies and messaging technologies. Carriers frequently update their rules and tools. Staying informed allows you to adjust your messaging strategy accordingly. This practice helps you maintain compliance and uncover more opportunities to enhance throughput.

Craft transparent opt-in/opt-out and customer data policies

One of the most important ways you can improve your throughput is by ensuring you have transparent opt-in/opt-out procedures and strict data policies. Here’s a summary for how you can do that:

• Highlight consent for SMS and MMS via a clear opt-in checkbox linked to detailed privacy policies.
• Commit publicly to not selling customer data.
• Provide straightforward opt-out options.

Regularly revising these policies to stay current with regulations reinforces trust and meets carrier standards, streamlining your messaging strategy.

By improving your 10DLC throughput, your business could see increased engagement rates, higher customer satisfaction due to timely and relevant communications, and improved ROI from marketing campaigns due to the ability to reach a larger audience more efficiently. Additionally, you could experience reduced costs per message and a stronger reputation for reliability and compliance with messaging standards.

Maximize your 10DLC throughput limits with Telnyx

Understanding the intricacies of messaging capabilities, particularly 10DLC, is essential for maximizing your reach and customer engagement. At Telnyx, we demystify concepts like 10DLC throughput and provide actionable insights to optimize your messaging strategy for maximum impact.

Our dedication to simplifying the 10DLC approval process sets us apart, with swift turnaround times of just 72 hours compared to the 20 days or longer that registration can take with some providers. Through our Mission Control Portal and intuitive self-serve APIs, we provide the tools you need to navigate the complexities of 10DLC registration and management easily.

With Telnyx 10DLC, you’ll get industry-leading approval speeds, zero-fee campaign migration, and one API and Portal for all your 10DLC needs.

But our commitment goes beyond technical prowess. We ensure your 10DLC strategy is efficient and compliant with industry standards, giving you peace of mind in your messaging endeavors.

With Telnyx as your partner, you gain access to comprehensive API support and a dedicated messaging team ready to assist you every step of the way. Our competitive pricing model ensures your investment in 10DLC yields substantial returns, allowing you to connect with your customers effortlessly while optimizing costs.