SMS Sender Registration

US carriers block SMS from a number they don't recognize. Before a number can send SMS, it has to be registered with carriers through one of two paths, and which path applies depends on the number:

• Toll-free numbers (NPA 800, 833, 844, 855, 866, 877, or 888) go through toll-free verification (TFV), covered on this page.
• Local (10-digit) numbers register through a different process, 10DLC campaign registration, which isn't available in Tandem yet. A local number's sidebar shows a note that 10DLC registration is coming rather than an Enable SMS action.

Until a number is registered, its SMS status is Pending, and workflows can't send from it — the Send SMS node's From Number list only offers numbers whose SMS status is Enabled.

Submitting a toll-free number

Open Admin → Phone Numbers, click a toll-free number's row, and find Enable SMS under its SMS status in the sidebar. This opens a form starting with a list of your organization's toll-free numbers that aren't already enabled or already submitted — pick up to 10 to register together under the same business information in one submission (Bandwidth's own limit per submission). The number whose sidebar you opened the form from is preselected; add others from the list if you're registering several at once.

Below that, the form asks for:

• Your business's legal name, DBA (if different), and entity type
• For every entity type except sole proprietor, your business registration: the number (an EIN, for example), its type, and the three-letter code of the country that issued it (USA for an EIN). A sole proprietor isn't asked for these.
• Your business address and website
• A business contact: name, email, and phone number
• The use case these messages are for, picked from the carrier's list (Appointments, 2FA, Billing, and so on), a short summary, and one representative message
• Your estimated monthly message volume, at least 10
• How customers opt in to receive these messages, with proof: drag and drop a screenshot (PNG, JPEG, or WebP, up to 5 MB) or paste a URL to one you already host
• Your privacy policy and terms of service URLs, if published

After your first submission, this information prefills the next one. Tandem remembers the business profile a submission used, so registering another toll-free number later starts from what you entered last time instead of a blank form — change anything that's out of date before submitting.

Submit sends this to the carrier for review; each number's SMS status moves from Pending to either Enabled or Disabled once the carrier decides, independently of the others in the same submission. Tandem checks for a decision on its own — there's nothing to refresh by hand.

If the carrier refuses the submission outright, the form shows the carrier's reason, naming the field to fix where it can, and nothing is submitted.

If a submission is denied

A denied number's SMS status shows Disabled, and its sidebar shows the carrier's reason alongside a Resubmit action. Resubmit reopens the form with that submission's answers, so you can correct what the carrier flagged and send it again without retyping everything. It sends only the submission's denied numbers; any that were verified or are still pending stay as they are. While a denial can still be resubmitted, Resubmit is its only way forward, so the number isn't offered in a new submission's number picker.

The carrier accepts a resubmission within 7 days of its decision; the sidebar shows when that window ends. For some denials it accepts none at all. Once the window has closed, or for a denial the carrier won't take back, the sidebar offers Submit again instead. That opens a new submission for the number, prefilled with your saved business information, and the number appears in the new submission's picker. Submitting withdraws the old denial and starts a fresh carrier review.

Next steps

• Toll-free verification API — submit, list, resubmit, and refresh toll-free verification requests from the API instead of the sidebar, including reading and saving the saved business profile directly.
• Admin — the rest of the organization-wide settings.