A2P 10DLC registration for GHL — the 2026 walkthrough

A2P 10DLC is the regulatory layer that’s stopped more SMS rollouts than every technical bug combined. If you’re sending Application-to-Person (A2P) text messages from a 10-digit long code (10DLC) in the US, you need to register both a brand and a campaign. AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile rate-throttle — and increasingly outright block — unregistered traffic.

This is the walkthrough for doing it correctly inside the GHL + Twilio stack.

What you’re registering

Two things, in order:

1. Brand registration with The Campaign Registry (TCR). This identifies your business as the sender. Done once per legal entity.
2. Campaign registration, also with TCR but submitted through Twilio. This identifies what you’re sending — the use case, the sample messages, the opt-in flow.

Both are required. Brand without campaign = throttled. Campaign without brand = rejected.

Brand registration — what you need before you start

• Legal business name (matches your EIN paperwork exactly — “LLC” matters)
• EIN (sole props can register, but vetting takes longer)
• Physical address (no PO boxes for the legal entity)
• Vertical (e.g. “Professional Services”, “Retail”)
• Stock symbol or D-U-N-S number if you’re a public/large company (skips low/medium-trust scoring)
• Authorized representative — name, email, phone

Submit through Twilio Console → Trust Hub → Customer Profile. The vetting takes 1-3 business days for most. If you’re vetted with a higher trust score, your throughput caps go up.

Campaign registration — the part that gets rejected

This is where most agencies stall. The campaign requires:

Use case selection

Pick the most specific use case that fits. Common ones:

• Customer Care — appointment confirmations, customer service
• 2FA — one-time codes only (don’t pick this if you’re sending anything else)
• Account Notifications — order updates, account changes
• Marketing — promotional content (highest scrutiny)
• Mixed — you’re sending more than one of the above (covers most agencies)

If you’re in doubt, Mixed is the safe pick. Carriers reject “Marketing”-only campaigns more often than Mixed.

Sample messages

You submit 2-5 sample messages that show what you’ll actually send. This is where 70% of rejections happen. Patterns that get rejected:

• Missing opt-out language. Every message in a marketing flow needs Reply STOP to opt out. (or equivalent).
• Missing brand identification. The first message in a sequence should include your brand name.
• Loan/credit phrases without proper SHAFT compliance. SHAFT = Sex, Hate, Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco. Even adjacent language gets flagged.
• Generic templates. Carriers can tell when you submitted a template and not actual production messages. Use real, specific copy.

A sample that passes:

Hey {first_name}, this is Marcus with Acme Roofing. We have a free
inspection slot tomorrow at 2pm — want me to grab it for you? Reply
STOP to opt out.

A sample that gets rejected:

Hi! Click here to learn more about our amazing offers!!!

Opt-in description

You describe — in plain English — how customers opt in. This needs to match your actual website. Common acceptable phrasings:

“Customers opt in by checking a consent checkbox on our intake form at example.com/contact, which states: ‘I agree to receive automated text messages from {brand} regarding my inquiry. Reply STOP to opt out.’”

If your form doesn’t have that checkbox, add it before submitting. Carriers verify the URL.

After submission — the rejection cycle

Plan for at least one rejection. Common reasons + fixes:

Most rejections come back within 24-72 hours. Resubmission is free. Each resubmission goes back through the same review queue.

Toll-free as the alternate path

If A2P keeps rejecting and you need to send sooner, toll-free verification is a parallel path. Same opt-in requirements, faster vetting (often 24 hrs), but throughput caps differ. Most home-service agencies start on toll-free while their A2P registration works through TCR.

Inside GHL

Once registered:

1. In GHL’s location-level settings → Phone Numbers → assign your registered Twilio number to the location.
2. In Workflows, any SMS action will route through the registered campaign.
3. Throughput is now uncapped (or capped at your trust-score tier) instead of rate-throttled.

TL;DR

A2P 10DLC isn’t hard — it’s tedious and unforgiving. The bureaucracy of brand vetting + carrier rejection cycles + opt-in language audits is what stops most agencies. The technical implementation is 15 minutes once the registration clears.

If you’d rather not memorize the rejection patterns, book a 15-minute call. We have brand + campaign templates that pass first-time most of the time, and we handle the rejection loop when they don’t. A2P registration is included in the $1,295/mo retainer.