Opt-out instructions must recur, not just appear at opt-in
The requirementstatement
A recurring programme must carry opt-out instructions at opt-in and at regular intervals thereafter — at least monthly.
- Severityseverity
- HighHIGHRejected by at least one carrier or provider, and a common cause of failure at the rest.
- When it bitesphase
- After you are livepostFalls due once you are sending: STOP handling, quiet hours, suppression, record retention.
- What is checkedobject
- outbound message cadence
- Where it liveslayer
- OperationalOPERATIONAL
- How Ekas settles itdetectability
- Post-submissionUNDETECTABLE_PRE_SUBMISSION
- The subject does not exist yet at submission time: a reply window, an expiring PIN, a queue position. Reported with its deadline.
- What the fix involvesfailureClass
- Wait on someone elseTERMINAL_EXTERNAL
- Needs an external system or a waiting period, such as IRS propagation, a vetting result, or a carrier queue.
- Who requires itauthorities
- T-MobileCTIA
- When it appliesapplicabilityText
- Applies to every 10DLC registration.
Why this rule existsrationale
How to fix itremediation
Carry "Reply STOP to opt out" in every message where the length allows, and at minimum in one message a month. Done when no subscriber goes a calendar month without being told how to leave.
A compliant exampleexample
Acme Coffee: 20% off beans this weekend. Shop acmecoffee.com/sale. Reply STOP to opt out.
Check this yourselfattestation
No tool can settle this one for you. Here is the check, and what wrong looks like.
Does any subscriber go a calendar month without being told how to leave?
- 1Audit the templates that dropped the opt-out line for length — those are the ones that go months without it, and they are usually the highest-volume ones.
- 2Carry "Reply STOP to opt out" wherever the length allows, and at minimum in one message a month.
What wrong looks like: Subscribers forget what they joined and how to leave, so reporting the message as spam becomes the easiest available action.
Notesnotes
Rules you will hit next
One other rule reads outbound message cadence. Fixing one field to satisfy a single rule is how a resubmission trades one rejection for another, so read these before you change anything.
OPS-075 is one of 139 operational rules in the 915-rule 10DLC registry. Free to cite under CC BY 4.0.