# Texting (SMS) Texting prices, registering for texting, what Vocenya texts automatically, replies in your inbox, opt-outs, HIPAA limits, and the SMS webhooks and API. Vocenya can text your customers from your Vocenya business number: it answers their texts, texts back callers you missed, and confirms and reminds appointments. Every text lands in the same inbox as your website and WhatsApp chats, marked **SMS**. ## Pricing Texting is an add-on to your plan: **$19 a month**, including **500 texts** each billing period, then **$0.03 per text** over that, added to your next invoice. Add it from **Billing** in the portal, or from the **Texting** page. - Each text up to 160 characters counts as 1 (long messages count as at most 3). Pictures you send count as 3; pictures customers send you count as 1. Texts in both directions count. A long text is split every 160 characters, or every 70 when it has emoji or other special characters. - The add-on counts toward your bundle discount like the other add-ons. Texts over the allowance are never discounted. - A one-time **$25 setup fee** covers the carrier registration. It is added to your next invoice when you first submit your registration; resubmitting after the carriers reject it costs nothing extra. - We email account owners when this period's texts reach 80% of the allowance, and again at 100%. Texting never stops at the allowance. - If you remove the add-on, Vocenya stops sending texts: customers' texts still reach your inbox, but the virtual assistant doesn't answer them and nothing is sent automatically (only the STOP and HELP answers carriers require). Your registration is kept, so adding texting back needs no new registration or setup fee. - HIPAA-mode and healthcare accounts can add texting too; the [HIPAA limits](#hipaa-mode) below still apply. ## Register with the carriers US carriers only deliver business texts from numbers registered under A2P 10DLC. Vocenya registers your business (the **brand**) and what you text (the **campaign**) with the carriers for you, through our carrier partner Telnyx. In the portal, open **Texting**: 1. Check the answers we prefilled from your account: your legal business name and EIN exactly as on your IRS records, address, website and contact. Businesses without an EIN can register as a **sole proprietor**: you confirm a code texted to your own mobile, and you are limited to one number and about 1,000 texts a day. 2. Check the campaign: the use case (customer care, or mixed), the description, how customers opt in, and 2 to 5 sample messages. We write these from what Vocenya actually sends. Samples must name your business, stay under 160 characters, and at least one must end with "Reply STOP to opt out". 3. Submit (texting must be on your plan first). We check the answers carriers most often reject before anything is filed, because each submission is charged again. Review usually takes 3 to 10 business days. The page shows each step (brand, campaign, your number) and, if the carriers say no, their reason so you can fix it and resubmit. Once approved, your numbers are assigned to the campaign automatically and texting starts. ### Toll-free numbers A toll-free number (800, 833, 844, 855, 866, 877 or 888) isn't registered under 10DLC: it goes through **toll-free verification** instead. If your texting number is toll-free, the Texting page picks this path for you; if you have both kinds, choose **A toll-free number** at the top of the form. - You give the same business details plus your EIN (carriers require a business registration number for every toll-free verification, so businesses without an EIN register a local number instead), an estimate of how many texts you send a month, and the same samples and opt-in description. Your hosted SMS policy page is sent as proof of how customers opt in. - Carrier review usually takes 5 business days to 2 weeks. If the carriers need changes or say no, the Texting page shows their reason; fix the answers and resubmit the same verification. - Once verified, texts go from your toll-free number. A toll-free verification covers that one number; your local numbers need the 10DLC registration to text. - Toll-free numbers can't be bought in the portal yet. Contact us if you want one for texting. Your registration links to an SMS terms and privacy page we host for your business at `/sms-policy/{your-business}`, with the wording carriers require: what you text, message frequency, "Msg & data rates may apply", STOP and HELP, and that mobile numbers and opt-in data are never shared for marketing. You can use your own pages instead if they say the same. ## What Vocenya texts Only conversational and transactional texts, to people who contacted you. Never marketing or bought lists. - **Replies.** When a customer texts your number, the virtual assistant answers (or your team, if you switch AI replies off). Your team can reply or take over from the inbox at any time. - **Missed-call text-back** (off until you switch it on). A caller nobody answered gets one text from the number they called, within minutes, at most once a day. If they opted in to WhatsApp follow-ups and you use WhatsApp, they get the WhatsApp message instead, never both. - **Booking confirmations and reminders** (each off until you switch it on). Confirmations go right after the AI books. Reminders go a day ahead and wait for daytime (8 AM to 9 PM) in the customer's time zone. - **A text during a call.** The receptionist can offer to text the caller the booking details, your address or a link from your business facts, once per call, only after the caller says yes. Without an approved registration, the receptionist never offers texts. Every automatic text starts with your business name and says how to opt out. ## Pictures (MMS) Customers can text you pictures; they show in the inbox next to the conversation. Your team can attach a picture to a reply from the portal inbox, the agent workspace or the Vocenya app: a JPG, PNG or GIF under 1 MB, sent as an MMS from your number. The virtual assistant never sends pictures, and pictures can't be sent to customers who replied STOP or by HIPAA-mode and healthcare accounts. Pictures count toward your texting allowance as described under [Pricing](#pricing). ## Opt-outs and help STOP, STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END and QUIT opt a customer out of every text from your business; they get one confirmation and nothing more. START or UNSTOP opts them back in. HELP gets your business name, number and the program details. Opted-out numbers are listed on the Texting page and are never texted, by the AI, your team or the API. Numbers on your Do Not Call list as opt-outs get no automatic texts either. ## HIPAA mode Text messages are not encrypted and our carrier is not a business associate, so for HIPAA-mode and healthcare accounts: - Vocenya only sends short, fixed notices: "We missed your call, please call us back", or an appointment confirmation or reminder with the date and time. Never a patient's name, reason for the visit, service or any health detail. - The virtual assistant does not hold text conversations with patients. A patient's text goes to your team, and the patient gets one notice asking them to call. - Your team can't send free-form texts or pictures from the inbox; call the patient back instead. - Every notice starts with a **neutral name** you choose on the Texting page, like "Dr. Smith's office" or "ABC Health", so a text on a patient's lock screen doesn't reveal why they visit. It starts as your registered business name. We warn you (without blocking) when the name includes a specialty word such as fertility, oncology, addiction or mental health. Your carrier samples use the same name, so what carriers review matches what patients get. - Text content never appears in webhooks or the API for HIPAA-mode accounts (ids only). ## Webhooks and the API SMS conversations are chats with `channel: "sms"` in the [chats API](https://vocenya.com/docs/reference/chats), with the customer's number in `contact_address`. Replying with `POST /chats/{chat}/messages` sends a text; it is refused with `sms_opted_out`, `sms_hipaa_restricted` or `sms_unavailable` when a text may not go. Two webhook events cover texting, alongside the `chat.*` events: `sms.received` when a customer texts one of your numbers, and `sms.sent` when a text leaves one (including automatic texts). See [Webhook events](https://vocenya.com/docs/webhook-events).