Why do 10DLC applications get rejected or delayed, and when should I submit mine?

Applications are almost always denied or delayed for a simple, avoidable mistake, most often on your website. As soon as you submit, the carriers' automated systems crawl your website. If everything matches you get a fast approval. If not, the application goes to a slow manual review queue, where it can take a week or two just to learn what was wrong and another week or two after you answer. So do not submit until your website is ready, and do not submit planning to fix problems later. Check these before you submit or resubmit:

1. A live, finished, working website. Do not submit before the site is online and any DNS changes have gone through, because the carriers read the site when you click submit.
2. Your own privacy policy, linked in the footer of your website (ideally on every page) and live at all times, and the link must be clickable. A privacy policy that belongs to a third party, such as a chat widget provider, does not count. It must say you do not buy, sell, trade or share personal information, including mobile phone numbers, and that you do not text people without permission.
3. A visible opt-in that matches your application, on the page you describe and exactly as you describe it. If you wrote that people fill in a form on your website and check a box, the reviewer must find that form with a phone number field and an opt-in checkbox with standard consent wording, such as agreeing to be texted. Ask support if you want template opt-in wording.
4. Matching details. The company name must match your entity and EIN, and the same website domain must be used everywhere in the application: the opt-in page, sample messages, opt-in, opt-out and help messages, links and privacy policy URL. Carriers check your main domain, so a separate one-page subdomain or an unrelated site does not hide what you do.
5. A message description, use cases and sample messages that match how you will really send SMS. Provide five real sample messages, with no placeholders or variables in brackets such as time, date or link. Use real links that work and start with https, and use your registered brand name in every sample.
6. Careful wording on your website and in messages. The words lead or leads (carriers suspect bought lists), SEO, loan, interest rate and APR (carriers may treat you as a lender, which has a separate, stricter process) send applications to the slow review. Use words such as prospects, contacts, contact form or we generate more business for you instead. Use Ctrl+F on your pages to find every use. If a client must talk about loans on their website, expect approval to take a long time.

When you register in Votel, a built-in AI agent reviews your application and crawls your website before it is submitted. It catches the most common problems, such as a missing or unclickable privacy policy link, a privacy policy that does not say the right thing, or saying people opt in on your website when there is no opt-in there. Fix those first. If a website is missing a privacy policy or an opt-in, the AI assistant can add them: paste the website address and ask it to import the site into Votel, put an opt-in on the form and add a privacy policy page linked in the footer. This works even for a site hosted elsewhere.

After you submit, the Votel team also does a quick review for the common problems before sending the application to the carriers. If your website is down, the privacy policy link is broken or missing, or there is no form, we deny it first. If the carriers do not approve you, you receive a notification with the reason, and each new review is charged.

If you have several sub-accounts with the same problem, apply the same fixes and resubmit each one.