Set up two-way texting

Texting gives your workspace its own business phone number. Customers text it, their replies land in your inbox next to their emails, and automations like appointment reminders go out from it.

Getting there takes three registrations that US carriers require of every business that texts. None of it is hard, but the carriers reject sloppy paperwork, and each rejection costs another round of waiting. Read this once before you start and you will most likely pass first time.

Before you start

You need an active paid plan. Texting is an add-on to a FieldLine Pro subscription, not a standalone product.

Caution

A free trial does not qualify. Registering a brand and a campaign costs real money per attempt, charged whether or not the carriers approve you, so texting only opens once your trial has converted to a paid plan. If you are mid-trial the button stays disabled and the reason says so.

If your plan is past due, settle the invoice first. If it is cancelled, restart it. Only the account owner can turn texting on — not team members, even admins.

You will also need, in front of you:

• Your EIN exactly as the IRS has it — 9 digits
• Your legal business name exactly as registered with your state, which is often not the name on your truck
• Your registered business address, the one on file with the IRS
• A live website for the business
• Name, title, email and mobile for whoever can answer for the company

What it costs

$25/month	Added to your existing subscription, prorated from the day you turn it on
10,000 texts a month included	Enough for a shop running reminders, proposals and invoices on every job
$0.015 per segment after that	Only if you go over

A “segment” is 160 characters. A long text counts as more than one — write 300 characters and it bills as two. Emoji and other non-standard characters drop the limit to 70 characters per segment, which is the usual reason a message costs more than expected. The message composer shows the segment count as you type, and marks a message that has tipped into unicode.

Turn texting off and the $25 stops, prorated the same way.

Watching the count

Settings → Billing shows the segments you have used this month against the 10,000 included, and what any overage has come to so far. The same figure appears in shorter form on Settings → Communication under the texting card. Both count every text your workspace sends: replies you type, automations, campaign blasts, and the staff alerts that go to your own phone.

The count resets on the 1st. Nothing rolls over.

We email the account owner twice about it: once at 80% of the allowance, while there is still something to decide, and once when it is gone. Both are sent at most once per month, and the second one says whether you are now being billed or whether texting has stopped, depending on the setting below.

What happens when you run out

By default, texting keeps working and the extra is billed at $0.015 per segment on your normal invoice. That is the promise the price above makes, and it is the right default for a shop whose appointment reminders should not stop because a busy month ran long.

If you would rather have a hard ceiling than a variable invoice, the account owner can cap texting at the allowance on the Billing screen. Be clear about what that means before you switch it on:

Caution

A capped workspace stops texting entirely once the allowance is gone. Not just campaigns — appointment reminders, on-my-way texts, proposal links and replies you type all refuse to send, with a message saying why, until the 1st.

Overage is reported to Stripe hourly rather than at month end, so a heavy month shows up on your invoice as it happens instead of arriving as a surprise.

Note

This is separate from your AI credits, which have their own included allowance and their own top-up packs on the Billing screen. Texting volume and AI usage are counted apart, and running out of one does not affect the other.

Step 0 — Turn it on

Settings → Communication → Texting, then Turn on texting — $25/mo.

A four-step form collects the business details the carriers will check:

1. Business identity — legal business name, DBA, business type, EIN, website, industry
2. Business address — start typing and pick a suggestion; city, state and ZIP fill themselves in
3. Authorized contact — the person the carriers may ring to verify you
4. Messaging use case — what you text about and how customers agree to it

Finish and we create a Twilio subaccount that belongs to your workspace alone. Your number, your registration and your message history sit inside it, separate from every other contractor on FieldLine Pro. That matters more than it sounds: carrier reputation is tracked per account, so nobody else’s texting habits can damage your delivery rates, and nothing of yours is visible to them.

Caution

Every name and number here has to match your IRS and state filings exactly. “Glacier Heating and Air” when the state says “Glacier Heating & Air LLC” is a rejection. So is a trading address where the registered one is expected. This is the single most common reason a registration fails.

Step 1 — Brand registration

Start brand registration on the same card. This is the carriers verifying that your business is a real business.

Most of it is pre-filled from what you just typed. Check these in particular:

• Registration ID type — EIN for almost everyone, and 9 digits
• Industry — pick the closest vertical to the work you do
• Business identity — leave on direct_customer; you are texting your own customers, not running messaging for someone else
• Region of operation — USA_AND_CANADA

Submit, and vetting takes anywhere from a few minutes to a few business days. The status reads pending review while you wait. Press Refresh to check — nothing emails you when it changes.

Caution

Sole proprietors with no EIN cannot currently register. The form offers “Sole Proprietorship” as a business type, but the registration is submitted as a standard brand either way, and a standard brand requires a tax ID the carriers can verify. If you have no EIN, contact support before paying for the add-on.

Step 2 — Campaign registration

The brand says who you are. The campaign says what you intend to send. Available once the brand is submitted, and submitted automatically the moment the brand is approved if you fill it in early.

Messaging use case — leave it on “Low volume mixed”. It is the default, and it is the right answer for a contractor running one business number: the carriers charge a lower campaign fee for it and vet it exactly the same way. It allows up to 5 numbers on the campaign and a lower send rate, which no shop of that size will notice. Choose Mixed instead only if you run several numbers or send in genuine bulk.

Then:

• Campaign description — what you text customers about, at least 40 characters. The pre-filled one is accurate for most shops.
• Opt-in / message flow — exactly how a customer agrees to be texted. Also 40 characters minimum.
• Two sample messages, which carriers read word for word. Each one must end with a STOP line. The defaults do; if you write your own, keep it.
• Privacy policy and terms URLs — both must be public https pages. We pre-fill your own, the same links that appear on your booking page. Do not swap in someone else’s.

Caution

Read the opt-in text before you submit it. It has to describe what your booking page actually does — carriers do check. If you have changed your booking form, or you collect consent somewhere else like a paper work order, rewrite this to match reality. Describing a consent flow you do not have is the kind of thing that gets a campaign pulled later, which is worse than being rejected now.

Step 3 — Pick your number

Once the campaign is approved, enter an area code and press Search. Pick one and press Buy. Choose the area code your customers recognise — a local number gets answered more than an out-of-state one.

If nothing comes back, try a neighbouring area code; we will also show other available US numbers rather than leaving you stuck.

Consent, STOP and HELP

You are responsible for having permission to text every number you text.

• STOP works automatically. A customer replying STOP, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END or QUIT is opted out immediately and cannot be texted again from your workspace. START or YES puts them back.
• The first text in a conversation carries “Reply STOP to opt out.” for you.
• Manual texts you type are not checked against consent. A message you write to one person is treated differently from an automation firing at a list — which puts the judgement on you.

Quiet hours

Automated texts hold overnight and send when the window opens, so nothing lands at 2am and nothing is skipped. Set the window in Settings → Communication → Quiet hours. Texts you type yourself send immediately.

When something goes wrong

The card shows the carriers’ own rejection reason under the failed step. The usual causes, in order of how often they happen:

1. Legal name or address does not match the IRS record
2. EIN mistyped, or fewer than 9 digits
3. Sample messages with no STOP line
4. Privacy policy or terms URL that is not publicly reachable over https
5. An opt-in description that does not match the site

Fix the detail and resubmit. A rejected brand can be resubmitted as many times as you need, though each attempt carries the carriers’ fee.