What is Secondary Vetting for A2P 10DLC? – Twilio Support

A2P 10DLC Standard Brand registration includes an automatic vetting referred to as secondary vetting. Twilio added this automated process to eliminate extra registration steps, while allowing businesses to maximize throughput and daily limits. Secondary Vetting costs $40, bringing the total cost to register a Standard Brand to $44. This is a pass-through fee.

Article contents:

What is Secondary Vetting?
How does Secondary Vetting relate to Low Volume Standard Brand registration?
Is there anything I need to do besides registering my brand?
I have already registered my A2P Brand, do I need to do anything?
I’m an ISV, will the $40 fee apply to all my Secondary Brands?
Is Secondary Vetting required? Can I opt out?
What happens if I opt-out of Secondary Vetting for one of my clients?
If I opt-out of Secondary Vetting for a client now, can I have that client vetted in the future?

What is Secondary Vetting?

Secondary vetting is an additional brand review done by carriers that allows for higher T-Mobile daily message limits and maximizes throughput per campaign. The process ensures accuracy of information and maximizes your Trust Score, with no additional time for approval. You can find more information on A2P 10DLC message limits/throughput in the articles T-Mobile daily message limits for long code messaging with A2P 10DLC and Message throughput (MPS) and Trust Scores for A2P 10DLC in the U.S.

How does Secondary Vetting relate to Low Volume Standard Brand registration?

A Low Volume Standard Brand is an A2P Brand registration that skipped Secondary Vetting. Without Secondary Vetting, message throughput and daily limits are lower, but registration cost is also lower. See "Is Secondary Vetting required? Can I opt out?" below.

Is there anything I need to do to ensure Secondary Vetting happens, besides registering my brand?

Make sure you select Standard Brand registration instead of Low Volume Standard. Secondary vetting occurs automatically during Brand registration for all Standard brands.

I registered my A2P Brand early in the A2P registration rollout (2020 or 2021), do I need to do anything?

Secondary vetting was automatically applied to all existing brand registrations when it became default in June 2021, so no additional steps are required from any customer who registered before that date.

I’m an ISV, will the $40 fee apply to all my Secondary Brands?

Yes, by default, Twilio's Standard Brand registration will automate the secondary vetting process for both Primary and Secondary Brands and each Secondary Brand will require a $40 fee.

As of September 28th, 2022, the new Low Volume Brand registration option offers ISV's and Direct customers the ability to skip secondary vetting – see below.

Is Secondary Vetting required? Can I opt out?

As of September 28th, 2022, the new Low Volume Standard Brand registration option offers ISV's and Direct customers the ability to skip secondary vetting. For ISV's this can be done when registering their Brands via the ISV A2P Standard Registration API or Console.

If you do not want automated secondary vetting for any specific Secondary Brand you are registering, you can pass an optional API parameter SkipAutomaticSecVet=true to bypass Secondary Vetting for that Brand. However, be aware that any Brand that does not receive Secondary Vetting will be subject to restrictions – see below.

What happens if I opt-out of Secondary Vetting for one of my clients?

Any Brand that does not receive Secondary Vetting will be subject to the below daily message and throughput restrictions, depending on whether they are on the Russell 3000 index or not.

Brand is a Russell 3000 index company?	T-Mobile daily message limit (SMS segments + MMS)	Message throughput tier – Declared use case	Message throughput tier – Mixed/Marketing use case
Yes	200,000	75 MPS per major US carrier	75 MPS per major US carrier
No	2,000	4 MPS per major US carrier	4 MPS per major US carrier

For more context on these limits as they apply to A2P 10DLC in general, see:

If I opt-out of Secondary Vetting for a client now, can I have that client vetted in the future?

Yes, simply contact Twilio Support and let us know the Account SID, Brand SID, and name corresponding to the Brand that you want Secondary Vetting applied to. Secondary Vetting will be applied manually and you will be assessed the standard $40 vetting fee.

Please note that retroactively applying Secondary Vetting is a manual process; requests to apply Secondary Vetting retroactively to multiple Brands may take time to process. If you think a Brand is likely to need higher limits and throughput than what is available without Secondary Vetting (see table above), it is strongly recommended to register the Brand normally from the beginning and not skip Secondary Vetting.