Glossary

The terms, defined.

The vocabulary of compliant political texting, in plain words. One name per thing, the same name everywhere in the product.

Opt-in

A voter's recorded consent to receive texts from a named sender. A keyword text, a signed card, a web form, a recorded verbal yes. The timestamp and source live on the contact record.

Opt-out / STOP

The reply that ends texting, honored instantly and forever across the account. Required by law and enforced by the platform.

10DLC

Ten-digit long code. The carrier registration system that marks a sender as known and approved. Political senders register through a dedicated vetting path, and registered traffic lands where unregistered traffic gets filtered.

TCPA

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the federal law governing texts and calls. Consent, identification, and opt-out honor all trace to it.

Quiet hours

The legal send window, set by each recipient's own state and resolved in their local time. A multi-state send holds messages per person until their window opens.

SMS segment

The unit carriers bill. One short text is one segment. Longer messages and media count as more, which is why allowances count segments.

RCS

Rich Communication Services, the successor to SMS on supported phones. Branding, read receipts, buttons, and no per-segment math. Txtra sends RCS where the handset takes it and falls back to SMS.

Broadcasts

The mass send to a list, personalized per recipient and paced to carrier throughput.

Peer-to-peer

One-to-one texting at human scale. A volunteer sends each message with a human tap under a real name, which keeps it inside the TCPA's lane.

Sequences

Multi-touch sends staged ahead of time, each touch waiting its turn, released by a person.

Autoresponders

Keyword-triggered replies. Text JOIN and the answer fires back with the opt-in recorded.

Segments

Saved audiences built from tags and voter fields, re-resolved fresh every time they're used.

Voter file

Voter data laid onto contacts, party, precinct, registration, vote history. It informs targeting and never makes a number textable.

Compliance gate

The hard stop every message passes before it leaves. Consent, quiet hours, STOP status, sender verification. A send that fails does not go out.

Compliance grade

The advisory read on a message before it sends. Flags missing opt-out language, risky claims, and collisions the operator can fix in the compose screen.

Verified sender

A campaign registered with the carriers under its own name. The reason messages land.

Short code

A five or six digit sending number with maximum throughput and an eight-to-twelve-week carrier vetting behind it.

Toll-free number

An 8XX sending number with higher throughput than a local, verified to the sender.

Throughput

How many messages per second a number can carry. The reason big sends split across numbers.

Carrier fees

The pass-through cost every message carries. Set by the carriers, the largest single cost inside a plan rate.