Vetting Score FAQs

A Vetting Score refers to the score assigned to a business based on various factors such as the phone's activity history, network reputation, and other relevant data points. The score helps assess the likelihood of the phone number being associated with fraudulent or abusive activity, and enables businesses to make informed decisions about whether or not to send messages to a particular number.

Applying for a Vetting Score will better measure the trustworthiness, reliability, and compliance within industry standards, increasing the chances of your messages reaching your subscribers' inboxes instead of getting filtered into spam or promotional folders. It’s an important tool in preventing SMS spam and other forms of messaging abuse.

Scores are rated between 0-100. When a brand has a high score, it signals to carriers and messaging providers that the brand is legitimate and has a positive reputation. A higher vetting score generally indicates a lower risk of fraud or abuse, while a lower score suggests a higher risk.

If you receive a low score though, don’t be alarmed! Low scores can occur because of a small brand footprint, not because your brand is untrustworthy. You can re-apply for a second vetting score. However, the $15 manual vetting fee is non-refundable and a re-submission will cost another $15 fee.

For Avochato, a Vetting Score is only required for High Volume Use Cases.

Vetting can take up to an hour, but often times is faster than that. This is an automated process that looks at publicly available information about your business - and assesses your brand “footprint”.

No. Vetting Scores are static and do not automatically change over time. Typically, organizations that are smaller in size or have a more limited commercial footprint tend to be assigned lower scores. If your business is expanding, or you believe your business warrants a better score, Avochato is ready to assist by pinpointing potential reasons for the low score and suggesting improvements via an appeal process. Please contact our support team for more info about Vetting Score appeals.

A higher vetting score means higher message throughput with AT&T and larger audience sizes for T-Mobile. Message throughput for SMS is measured in MPS (message segments per second). For more info about segments, check out this article.

Derived from your Vetting Score, you will also be assigned a daily message limit by T-Mobile. This restriction is enforced at the A2P Brand level for each Employer Identification Number (EIN) and is applicable to all Campaign use cases falling under that particular Brand. The cap will be determined by the combined count of outbound SMS segments and MMS messages sent to T-Mobile, Sprint, and MetroPCS.

*This is only an approximate of the total message volume you can send per day to all carriers.

Please note that T-Mobile (including Sprint and MetroPCS) is the only one that has outbound message limits, and the approximation in the table assumes an audience that is comprised of 40% T-Mobile, Sprint and MetroPCS recipients.

By default, brands that are in the Russell 3000 Index will receive a total limit of 200,000 SMS segments and MMS per day toward T-Mobile, Sprint and MetroPCS.

Should you reach your T-Mobile daily message limit, your messages will not be delivered, and instead, you will encounter a 30023 error code indicating that you have reached the daily message ceiling for A2P 10DLC on the T-Mobile network. This daily restriction will be reset on the following calendar day, 00:00 Pacific Time (US)

Your vetting score will not affect the messaging throughput of your Toll-Free numbers and Short Codes.

No. Only messages sent to the US from A2P 10DLC numbers are affected.

Yes. Outbound traffic directed to the United States, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa is categorized as U.S.-bound traffic and will be affected by your Vetting Score. Numerous recipients within these regions utilize telephone services provided by carriers based in the United States. Messages sent to these recipients are treated in an identical manner to messages targeting recipients within the U.S.-based networks.