How to get A2P 10DLC approved in GoHighLevel (2026 step by step)

A2P means application to person: texts sent from software like HighLevel to a real person's phone. 10DLC is a standard 10-digit local number. US carriers require every business texting US recipients from a local number to register who they are (the brand) and what they send and how people opted in (the campaign) with The Campaign Registry. HighLevel is just the form. The carriers approve or reject.

Toll-free numbers skip A2P and go through toll-free verification instead. Canadian numbers texting the US need A2P, and Canadian numbers bought on or after March 26, 2025 need A2P or Persona verification even for Canada-only texting.

If you only want to call from a client's existing number, that's a different setup and doesn't need A2P. The steps are in Use your own phone number.

This is the decision that causes the most rejections. If the business has an EIN, tax ID or business number, it's a Standard brand, full stop. That includes every LLC and corporation, even a one-person LLC. Sole Proprietor is only for people with no tax ID and one employee.

Pick wrong and you're stuck. HighLevel's rejection guide says an LLC, Inc. or Co. registered as Sole Prop will keep getting rejected and resubmitting won't fix it. You register the brand again as Standard, then submit a campaign that fits the new brand. An approved brand also can't be edited, so changing details later means a ticket to HighLevel Support.

The client's. The brand is the business responsible for the messages, and carriers check that the name, EIN, website, opt-in form and policy pages all point to the same business. Your agency's EIN with a client's website is a mismatch.

HighLevel also caps reuse: the same EIN can back up to 10 brands (for DBAs), and the same contact email or phone shouldn't be used on more than five brands. Each business should have its own contact person, so put the client's owner or manager as the authorized rep, not yourself.

If the client trades under a different name than its legal one, add "We are doing DBA as [Business Name]" to the campaign description, and make sure the website header or footer, the policies and the checkbox wording all show that DBA.

HighLevel's own checklist for 2026: two separate consent checkboxes, one for marketing texts and one for non-marketing texts, neither ticked by default, and both optional even when the phone field is required. The wording has to name the business and the type of messages from the campaign description, say message frequency varies, that message and data rates may apply, and how to text HELP and STOP.

Every form needs Privacy Policy and Terms links in its footer. The privacy policy can never mention selling or sharing leads and must include HighLevel's non-sharing clause about mobile information. The terms need the business identity, STOP and HELP instructions, a carrier liability line, message frequency and a link back to the privacy policy. HighLevel has sample pages you can load straight into the sub-account.

Since Aug 7, 2026, manual (self-serve) campaigns can't be submitted without a Privacy Policy URL and a Terms URL. If the client has neither, the Chat Widget flow handles them for you.

This is how HighLevel and the carriers describe the rules. It isn't legal advice, so have the client's lawyer look at the policy pages before they go live.

No website is a blocker. Every campaign needs a live, public site that shows the business and matches the brand. The fix is to build one in the client's sub-account with HighLevel's website builder, add the sample privacy and terms pages, and put the Chat Widget on it. A subdomain works as long as it's clearly the same brand and it's obvious how people find the page.

No domain email is fine for Sole Proprietor (it actually requires a Gmail-style address). For a Standard brand a Gmail address is accepted but can slow approval. HighLevel's rejection guide says a sole trader without their own domain should use the same free email that shows publicly on their website.

A US LLC has an EIN, so it registers as a Standard brand with the EIN and legal name from its IRS letter, wherever the owner lives. The thing to watch is Sole Proprietor's phone check, which needs a US or Canada mobile number.

A business registered outside the US uses its own country's number: BN-9 for Canada, VAT number in Europe, ABN in Australia, NZBN in New Zealand. HighLevel says these brands may need extra vetting and can't register as Low Volume Standard.

One bundled fee when you register the brand and first campaign, then a monthly fee per campaign. HighLevel says these are pass-through charges from The Campaign Registry, Twilio and the carriers with no HighLevel markup. One catch: if you have rebilling turned on, HighLevel adds 5% at the sub-account on pass-through charges, A2P fees included, which is why its LC Phone pricing page shows $2.10 and $10.50 a month. Every other usage rate is on Usage fees.

The other catch: submitting a campaign starts both the one-time fee and the monthly fee whether it's approved or not. Delete a campaign you won't use to stop the monthly charge. Resubmitting a rejected campaign is free since early 2026 (HighLevel's changelog announced it Jan 27, its pricing guide says from Feb 1), but changing the use case or opt-in message needs a new campaign at the normal price.

HighLevel doesn't promise a fixed time, but its own docs give these ranges. Sole Proprietor brands are often reviewed faster than Standard ones.

Brand-new EINs are the big trap. The current brand guide says EINs issued in the last 15 days may be rejected, and an older HighLevel best-practices page says to wait 30 to 90 days or pay $10 to appeal. If the client just formed the LLC, expect a wait.

Before October 2026 you had to open every sub-account to check its A2P status. HighLevel launched the Agency Trust Center on Oct 28, 2026: one screen in agency view that shows every sub-account's brand and campaign, why each rejection happened, and lets you fix and resubmit or start a new registration for any sub-account.

It's only on the $497 Founder plan, and only Agency Owners and Agency Admins can see it. I'm on the $497 plan, which is the one you need for this. On Starter or Unlimited you keep registering inside each sub-account, which works the same as before. The changelog says to turn it on in Labs in agency view first, then go to Settings > Phone Integration > Trust Center (A2P).

The Overview tab counts sub-accounts as Fully Approved (brand and campaign both approved), In Review or Rejected, lists the most common brand and campaign rejection reasons, and compares approval rates for the Chat Widget vs self-serve registrations across your clients. The Brands tab shows attempts left for each brand. There's no CSV export yet.

If you manage a lot of clients, that Chat Widget vs self-serve comparison is the most useful number on the page. It tells you which method is actually getting your clients approved.

Ask for everything up front in onboarding: the IRS letter, the registered address, who the contact person is, and the website login. Most delays come from waiting on the client mid-form, especially the email code and the Persona ID check, which go to them.

Fix the website before you submit. If it has no privacy policy, terms or proper checkboxes, add HighLevel's sample pages and the Chat Widget first. Submitting a half-ready site costs the client the fee and buys you a rejection.

Then register from the client's sub-account (or the Agency Trust Center on the $497 plan), link the number, and don't switch on any texting automations (like Missed call text back) until the number shows A2P Verified. Texts from an unlinked number fail with error 30034, and the client thinks your automation is broken.

Open the Trust Center, find the campaign and click View required fixes next to every rejection reason. Fix all of them, check the whole submission again (description, use case, sample messages, website, policies, business name), then resubmit. Don't create a second campaign while one is still Pending.

The most common reasons are a description that doesn't match the use case, opt-in consent HighLevel couldn't verify, and a website the reviewer couldn't load. A separate guide that maps each rejection message to its exact fix is coming next on this hub. Until then, HighLevel's A2P Campaign Rejections, Required Fixes & Vetting Errors article lists every code.