The A2P 10DLC trust score is a number between 0 and 100 assigned by The Campaign Registry to your brand at registration time, and it functions as your brand's credibility rating in the eyes of US carriers. This score is not arbitrary; it is calculated from verifiable data points about your business and its online presence, and understanding what those data points are lets you take deliberate steps to improve your score before you register. A trust score below 50 places your campaigns in a low-throughput category that limits you to approximately 15 messages per minute, while a score above 75 can unlock 75 or more messages per second depending on the carrier.
What the Trust Score Algorithm Evaluates
The Campaign Registry's trust score algorithm uses several categories of data to assess brand credibility. Business identity verification checks whether your EIN matches public business registry records, whether your legal business name is consistent across sources, and whether your business has been active for a meaningful period. Online presence signals include the age and quality of your business website, the consistency of your business name across major online directories, and whether your domain email matches your business name. Negative signals include records of prior messaging spam complaints associated with your business identity, inconsistencies between submitted information and publicly available data, and business registration in high-risk categories. The score is calculated once at brand registration and cannot be changed by simply editing your submission afterward; substantive changes require Enhanced Vetting.
Steps to Take Before Registering Your Brand
The highest-impact improvements to your trust score happen before you submit your brand registration, not after. Ensure your business website is live, professionally presented, includes your company name prominently, and contains contact information consistent with your registration address. Create or update your Google Business Profile, Bing Places listing, and LinkedIn company page to reflect your current legal business name and address. Make sure your domain email address matches your business name rather than using a free provider. If your business is less than one year old, obtaining positive reviews on Google and LinkedIn before registering can improve credibility signals. Verify that your EIN is correctly associated with your legal business name in public records by checking the IRS's online verification tools. These preparation steps can improve your automatic trust score by 10 to 20 points compared to registering with a minimal online footprint.
Enhanced Vetting for Low Scores
If your brand receives a trust score below 75 and you need higher throughput, Enhanced Vetting is the formal process for requesting a manual review by The Campaign Registry. Enhanced Vetting costs a one-time fee of $40 applied at the campaign level through Twilio and requires submitting supporting documentation that proves your business identity and legitimacy. Acceptable documentation typically includes a business license or certificate of incorporation, a utility bill or bank statement showing your business name and address, and a URL to a page on your business website that clearly describes your messaging program and includes an opt-in mechanism. Enhanced Vetting does not guarantee a score increase, and TCR reviewers are specifically trained to identify documentation that does not genuinely support the claimed business identity. Businesses that receive Enhanced Vetting approval typically see their effective trust score adjusted upward, unlocking higher throughput tiers.
Maintaining Your Score Through Good Operational Practices
While the trust score is set at registration time, your operational behavior affects how carriers treat your traffic above and beyond what the score alone determines. High opt-out rates, elevated complaint rates, and message content that triggers carrier content filters all degrade your practical deliverability even if your trust score remains unchanged. Keeping your opt-out rate below 1% of sends, maintaining a complaint rate below 0.3%, and consistently sending content that matches your registered use case preserves the value of your trust score and prevents carriers from downgrading your effective treatment. If you migrate to a new brand registration, for example after a business name change or entity restructuring, your new brand starts with a fresh score calculation and does not inherit the positive behavioral history of your previous brand, so plan migrations carefully.
Conclusion
Your A2P trust score is one of the few compliance variables that you can improve proactively before it limits your program, but the window for preparation closes at the moment of brand submission. Speak with our compliance team and we will assess your current score and implement a preparation plan for your Enhanced Vetting submission.
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