Enrollsy uses Twilio to send and receive SMS text messages. You can text customers one at a time, send group texts, and send automatic notifications, all from one dedicated phone number for your company.
Before You Start — Register Your Company for Texting
Phone carriers require every software application that texts personal phone numbers to register each company that uses it. This is called A2P (Application-to-Person) brand registration. If SMS texting isn't turned on for your company yet, this registration probably hasn't been done.
To get registered:
Have one person from your company fill out the A2P Brand Registration Form
Make sure your website links to your current Terms and Conditions
Make sure your website links to a mobile-compliant Privacy Policy (see How to Create a Website Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions)
We'll turn on SMS texting for your company once Twilio verifies your registration.
Your Dedicated Texting Phone Number
Your company has one phone number for all texts. Every text uses it, whether it comes from an admin, an instructor, or an automatic notification.
Once we turn on SMS texting, we will email you your Twilio phone number. You can also find your number by looking at any text you've already sent or received from your organization. You can also chat with us and we'll get it for you.
We recommend sharing this number with parents so they can save it in their contacts. That way they'll know who's texting them.
Turn On the Required Cell Phone Fields
SMS texting only works with the default cell phone fields in the Account Information section of the Enroll Form. These fields must be set to Visible. A custom cell phone field you add yourself won't work with SMS.
When you send a text, you choose whether it goes to the Primary Account Holder, the Secondary Account Holder, or both. Each person must have a cell phone number on their account.
How Texts Are Sent and Received
Customers get texts in their phone's messaging app, not in Enrollsy
Group texts reach each customer as a private message, and replies come back only to your company, not to the whole group
Admin users can only see incoming texts in their own Notification Center, but can see both incoming and outgoing texts on each customer's account
Instructors see texts in the Instructor Portal on the Activities and Check In/Out pages by clicking the SMS icon
All locations share one texting number, so every admin user can see texts from every location
All users on an account can see its full text history, no matter who sent each message
Unread texts stay unread for each admin and instructor until that person opens them, even if someone else has already read them
Incoming text notifications are deleted after 60 days
To get notified about incoming texts, turn on SMS in your Notification Center settings. See How to Set Up the Admin Notification Center.
For step-by-step instructions on sending individual and group texts, see How Admin Users Send and View Text Messages to Customers.
Text Message Limits and Pricing
Our texting provider passes carrier texting fees on to Enrollsy, so each plan includes a set number of texts per month. Each text after that costs 1.5¢.
Starter — 500 texts per month
Pro — 1,000 texts per month
Enterprise — 2,000 texts per month
How Overages Are Billed
Texts over your limit are billed the following month. For example, if you're on a Pro plan and send 3,000 texts in July, your August bill will include an extra $30 (2,000 extra texts × 1.5¢).
Bulk Texts Over 160 Characters
Bulk texts have a 160-character limit, which is set by our texting provider. If your message is longer, Enrollsy warns you that each recipient will get multiple billable message segments. You'll need to approve this before the text is sent.
Check How Many Texts You've Sent
Go to Reports and scroll to the bottom to find the Messages report. It shows how many texts you've sent this month and last month.
A2P Registration Fees
Carriers charge these fees for A2P registration:
Brand Registration — $4 one time
Campaign Vetting — $15 one time, which tells carriers who you are and connects your company to your texts
Campaign fee — $1.50 per month
These fees go directly to The Campaign Registry (TCR) and other third-party vetting companies, so Enrollsy doesn't control them. If you subscribed after January 12, 2024, they're covered by your implementation fee. For more details, see Twilio's guide to A2P 10DLC fees.
Customer Consent and Opt-Outs
Opting in — Every customer agrees to an SMS consent checkbox when they first enroll, and then gets a text asking them to opt in
Opting out — Customers can stop receiving texts by replying STOP, STOP ALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, or QUIT
Opting back in — Customers can start receiving texts again by replying START, YES, or UNSTOP
To learn how to keep track of opt-outs and follow SMS rules, see SMS Compliance, Consent & Best Practices.
Tips to Keep Your Texts From Being Blocked
Carriers can block texts that look like spam, and we aren't notified when that happens. To help your texts get through:
Include your company name in the first message you send to someone
Don't use public link shorteners like Bitly or TinyURL (shortened links created by Enrollsy are fine because they use a private domain)
Avoid emojis, extra special characters, and all caps
Send texts during regular business hours in the recipient's time zone
For more tips, and what to do if you think your texts are being blocked, see SMS Compliance, Consent & Best Practices. For more about links in texts, see Twilio's guide to sending shortened URLs.
Texting Between Admins and Instructors
Admins can send one-way texts to instructors. There's also a workaround that lets admins and instructors text back and forth. See How Admins and Instructors Can Text Other Admins or Instructors.