Texting, honestly

What's included on each plan?

Every plan sends the same five customer notices — scheduled, on the way, almost there, delivered and couldn't deliver — under your business's name, each with a link to the customer's tracking page. What changes between plans is how many texts a month are included.

Only texts to customers count. The link texted to a driver when you dispatch a route, replies you send from the messages inbox and every email are outside the allowance.

What does a text past the allowance cost?

$0.015 a text or $10 per 500: $0.015 a text past your plan's allowance, or a pack of 500 for $10. Nothing stops when you reach the allowance — the usage meter in Plan & billing warns you at 80% and 100%, and the texts keep going out.

If you would rather not pay for texts at all, switch the text channel off for any notice and customers still get the email and the tracking link. Both are always free, on every plan, including Porch Light.

When do texts start?

US carriers require every business that sends application-to-person texts to be registered first — A2P 10DLC: a brand (who is sending) and a campaign (what the messages are and how people opt in and out). Porch Route submits that registration for your business, with your business's details, from Integrations → Texting. Approval takes up to five business days per business.

• Until it's approved, every customer text is logged rather than sent — you can read it in Integrations → Messages — and the same notice goes by email and on the tracking page, so customers hear from you from day one.
• Once it's approved, texts send under your business's name. Nothing that was logged during the wait is sent late: turning texting on never fires yesterday's notices.
• On Porch Light there is no text allowance, so notices go by email and tracking link only. Move to a paid plan and register whenever you're ready.

What do quiet hours hold back?

Set quiet hours in Settings — a start and an end in your business's time zone, for example 9 PM to 8 AM. Inside them the scheduled notice and the day-before reminder wait until quiet hours end. Notices about a delivery in progress — on the way, almost there, running late, delivered, couldn't deliver — go straight away, because a customer waiting on a porch wants them now. Leave quiet hours empty and nothing is held.

How do consent, STOP and HELP work?

Delivery notices are informational, never marketing, and agreeing to them is never a condition of buying anything. An order can carry the consent your checkout recorded, and every text tells the customer how to stop.

• STOP — replying STOP opts that phone number out of texts from every business that sends through Porch Route's shared number; the customer keeps getting email updates and their tracking link. START or UNSTOP opts back in.
• HELP — the reply names your business and how to reach it (the support contact in Settings).
• Any other reply lands in Integrations → Messages as an unread thread you can answer from the inbox, from the same number the customer texted.

The programme description carriers ask for — who sends, what, how often, the rates statement — is the messaging terms page.

What stops a runaway?

A daily safety cap of a tenth of your monthly allowance (the last column above) protects against a bad import texting a thousand people before breakfast. A text over the cap is recorded as skipped with the reason, and the notice still goes by email. Every text and email — sent, delivered, logged or skipped, and every reply — is in Integrations → Messages with what it said and who it went to.

What is always free?

• Email updates for all five notices, from your business's name, on every plan.
• Tracking links — the page where a customer sees the truck on a map, the timeline, the proof photo and rates the delivery.
• Driver links — the link texted or emailed to a driver when you dispatch. It never counts against the customer-text allowance.
• The messages inbox — reading replies and answering them.