SMS Settings

  • Updated

SMS Settings are the Administrator controls that set the guardrails for the whole account - which number type you send from, whether you can send internationally, what hours your team can send in, and how often a single recipient can be messaged. Getting these right up front means everyday senders do not have to think about them.

Who does this: Act-On Administrators
Time needed: 10-15 minutes for the initial setup; changes after that are quick
Why this matters: Allowed SMS Hours and Fatigue Rules are the compliance and reputation safeguards that protect the channel. The wrong send window or an over-sent recipient can mean regulatory exposure, carrier throttling, or simply a lost audience. Setting these account-wide keeps every send on the right side of the line.
In plain English: Pick your number type, decide whether international sending is allowed, set the hours your team can send in, and cap how many messages a single recipient can receive in 7 or 30 days.

Access SMS Settings

Administrators can open SMS Settings from SMS > Settings.

SMS Number Types

Select the phone number type your messages send from. Different types carry different throughput, country coverage, and approval timelines. For details on all four types, see SMS Phone Number Types.

Sending outside the US and Canada

Enable this to allow SMS to phone numbers outside the US and Canada.

Note: International SMS uses additional Credits. See International SMS - Credits by Country for the country-by-country cost table.

Allowed SMS Hours

Allowed SMS Hours prevent users from sending outside your specified sending window.

Start Time and End Time

Enter the Start Time and End Time for your business hours. Use the arrow keys or type the hours, then choose AM or PM from the dropdown.

Allow Override

Allow Override decides what happens when a user tries to send outside the allowed window.

When enabled, users see a warning and can acknowledge it to proceed.

Out-of-hours warning with override option

When disabled, users cannot send outside the window. A warning explains that if they click Schedule Anyway, the message is held until the start of the next sending window.

Example: SMS hours are set 8:00 am to 5:00 pm and Allow Override is disabled. A user tries to schedule for 6:00 pm. Clicking Schedule Anyway sends the message at a different time depending on the schedule option:

  • My Timezone: the message sends at 8:00 am the next day in the account's timezone.
  • Recipients Timezone: the message sends at approximately 8:00 am in each recipient's local timezone.

Fatigue Rules

Fatigue Rules cap how many SMS a single recipient receives within a rolling window.

  • Time Period: 7 days or 30 days.
  • Maximum number of messages that can be sent: the cap per recipient within that period.

It is good practice to state your anticipated frequency in your SMS Opt-In Message - that sets expectations and matches what Fatigue Rules will enforce.

Be careful: Fatigue Rules cannot be overridden. Once a recipient hits the cap, further sends to that number are blocked for the remainder of the period - even with Allow Override enabled.

Next steps

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