Is it possible to send an outbound text first?

By default out platform is designed for 2-way conversations. This implies that activity from both parties: the sender and the recipient.

It's always recommended to adapt your use case so that your user init conversations with your sender, and then you can interact with them. This is because such a use case will always be like a guarantee of consent, and it will also be compliant with any regulations, laws, and anti-spam policies.

Warnings and risks

Why is it risky?

In short: Apple or Meta doesn't like it when their services are used for spam.

When your contact receives a message from an unknown contact, they will have the option "Report Junk". If your recipients start to report you, then all your subsequent messages may have the Not delivered status at the Apple layer, and your texts may never be delivered to your new contacts. If recipients "report" your messages, it may result in your messages having the Not delivered status or the sender being blocked.

We can't describe the exact number of reports that would be enough to block your sender name. In some cases, one report is enough (recently activated sender name), and in some cases, it is enough to a few reports within a short time period (will be considered as active spamming)

I collected opt-ins on my platform to receive texts. Can it be used as consent?

In short: No, any consent/opt-ins received outside of iMessage or WhatsApp will never work.

Any type of consent outside does not affect the causes described above. Because iMessage or WhatsApp can't know that your contact has provided any consent outside of this platform. The main reason is that messages are encrypted, and there is no way for Apple or Meta to know anything about content, even if consent is a part of a message. In this case, products like iMessage or WhatsApp rely on your behavioral patterns. If they see that you initiate a lot of conversations with contacts with whom you have no conversations or connections, and they don't respond to you or "report" your messages, then your activity will likely be flagged as suspicious.

That's why any consents, opt-ins, or pseudo opt-ins* that you collected on your site, app, or 3rd party platform can't be used as proof. Any such sendings will be considered by destination platforms as sending to a new random contact and triggers they algorithms to check your and recipients behaviour.

By pseudo opt-ins mean cases where it's not clear to the user that they've given consent for something. For example, when prompted to click a "Agree for terms..." checkbox, where a bunch of text briefly mentions that you'll be sending them texts.

Please note: You are solely responsible if your sender is blocked by the destination platform (iMsg, WhatsApp, RCS) due to their policies considering your sendings or behaviour inappropriate, or your recipients report your messages. According to our Terms of Service, such cases are non-refundable.

Is there any way to send outbound messages first?

If your use case implies that your recipients will reply to your messages, you can enable the "Init conversations" feature when purchasing a sender name or add it as an option to an already active sender. This feature will cost a separate fee, but you can waive it by completing organization verification.

You will need to comply with the following limitations and requirements:

• Your recipients should respond to your messages. Your reply rate should be over ~30%.
• You will init new conversations only with 50 contacts per day (from each sender name). And also keep an interval of 10-15 minutes between each new conversation.
• An initial message will never contain the next content: marketing, junk, phishing, scam, links, emails, phone numbers, currencies, or attachments.
• Once the sender is activated, you need to maintain for a warm-up period*
• The text of the initiating message should contain information that your contact would respond to the message as consent to receive the message or reply that they want to unsubscribe from any messages from you. You must comply with this rule if the user doesn't want to receive any messages from you;

Please note that any rules from SMS markets (10DLC/Toll-Free Number/Short Code) can be applied to instant messengers, and you should never try to use rules or compliance for iMsg/WA/RCS on our platform.

*Warm-up periods:

• ⁠Day 1-2: max 2 new conversations per day
• ⁠⁠Day 3-4: max 5 new conv's per day
• Day: 5-7: max 10 new conv's per day
• Day: 7-14: max 20 new conv's per day
• After 14 days: up to 30-50 new conv's per day.
• After 21 days: up to 50 new conv's per day.

How to verify my ogranization?

This process is free, but it requires some actions on your part that may take a few days. This process consists of two parts:

1) Obtaining a D-U-N-S® Number, or if you already have one, you can use it;

2) Register your business at Apple and submit your application for verification.

Once your application is verified, you will be waived from an additional fee for "init conversation" feature.

Please contact support to be guided through this process.

How can I know if the recipient is an iMessage user or not?

You can use our separate service LoopLookup.com to determine whether a contact supports iMessage/FaceTime or not.

Best practices

We recommend preparing texts that will help the recipient confirm that the message is from a real person and that you woud like to get a response.

Good examples:

Hello, this is John from Acme Corp. Is it okay that I texted you?
We received your application on our website and would like to ask you a few questions.
Or just reply "stop" if you changed your opinion.

Hello, Jack! My name is Bill, and I'm contacting you because we received your request for a demo.
Could you please confirm that it's relevant for you, and I'll send you a link to my calendar so you can schedule a call.
Or lmk please if you changed your mind

Hi Helen! I hope it's okay to text you.
I'm Derek from Cool Stuff Inc., and we see you've filled out a form to buy a new home. Could you please tell me what area you're looking in, and I'll share some links to some great deals?
If it's already irrelevant to you, just let me know.

Updated on: 10/03/2026