SMS Compliance and Quiet Hours for Holiday Sends

By the end of this checklist you will have a holiday SMS setup that respects consent, quiet hours, state limits and opt-outs, with records that show it. It covers what the federal rules require, where states such as Florida, Maryland and Oklahoma go further, and how carrier rules sit on top. These rules are your business's obligation. This is general guidance, not legal advice: get advice from your own lawyer before the season starts.

What do you need before you start?

• A list of every tool that sends texts. Your SMS platform, your helpdesk, any review or loyalty app, and anything a teammate set up for a single campaign. Each one needs the same rules.
• Your consent sources. Every form, checkbox, keyword and checkout field that adds a number to your list, with the exact consent language each one shows.
• Subscriber locations. An area code is not a location, but it is a start. A shipping or billing address is better for setting a subscriber's time zone and state.
• The rule texts. 47 CFR 64.1200 for the federal rules, and the statutes for each state where you have a lot of subscribers. Read them, or have your counsel summarize them for your team.
• An owner. One named person who can pause every send during the season if something goes wrong.

How do you set up holiday sends that follow the rules, step by step?

1. Confirm consent for every marketing number. Marketing texts need the subscriber's agreement, and the federal rules define prior express written consent as an agreement in writing, bearing the signature of the person, that clearly authorizes the seller to deliver advertising or telemarketing messages to that number¹. Florida's law defines the term in its own words too³. Pull a sample of subscribers from each source and check you can show when and how each one agreed. Do not text numbers you bought, numbers from a contest without SMS consent, or email subscribers who never opted in to texts.
2. Set quiet hours by the subscriber's local time. Federal rules bar telephone solicitations to residential subscribers before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m., local time at the called party's location¹. Florida bars commercial telephone solicitation calls before 8 a.m. or after 8 p.m. in the called person's time zone², and Maryland bars telephone solicitations between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. in the called party's time zone⁴. Oklahoma has a similar telephone solicitation law; read its current text before you send. The simplest safe setting is one window that fits every state you text, applied in every tool.
3. Cap how often one person hears from you. Florida bars more than three commercial telephone solicitation calls to a person over a 24-hour period on the same subject matter or issue², and Maryland sets the same limit of three in a 24-hour period⁴. Holiday calendars break this by accident: a sale text, a stalled-checkout reminder and a last call on the same day can add up. Set a frequency cap per subscriber across every flow.
4. Make every opt-out work everywhere. The federal rules treat a reply such as STOP as a reasonable means to revoke consent, and a revocation must be honored within a reasonable time not to exceed ten business days¹. In Florida, a subscriber who replies "stop" gives the sender 15 days to stop texting before a suit over text solicitations can be filed³. Treat both as outer limits. Stop the number in every tool within minutes, and include sale flows set up just for the season.
5. Follow carrier rules on top of the law. Carriers expect business texting from ordinary phone numbers to be registered, with sample messages that match what you actually send. Register before the season, describe your holiday campaigns accurately, and keep the brand name and opt-out language in your messages. Unregistered or off-description traffic can be filtered at the worst possible time.
6. Write the messages to match. Name your brand in each text, keep opt-out instructions in the first message and regularly after, and do not hide terms. A holiday deadline in a text should be the real deadline.
7. Keep records. Store the consent source, timestamp and language for each subscriber, every opt-out with its time, and a log of what was sent to whom and when. Keep them long enough to answer a complaint or a claim.
8. Get legal advice before the season. Send your counsel the consent language, the quiet-hours setting, the frequency cap and the opt-out flow. Ask specifically about the states where most of your subscribers live.

How do you check that it works?

• Test phones in several time zones. Set test numbers to Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific, Alaska and Hawaii addresses. Schedule a test send and confirm none arrives outside your window.
• Test STOP in every flow. Reply STOP to the welcome flow, a sale text and a stalled-checkout reminder. Confirm the number stops receiving texts from every tool, then check the timestamp in your records.
• Count sends per subscriber per day. Pull the planned schedule for Black Friday and Cyber Monday and confirm no subscriber gets more than your cap on the same subject.
• Trace five subscribers. Pick five numbers at random and show the consent source, language and timestamp for each. If you cannot, fix the source before the season.
• Read the replies. Messages such as "who is this?" or "I never signed up" point to a consent source that needs a closer look.

What mistakes should you avoid?

• Scheduling in your own time zone. The rules use the subscriber's local time.
• Treating a STOP as a single-flow unsubscribe. A revocation covers your marketing texts, not just the flow it came from.
• Stacking reminders on sale days. Holiday calendars add sends quickly. Count them per person.
• Importing old lists for the season. Do not text a list that has no consent record.
• Assuming a vendor handles it. Tools can help you apply rules, but the obligation is yours. No product makes your program compliant on its own.
• Skipping the lawyer. State laws change. Book the review before the season starts.

For what to send on each day, read the BFCM SMS calendar and the BFCM conversation playbook. Every rule above also applies to replies that turn into sales conversations, so the people answering holiday texts should know your window and your opt-out process. VYG Conversations puts real, professionally trained agents inside a brand's SMS flows, trained on its policies and voice. To watch a person answer a sale-week reply, see Conversations in action.