What is a DNC list and how does it apply to wholesaling SMS?

What DNC means in SMS marketing

Do Not Contact / Do Not Call. The umbrella term for any signal that a recipient does not want further marketing messages from a given sender. Sources of DNC signals:

• National Do Not Call Registry. The FTC's federal list of phone numbers that have opted out of telemarketing. Originally for voice calls; courts have increasingly read it to cover SMS marketing too.
• State DNC registries. Some states (Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, others) maintain their own lists with stricter rules.
• STOP keyword replies. The recipient texts "STOP" or any of its variants. Carrier-side and platform-side opt-out, immediate.
• Inferred opt-out. The recipient texts something like "leave me alone" or "I'm not interested" without using the literal word "STOP." Platforms with semantic classifiers (like Claude) catch these too.
• Internal DNC. The platform's or sender's own list, augmenting the above.

Why honoring DNC matters legally and economically

Legal. The TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act) lets recipients sue for $500-$1,500 per text sent after they opted out. There's no "we forgot" defense in court; ignoring a STOP is one of the most open-and-shut TCPA violations.

Economic. Carriers (T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon) score sender numbers on opt-out rate. If a number keeps texting people who opted out, the carriers ramp up "spam likely" labeling, then block delivery, then suspend the A2P 10DLC Campaign. One bad month can cost months of recovery.

Types of DNC lists

• Federal Do Not Call: the FTC list. As a wholesaler texting cold leads, you should scrub against this. Many list providers do it for you, but verify.
• Carrier-level: Twilio auto-handles platform-wide STOP keywords. A recipient who texts STOP to ANY Twilio number can't be re-texted from any other Twilio number tied to the same account, unless they affirmatively opt back in.
• Platform-level: InsertLead's per-user DNC table records every opt-out with the message that triggered it, the layer that caught it, and the timestamp. That's your audit trail if you ever face a TCPA claim.
• Cross-tenant (global) DNC: InsertLead's global DNC table stores phone numbers blocked anywhere on the platform. Once added, the number is blocked from outbound messages by every tenant, ever. More on the global DNC.

How InsertLead enforces DNC

Six layered defenses run on every inbound reply:

1. 47-phrase deterministic STOP filter (catches "stop," "unsubscribe," "remove me," and 44 other patterns).
2. Claude semantic-STOP classifier as a second-opinion catch on the patterns the first filter missed.
3. Twilio-side STOP keyword auto-handling at the carrier level.
4. Manual CRM "DNC" flag you can click to opt out a lead at any time.
5. Per-user DNC audit table.
6. Global cross-tenant DNC table.

Once any layer triggers, the lead is opted out everywhere. There is no path to re-opt in via the InsertLead UI — if a phone wants back in, it has to come from the recipient's side via "START" / "UNSTOP" through Twilio's standard re-opt-in flow.

Full DNC compliance flow.

What counts as a DNC opt-out

• "STOP," "stop," "Stop" — any case.
• "Unsubscribe," "Quit," "Cancel," "End."
• "Remove me," "Take me off," "Do not text," "Don't contact me."
• "I'm not interested," "Not interested," "Leave me alone," "Wrong number."
• Any phrase Claude classifies as opt-out intent.
• Manual CRM DNC click by you.

Borderline cases — "maybe later," "not right now," "I'll think about it" — are NOT opt-outs. They're soft pauses. The autoresponder slows down on those leads but doesn't ban them.