How does InsertLead actually work?

What InsertLead actually is

Most real estate SMS platforms (REI Reply, LaunchControl, Smarter Contact, REI BlackBook) rent you their pool of Twilio numbers, take a markup on every send, and lock your conversation history inside their dashboard. When their compliance team has a bad week, your account gets paused. When they raise prices, you have no leverage. When you leave, you lose your numbers, your A2P registration, and your conversation history.

InsertLead flips that. You sign up for Twilio yourself (we walk you through it). You register your own A2P 10DLC Brand and Campaign with the carriers. You buy your own numbers. You drop your Anthropic API key in for the AI features. We handle the software layer on top: importing leads, sending campaigns at compliant pacing, reading replies with Claude, qualifying leads, handing them off when they're warm, and managing the CRM pipeline. If we go away tomorrow, you still have your Twilio account, your A2P registration, your numbers, and your data.

The full lead flow, end to end

Here's what happens between an address on a list and a closed deal:

1. Import. Drop a CSV (Podio export, PropStream pull, hand-built list). We auto-detect columns, normalize phone numbers to E.164, and dedupe by name + address against your existing leads so you never re-text the same person. Read the CSV import flow.
2. Send a campaign. Pick template mode (10 carrier-compliant intros rotate across recipients) or AI mode (Claude generates a unique first-touch message per recipient). Every send is jittered 10-30 seconds so carriers see human pacing, not a blast. More on adaptive throttling.
3. Number rotation. Higher tiers send across a pool of numbers automatically so no single number burns its sender reputation. How rotation works.
4. Lead replies. Twilio fires a webhook, we parse the inbound, run six layered DNC + STOP defenses, and queue the message for AI handling. DNC + STOP defenses.
5. AI autoresponder reads + responds. Claude scores intent, drafts a reply in your voice (first name only, no em-dashes, A2P-compliant), and sends it from your Twilio number. As the conversation moves, it extracts motivation, condition, timeline, and price. How the autoresponder works.
6. Handoff to you. The moment the lead asks to talk, asks for a real person, or two of those four qualification fields are filled, the AI sends a one-line bridge text and the lead lands in your Hot inbox. Handoff flow detail.
7. You take it warm. Open the conversation, see everything Claude pulled out, follow up with a phone call or another text. CRM pipeline tracks Cold / Warm / Hot / Follow-up across every lead.

Quiet hours hold every outbound between 9 PM and 8 AM in the lead's local timezone, then drain at one message per second when their morning window opens. Quiet hours queue.

What you bring vs what we bring

You bring: a Twilio account (with A2P 10DLC Brand and Campaign approved), one or more Twilio phone numbers, an Anthropic API key with a $10+ deposit and auto-reload turned on, and your lead lists.

We bring: the import pipeline, the campaign engine with carrier-compliant template rotation, the adaptive-throttle queue, the AI autoresponder with prompt caching, the CRM, the inbox, the global DNC, the qualification logic, the handoff bridge text, the per-user budget caps, the savings tracker, and the dashboards.

What you do NOT bring: any markup on Twilio. Any markup on Anthropic. Any seat license for an account manager. Any commitment to a contract.

Why we call ourselves a Compliance Wrapper

Carriers (T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon) hold the actual gate that decides whether your text reaches a phone. They look at the sender, the volume pattern, the keyword content, the recipient list quality, the opt-out behavior, and the A2P 10DLC registration. Mess up any of those and they shadow-ban the number, ramp up "spam likely" labeling, or block delivery entirely.

InsertLead is the wrapper around your Twilio account that handles the hard parts of staying on the right side of all six of those gates: throttled sending, rotated numbers, locked-down templates that pass keyword filters, six layers of opt-out detection, a global DNC list shared across every InsertLead tenant, and per-user budget caps so a runaway loop can't accidentally torch your reputation.

You stay the legal sender of record. Your EIN sits on the A2P registration. The TCPA liability lives with you (just like it would on any other platform). What's different here is that we never bundle that liability with our own — we have no shared sender pool that could shadow-ban your number because of someone else's mistake.

Getting started

Three onboarding paths, depending on how technical you're feeling:

• Self-Serve (free). You set up Twilio + A2P, paste your credentials, and follow the 2-minute walkthrough video. Self-Serve setup.
• Assist ($29 one-time). We log into your Twilio with temporary access, wire the webhooks, and smoke-test your first send. Assist setup.
• Full Setup ($149 one-time). We file your A2P 10DLC Brand + Campaign with Fast Track approval and host your compliance trust page. Full Setup.