Compliance & Responsible Messaging

Mabel is primarily a text-message service (and, for customers who turn them on, places reminder phone calls too), and reaching people on their phones is a privilege that carriers, regulators, and — most importantly — the people we contact extend to us. We take that seriously. Soft Sync Solutions LLC, the company behind Mabel, is fully registered and compliant with the A2P 10DLC framework that governs business text messaging in the United States, and we hold ourselves to the messaging standards set by the wireless carriers and the CTIA.

This page explains what that means, why it matters, and the commitments we make to every person who texts with Mabel.

What is A2P 10DLC?

A2P 10DLC stands for Application-to-Person 10-Digit Long Code. It's a mouthful, so here's what each part means:

• Application-to-Person (A2P) — messages sent by a business or software system to a person, as opposed to a casual text between two friends (person-to-person, or P2P). When Mabel texts you, that's A2P messaging.
• 10-Digit Long Code (10DLC) — a standard local phone number (a normal 10-digit number, like the ones in your contacts), as opposed to a 5- or 6-digit short code or a toll-free number.

A2P 10DLC is the official framework that U.S. mobile carriers — AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, and others — use to sanction legitimate business messaging sent over standard phone numbers. Businesses that want to text customers this way must register with The Campaign Registry (TCR), an industry body that vets who is sending messages and what they're sending.

Registration happens in two layers:

1. Brand registration — we identify our company (Soft Sync Solutions LLC), including our legal entity information and tax ID, so carriers know exactly who is behind the messages.
2. Campaign registration — we describe the specific use case for our messaging: what Mabel is, how people opt in, sample messages, and how people opt out. Carriers review and approve this before any messages flow.

In short: A2P 10DLC is the system that separates trusted, accountable senders from spammers and scammers. Mabel is a fully registered and approved sender within it.

Why A2P 10DLC matters

Registering and playing by the rules isn't just a box we check. It protects the people we text, and it keeps the entire text-messaging ecosystem trustworthy.

It protects you. A2P 10DLC exists so that you only receive messages you actually asked for, from senders who are identifiable and accountable. Every registered sender must honor consent and opt-outs, which means the channel stays under your control.

It ensures messages actually arrive. Carriers filter and block unregistered business traffic aggressively — it's often silently dropped before it ever reaches a phone. Because Mabel is properly registered, our messages are delivered reliably instead of being flagged as spam. When you're texting Mabel, you shouldn't have to wonder whether her replies will show up.

It's the law and the industry standard. Business texting in the U.S. is governed by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), FCC rules, and the CTIA's messaging principles, in addition to each carrier's own policies. A2P 10DLC is how businesses demonstrate compliance with all of it. We'd rather build on solid legal ground than cut corners.

It keeps texting trustworthy for everyone. The reason SMS still feels more personal and less cluttered than email is precisely because the industry works hard to keep spam and fraud off the channel. By registering and following the rules, we're doing our part to keep it that way.

What is SHAFT?

SHAFT is an industry acronym for five categories of content that are restricted or prohibited across business text messaging under CTIA guidelines and carrier policies. It stands for:

• S — Sex. Sexual or adult content.
• H — Hate. Hate speech, or content that harasses, threatens, or demeans people based on who they are.
• A — Alcohol. Promotion of alcoholic beverages.
• F — Firearms. Firearms, ammunition, and related content.
• T — Tobacco. Tobacco, vaping, and nicotine products.

These categories (often extended by carriers to include things like cannabis/CBD, illegal drugs, and certain gambling content) are tightly controlled because messaging reaches people of all ages instantly and directly. A few of them can be permitted only under narrow, strictly age-gated circumstances — but the default across the SMS ecosystem is that SHAFT content is off-limits.

Mabel does not send SHAFT content, and our service is not built for it. Mabel is a friendly, everyday texting companion, and we design and monitor the experience to keep it that way. Our messaging guidelines prohibit SHAFT content, and we maintain the safeguards needed to enforce them.

Our commitments to you

Beyond registration, here is how we run Mabel's messaging responsibly, every day.

Consent comes first. Mabel only texts people who have opted in, and opting in is a separate, deliberate step. When you sign up, you give us your phone number and we text you a one-time code to confirm it's yours (resent only if you ask) — we disclose that code before you ask for it, along with message and data rates and where to find our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Mabel herself stays silent until you explicitly turn her on: after you create your account, we ask you to tick a box agreeing to receive her text messages, and a separate box — recorded as its own consent — agreeing to receive her reminder calls. Until then, we send you nothing beyond the codes you request. We never text people who haven't asked to hear from us, and we never buy or scrape phone numbers; if someone who isn't a customer texts Mabel's number, we send a single reply saying what the number is and how to opt out, and nothing more.

Opting out is always easy. You are in control at any time. Reply STOP (or UNSUBSCRIBE, END, or QUIT) to any message and Mabel will stop texting you. You'll get a single confirmation and no further messages after that. Because Mabel is a paid service that lives in your texts, replying STOP also sets your subscription to cancel at the end of its current billing period — we don't keep billing people we can no longer text. If you ever want to come back, reply START to resume texting; a subscription already set to cancel stays cancelled, and you can resubscribe any time.

Help is one word away. Reply HELP (or INFO) at any time and we'll send you information about the service and how to reach us.

We respect message frequency and rates. Mabel is conversational — she replies when you text her — so the number of messages depends on how much you two chat. Message and data rates may apply through your carrier. We're transparent about this up front so there are no surprises on your bill.

We don't text out of the blue. Mabel texts you in direct response to your messages, for the reminders you schedule (at the times you chose), and for occasional account notices such as a billing problem. Her reminder phone calls are limited to daytime hours — see below.

We protect your privacy. Your phone number and conversations are handled according to our Privacy Policy. We don't sell your personal information, and we never give anyone your conversations for marketing. We use trusted infrastructure providers (such as our messaging and payment processors) to operate the service, and on our marketing pages and signup flow we use the analytics and advertising-measurement tools described in our Privacy Policy.

We keep the content clean. Consistent with the SHAFT standards above and our own guidelines, Mabel's messaging stays free of adult, hateful, or otherwise prohibited content.

Reminder calls

Beyond texting, Mabel can place reminder phone calls — a spoken version of a reminder, for the ones you really can’t miss. Calls happen only when you ask: you consent to reminder calls when you set up your account (and can withdraw that consent at any time), and Mabel places a call only when you ask her, by text, to call you for a specific reminder. You never call Mabel to set anything up — everything is arranged in your texts.

Automated calls are governed by their own rules under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and FCC regulations, so we treat them with the same care as our texting:

• Separate, explicit consent. Before Mabel can call you, you provide consent — separate from your texting consent, and recorded in its own right — authorizing automated reminder calls placed with an automated dialing system and a prerecorded or AI-generated (artificial) voice. You subscribe first, so consent is never collected as part of payment, and no call is ever placed without it.
• She identifies herself. Every reminder call opens by identifying itself as a reminder from TellMabel, then reads back the reminder you scheduled. Whoever answers the phone — or the voicemail box, if nobody does — will hear the reminder, so keep that in mind for sensitive ones.
• Opting out is always easy. Press 2 during any call, reply STOP to a text from Mabel’s number, or contact support, and the reminder calls stop.
• We honor quiet hours. Reminder calls are placed only between 8am and 9pm in the time zone on your account — we infer it from your phone number when you sign up, ask you to confirm it, and you can correct it at any time by text or on your account page. If a reminder falls outside that window, Mabel texts you instead.
• You set the frequency. Mabel calls only for reminders you schedule, so how often she calls is up to you, subject to the everyday usage limits in our Terms. If a call can't reach you, she lets you know with a short text.

Questions about compliance?

If you have any questions about how we handle messaging, consent, or your data, we're happy to help.

Soft Sync Solutions LLC
Email: support@tellmabel.com

For details on how we handle your information and the terms of the service, please see our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.