What is SMS Deliverability?

SMS Deliverability measures the percentage of text messages that successfully arrive on recipients' phones after being sent. While SMS is often cited as having near-100% deliverability, the reality is more nuanced — carrier filtering, number reputation issues, and compliance violations can prevent messages from reaching their intended audience.

Deliverability is distinct from delivery rate (the carrier accepted the message) and read rate (the recipient opened it). A message can be "delivered" to the carrier network but still be filtered before reaching the phone. True deliverability measures end-to-end arrival.

For SMS commerce, deliverability directly impacts revenue. If 10% of your drop announcement texts are filtered, that's 10% of potential revenue lost before the customer even has a chance to respond.

When a business sends a text, it passes through several checkpoints. The SMS platform sends it to the carrier network. The carrier checks the sender's registration status, trust score, content compliance, and sending patterns. If everything passes, the message is delivered to the recipient's phone. If anything triggers a filter, the message may be silently dropped, delayed, or blocked.

Factors that affect deliverability include: 10DLC registration status and trust score, message content (certain words or patterns trigger filters), sending volume and patterns (sudden spikes can trigger rate limiting), opt-out compliance (not honoring STOP requests damages reputation), and number reputation (built over time based on complaint rates and engagement).

Monitoring deliverability requires tracking delivery receipts, watching for sudden drops in engagement rates (a sign of filtering), and maintaining good sending practices.

Deliverability is the foundation everything else depends on. Conversion rates, RPM, and ROI all assume the message was delivered. If deliverability drops, every downstream metric suffers — not because your message or offer got worse, but because fewer people saw it.

The most common deliverability killers are: sending without 10DLC registration, poor content quality (spammy language, excessive links), not honoring opt-outs, sudden volume spikes, and low trust scores from carrier registration.

Maintaining good deliverability requires ongoing attention: proper registration, clean subscriber lists, TCPA compliance, consistent sending patterns, and quality content. SMS platforms handle much of this infrastructure, but the content and compliance practices are the brand's responsibility.