SMS in Canada

Canadian agencies and clients can send SMS without registering a US 10DLC brand. Canada has no 10DLC analog — carriers (Rogers, Telus, Bell) accept SMS from Canadian long codes immediately. The compliance bar is CASL (consent + identification + opt-out), not registration.

Two-tier country flag

Country lives at two levels and they're honored independently:

• Agency level — drives Growth Tools (Inbound SDR, Outbound SDR, SMS Agent). Set at signup, editable on Messaging > Brands.
• Client level — drives that client's SMS surfaces. Set when creating the client, or via the “Switch to Canada” banner when their address looks Canadian.

What you see when your agency is Canadian

Messaging > Brands shows a Canada SMS Setup page instead of the 10DLC wizard. From there:

• CASL identification — a one-line business identifier we auto-append on the first message of every thread. Defaults to your agency / client name; edit it if you want a shorter or more recognizable identifier.
• Opt-out keywords — STOP, UNSUBSCRIBE, ARRÊT by default. Keep ARRÊT for Quebec recipients.
• Consent attestation — confirm you have express or implied consent under CASL for every recipient you'll text. You're responsible for keeping a record of when and how each recipient opted in.
• “Get a Canadian number →” — jumps straight to the number search filtered to CA inventory.

Pricing

Three charges fire for Canadian SMS:

• CA compliance fee — $5/mo per CA scope. Charged once on first CA number provision, then recurring every 30 days. A “scope” is either your agency (for agency-scoped numbers) or each client that owns its own CA number. If you serve three CA clients each with their own number, you pay $5/mo × 3 = $15/mo in compliance fees plus number rental on each.
• Number rental — $1.25/mo per Canadian long code. Same rate as US local numbers.
• Per-segment SMS — same as US. $0.015 per outbound segment, $0.04 per MMS segment, $0.05 AI response surcharge.

A Canadian agency with one CA number sending its own marketing pays $6.25/mo recurring + per-message. A US agency doing the same thing pays $11.25/mo recurring ($10 campaign monthly + $1.25 number) — Canada is intentionally lighter because there's no carrier registration overhead.

What CASL requires

1. Identification — every commercial message names the sender. We auto-append this on the first message of every thread.
2. Unsubscribe — STOP / UNSUBSCRIBE / ARRÊT must be honored. Built in.
3. Consent — express (the recipient asked to receive SMS) or implied (existing business relationship, recently published business contact, etc). The consent attestation on the setup page is your record that you've done the upstream work.

Cross-border note

US carriers may filter unregistered cross-border SMS. A Canadian long code messaging US numbers can be silently dropped by US carrier filters. To reliably text US recipients, register a US 10DLC brand under a US org — that path is unchanged.

Switching an existing client to Canada

If you added a client before the country selector was clear, the Messaging tab shows a yellow banner listing US-tagged clients whose state or postal code looks Canadian. One click flips that client's country to CA and unlocks the Canada SMS path for them. No verification beyond the click — your CASL attestation covers it.

Sole proprietors

Telnyx's Canadian brand path doesn't support sole proprietors. If you're a sole prop in Canada, either incorporate (Provincial or Federal Corp Number — 7-9 digits) or use the no-registration path described here. Most Canadian agencies on the platform use the no-registration path.