Most "which sender type" guides put five options in a grid and leave the choice to you. The choice is usually simpler than the grid suggests. Most businesses texting customers in the US should use a registered 10-digit number. A few have a real reason to want a toll-free number, a short code or a branded rich channel. The mistake that costs money is picking a sender type for how it sounds ("short codes look professional") instead of for what you send and how much of it.
This post compares the sender types on four things a buyer can measure: volume, cost, approval time and throughput. It also states plainly which ones Ready supports. We make Ready, so we'll flag where our product fits and where you'd go elsewhere.
First, untangle the names
People use these terms loosely, and the overlap causes confusion.
- Long code. Any ordinary 10-digit phone number. "Long code" describes the number format, not how it's used for messaging.
- 10DLC (10-digit long code). A long code registered with the carriers for business (A2P) texting. You register a brand and a campaign, and carriers then treat your traffic as known business traffic. If you send business texts from an unregistered long code, carriers filter them. In practice, "long code for business" now means 10DLC. Our 10DLC explainer covers the background.
- Toll-free. An 8XX number (800, 888, 877 and so on) that is verified for messaging through its own process, separate from 10DLC.
- Short code. A 5- or 6-digit number leased for high-volume programs. It has the most expensive and slowest setup of the group.
- RCS (Rich Communication Services). The upgraded messaging protocol behind branded, rich chats on Android. Apple added RCS support in recent iOS versions. It is a channel layered on top of carriers, not a number type.
- iMessage (the "blue line"). Ready's way to send as iMessage to iPhones, with your business name and photo. It's not a carrier sender type at all, but it competes for the same "branded, rich text" job that RCS is sold for, so it belongs in this comparison.
So the title's "10DLC vs long code" is a slightly unfair matchup. A long code used for business without registration is just a 10DLC that hasn't been registered yet, and its traffic gets filtered.
The decision table
| Sender type | Approval | Throughput (approx.) | Cost shape | Best for | On Ready? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10DLC | Brand + campaign registration; most approvals take 2 to 7 days | About 1 to 4 segments/sec for a fresh standard campaign; roughly 10 to 75 for higher tiers; T-Mobile daily brand cap from ~2,000 to ~200,000 by trust score | Low monthly registration fees + per-segment send cost | Two-way conversations, reminders, local businesses, platforms texting for their customers | Yes, the core product |
| Unregistered long code | None | Filtered, so effectively unreliable | Cheap until messages stop landing | Nothing at business scale | Up to 500 texts/month before you must register |
| Toll-free | Separate toll-free verification | Varies with verification status | Number + per-message cost | National brands that don't want a local area code | Not offered; source it elsewhere |
| Short code | Lengthy carrier provisioning, often weeks | The high-throughput lane | Lease that runs far above 10DLC fees, plus messaging | Very large national programs, voting/keyword campaigns at scale | Not offered |
| RCS | Brand verification with RCS providers | Not throttled the same way; depends on the provider | Varies by provider | Rich, branded Android experiences | Not offered |
| iMessage (blue line) | No 10DLC registration; live once the line is set up | Unlimited with existing contacts; 50 new conversations/day per line | $99/mo per line + 6 cents/segment | Branded, high-touch texting to iPhone users | Yes |
We've kept the toll-free, short code and RCS cells qualitative on purpose. Their pricing and timing depend on the provider, and we don't publish numbers we can't stand behind.
10DLC: the default, for good reasons
Registered 10DLC fits most senders. It is cheap to keep running, it works for two-way conversations, and a local area code is something people recognize when it shows up on their phone.
What it costs on Ready
There's no setup fee. At submission you pay the first month, $25. After that the monthly cost is $25/mo for registration and $2 per number. One brand, one campaign and one number comes to $27 a month. Our 10DLC cost breakdown itemizes every fee.
Sending is billed on the Standard rate: $0.0075/segment plus a $0.0045 carrier fee per segment. Replies you receive are billed the same way.
Worked example (assumptions stated): a clinic sends 2,000 appointment reminders a month, each 140 plain characters with no emoji, so 1 segment each.
- Sends: 2,000 × ($0.0075 + $0.0045) = $24 at today's carrier fee
- Registration: $27/mo (one brand, one campaign, one number)
- Total: $51/mo all-in.
Ready's all-in prices per segment include the carrier fee but not screening: Scrub lists and Number validation, the two switches in Settings under Compliance, each add $0.003 per segment when switched on, shown as screening on your bill, and both are off by default. Unless you turn the opt-out footer off, the first text to each contact, and one again from time to time, also gets "Reply STOP to opt out" and your business name if the message does not already have them, so a text close to the segment limit can bill one more segment.
Add one emoji to that reminder and the per-segment limit drops to 70 characters, so the 140-character text becomes 3 segments. The send cost then triples to $72. Checking your segment count is worth the habit.
Throughput is the real constraint
A fresh standard campaign moves about 1 to 4 segments per second. At an assumed 3 segments per second, 2,000 single-segment reminders take about 11 minutes. That's fine for reminders. For a 50,000-contact campaign it's slow, and T-Mobile's daily brand cap matters more: at the lowest trust score it's roughly 2,000 messages a day. Brand vetting ($79 Standard or $179 Enhanced, one-time) can raise your trust score. It moves the daily cap only if the score crosses a tier, and it doesn't change the per-second rate. Our post on whether vetting is worth $79 works through when the higher throughput pays for itself.
Starting before approval
You can text before your registration is approved. On Ready, an account can send up to 500 texts a month before registering, at its normal per-text rate. If you bought a number before registering, you send on Ready's shared registration while your own is in review. The first 20 texts are free one-to-one sends; use them before you pay for registration, because the free texts end when you do. To send, you add a card and get a number, which is $2 a month with the first month charged when you get it. We cover the details in sending SMS without waiting on 10DLC.
Toll-free: fine, just not what we sell
Toll-free messaging is a reasonable choice. It suits national brands that don't want a regional area code and senders whose traffic is mostly one-way notifications. Verification is its own process, and throughput depends on verification status.
The tradeoffs are that an 8XX number feels less personal than a local one, and replies to toll-free numbers tend to read as "a company" rather than "my dentist." Ready doesn't offer toll-free numbers. If toll-free is a hard requirement for you, a CPaaS provider is the right place to get it, and that's a perfectly sensible choice.
Short codes: only if your volume demands it
Short codes make sense for very large national programs: millions of messages, keyword campaigns tied to TV spots, or anything where throughput has to come before cost. Provisioning takes a long time and the lease costs well beyond what 10DLC does. If you're asking whether you need one, you probably don't. A 10DLC campaign with good trust standing, plus brand vetting, covers most mid-size senders. Ready doesn't offer short codes.
RCS vs the blue line: the branded-message question
RCS and iMessage solve the same problem from different sides. Each replaces a bare number with your business name, logo and richer content. RCS reaches Android users, and recent iPhones support it as well. RCS depends on the provider and on brand verification in that network. Ready doesn't offer RCS.
What Ready offers is the blue line: your texts arrive as iMessage on iPhones, blue, with your business name and photo. It needs no 10DLC registration, so you can start texting once the line is set up. It isn't Apple Messages for Business, which only lets the customer start the chat. A blue line can text first. Our post on iMessage for business vs Apple Messages for Business explains the difference.
The blue line's limits and math
- $99/mo per line plus 6 cents per segment. Replies are also 6 cents a segment; reactions are free.
- Unlimited texting with people you already talk to. Each line can start up to 50 new conversations a day. You can send up to 2 texts to someone until they reply, and photos only after they reply.
- Texts to Android phones go from your regular number at the regular price if you already had a number; if the blue line came with its green number, your account's texts bill at 6 cents a segment once you register.
- Campaigns and drip campaigns send from regular numbers, not the blue line.
Worked example: 600 one-segment texts a month to existing customers on iPhones costs $99 + (600 × $0.06) = $135. The same 600 texts over 10DLC SMS cost 600 × ($0.0075 + $0.0045) = $7.20 in sends, plus registration. The blue line costs more per text. You pay for presentation and the fast start, not for volume. That trade makes sense for high-value one-to-one conversations such as sales follow-ups, concierge service or a dealership. It does not make sense for a 20,000-contact promotion.
A quick way to decide
- Do you text people who opted in, at under tens of thousands a day? Use 10DLC. Register now, and most approvals take 2 to 7 days.
- Do you need branded, rich conversations with iPhone users, at modest volume? Add a blue line on top of your 10DLC numbers.
- Do you need a national 8XX identity? Get toll-free from a CPaaS.
- Are you sending millions of messages, or running national keyword campaigns? Look at a short code.
- Is a rich Android-first experience central to the product? Evaluate RCS providers.
Whatever you pick, compliance stays your responsibility. On Ready, STOP handling, quiet-hours holds and optional litigator/DNC scrubbing reduce your risk. They don't remove it.
The practical takeaway
For most businesses the answer is a registered 10DLC number, with the blue line added where branded iPhone conversations are worth $99 a line. Toll-free, short codes and RCS are legitimate tools for specific jobs, and Ready doesn't sell them. If 10DLC plus the blue line fits what you send, the quickstart walks through setup, and you can sign up and use your 20 free one-to-one texts before you register.