Ringless voicemail sounds like a loophole. The message lands in someone's voicemail box, the phone never rings, nobody is interrupted, and you reach a thousand people for a fraction of what a calling team costs. For several years vendors sold it on exactly that pitch, built around the claim that a voicemail with no ring isn't a "call," so the TCPA doesn't apply.
The FCC rejected that argument in late 2022, and it has stayed rejected. If you're searching for ringless voicemail now, you need two things: a clear picture of where RVM, voicemail drop and SMS each sit under the TCPA, and the options that still work. We make Ready, and we don't offer ringless voicemail or automated voicemail drop. The sections below explain the rules behind that choice and what we support instead.
This is general information, not legal advice. Compliance is ultimately the sender's responsibility, so have counsel review your program.
What ringless voicemail actually is
Ringless voicemail (RVM) places a recorded audio file directly into a mobile subscriber's voicemail box. It goes through the carrier's voicemail server, so the handset never rings. The recipient sees a new voicemail notification and that's the only sign anything happened.
The industry's legal theory was simple. The TCPA restricts calls that use an artificial or prerecorded voice. RVM never rings the phone, so vendors argued it wasn't a call. In November 2022 the FCC issued a declaratory ruling that ringless voicemail delivered to a wireless number is a call under the TCPA. That means the prerecorded-voice rules apply:
- Prior express consent is required for prerecorded calls to wireless numbers.
- Prior express written consent is required when the message is telemarketing, meaning it sells or promotes something.
- Statutory damages run $500 per violation, and up to $1,500 if a court finds the violation willful or knowing. Every voicemail counts as a separate violation.
That last point drives the risk. An RVM campaign to 5,000 numbers without consent isn't one mistake. It's 5,000 potential violations. If even a small share of that list consists of serial TCPA plaintiffs, a single campaign can generate a demand letter worth more than a year of marketing spend.
Voicemail drop: same rules, different mechanics
Voicemail drop is a different technique, but in most cases it carries the same legal weight. A dialer places a real call. When the call reaches voicemail, the rep clicks a button and the system plays a prerecorded message into the box while the rep moves on to the next call.
The phone does ring, so nobody disputes that it's a call. The message left behind is prerecorded, though, and the TCPA's prerecorded-voice restrictions turn on the message, not on whether a human dialed. In practice:
- When the call goes to a cell phone, a prerecorded drop generally needs prior express consent.
- If the drop is promotional, it generally needs prior express written consent.
- Federal and state Do Not Call rules and calling-hour windows apply to the underlying call either way.
A live voicemail is different. That's a rep who personally speaks a message after the beep. Because no artificial or prerecorded voice is involved, the prerecorded-voice consent rule doesn't apply. DNC rules, calling hours and any state-level telemarketing laws still do. For more on where dialing technology crosses legal lines, see are auto dialers legal.
Where SMS sits
Under FCC interpretation, text messages are also "calls" for TCPA purposes. Marketing texts sent with an autodialer need prior express written consent, and the same $500 to $1,500 per-message exposure applies. SMS isn't a way around consent. What it gives you is an operational advantage once you have consent:
- Carrier registration (A2P 10DLC) puts your traffic on an approved route tied to a declared use case. Unregistered traffic gets filtered.
- STOP handling is standardized. A recipient replies STOP and you have a machine-readable opt-out to honor.
- Two-way by default. The lead can answer in five seconds instead of calling back.
Our stance is plain. SMS goes to people who opted in or who already replied to you. Cold outreach belongs on the phone and in the mail. If you're unsure whether your opt-in language holds up, read prior express written consent vs implied consent.
Side-by-side comparison
| Ringless voicemail | Prerecorded voicemail drop | Live voicemail (manual call) | SMS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Is it a TCPA "call"? | Yes (FCC, 2022) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Consent for marketing | Prior express written | Prior express written | No prerecorded-voice rule; DNC and state laws apply | Prior express written |
| Phone rings? | No | Yes | Yes | N/A |
| Recipient can reply instantly? | No | No | No (must call back) | Yes |
| Built-in opt-out mechanism | No standard | No standard | Verbal request | STOP keyword |
| Offered by Ready | No | No | Yes, Ready Dialer | Yes |
Why Ready supports SMS and manual calling instead
We offer two channels here: consented SMS and the Ready Dialer for manual calls. We don't offer RVM, and the Dialer has no voicemail drop, no auto-dialing and no queue dialing. That's a product decision. RVM and prerecorded drops are where consent problems multiply fastest, so we left them out.
What the SMS side includes
- Self-serve 10DLC registration inside the app. There's no setup fee. The charge at submit is the first month, $25, and after that the monthly cost is $25/mo for registration + $2 per number. Most approvals take 2 to 7 days. The 10DLC explainer covers the background.
- Automatic STOP handling. An opt-out applies across every campaign, so a contact who opts out can't be texted again by mistake.
- Quiet-hours enforcement. A text sent outside the recipient's permitted local hours is held and sent later. Campaigns, drip campaigns and automations wait up to 24 hours for the window; a one-to-one or API text is held only if the window opens within 6 hours, otherwise it is refused and must be resent; a one-to-one reply to someone who texted you in the last 24 hours goes out at any hour.
- Litigator and DNC scrubbing. The standalone scrub is $0.005 per contact. You can also switch scrubbing on for an account at $0.003 extra per segment. It's off by default. See TCPA litigator scrubbing explained.
- Attestation capture. We record who sent each bulk or API send, to how many recipients and when. This is not a per-contact consent record. Your opt-in form or store has to keep each contact's opt-in time, wording and page URL. How to document SMS consent walks through what to save.
What the dialer side includes
- Click-to-call from the dial pad in the dashboard or inside GoHighLevel.
- Consented call recording and transcripts.
- Inbound calls ring the open pad, and missed calls show up as a Missed call card in the contact's Inbox thread.
- Billing is $0.025/min, with each started minute billed as a full minute. Only answered time is billed. A call answered by voicemail counts as answered, so a rep leaving a live message is billed like any connected call.
Worked example: replacing an RVM campaign
The figures here are an illustration with stated assumptions, not a measured result. Say you have 500 leads who filled out a form with compliant SMS opt-in language, and you were considering an RVM push to follow up.
Step 1: one text. A 140-character message with no emoji is 1 segment.
- 500 × 1 segment × $0.0075 = $3.75
- Plus 500 × $0.0045 in carrier fees
- That's the all-in send cost, excluding the compliance surcharge if you've switched scrubbing on.
Replies are billed the same way as sends (the per-segment rate plus the carrier fee). If you assume 30% of opted-in leads reply once with a single segment, that's 150 more segments at the same rate.
Step 2: manual calls to the rest. Assume your reps call the 350 who didn't reply, and that:
- 150 don't pick up: $0
- 100 answer live, averaging 3 started minutes: 300 minutes
- 100 go to voicemail and the rep leaves a 1-minute live message: 100 minutes
400 minutes × $0.025 = $10.00 in calling.
The two steps together come to about $17.80: $3.75 for the texts, $1.13 for the replies, $2.93 in carrier fees on 650 segments, and $10.00 for 400 minutes of calling. Every touch either sits on a written opt-in or is a live human call, with no prerecorded audio involved. The calls still have to respect DNC lists and calling hours. The TCPA calling hours by state guide covers the stricter state windows.
When another tool is the right call
There's a real tradeoff here. If you have documented prior express written consent for prerecorded messages and a genuine need for audio at volume, such as a membership organization sending recorded updates to members who opted in to exactly that, a dedicated voice-broadcast or RVM vendor can serve that use case legally. Ready isn't built for it, and we'd rather you know that before you sign up.
On per-segment price alone, raw carrier APIs like Twilio and GoHighLevel's LC Phone come in lower than our Standard rate. What Ready adds is registration, STOP handling, quiet hours, scrubbing and a dialer in one place.
The practical takeaway
Ringless voicemail lost its loophole. The FCC treats it as a call, and prerecorded voicemail drops carry the same consent burden. The lower-risk approach is to text people who opted in, call everyone else by hand, and keep your consent records where you can produce them.
If that's the program you want to run, you can create an account and use your first 20 one-to-one texts before you register. The quickstart docs show the API side.