A TCPA compliant dialer is one whose dialing method matches the consent you actually hold: autodialed or prerecorded calls to cell phones need prior express consent (written consent if they're telemarketing), and predictive dialers have to keep abandoned calls under 3% of live-answered calls per campaign over 30 days. No dialer handles the rest for you. The Ready Dialer refuses calls outside the contact's local calling hours and to contacts who opted out, but the National DNC Registry and honest caller ID depend on how your team uses it.
This post covers the calling-side rules of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and its companion rule, the FTC's Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR), in general terms. It is not legal advice. State laws add their own layer, so have a lawyer review your specific program. We use the Ready Dialer as the worked example throughout because we make it and know exactly what it does and doesn't do.
What counts as an autodialer (ATDS)
The TCPA defines an "automatic telephone dialing system" (ATDS) as equipment that can store or produce numbers to be called using a random or sequential number generator, and then dial them. For years courts disagreed over how broad that was. Some circuits counted any system that dialed from a stored list.
The Supreme Court narrowed it in Facebook v. Duguid (2021). Under federal law, a system is only an ATDS if it uses a random or sequential number generator. A dialer that works through your CRM list is usually outside the federal definition.
That ruling does less than many vendors suggest, for three reasons:
- Prerecorded and artificial-voice calls are regulated whether or not an ATDS is involved. Voicemail drops, robocalls and, after the FCC's 2024 ruling, AI-generated voices all fall under the "artificial or prerecorded voice" rules.
- Some states wrote broader definitions. Florida and Oklahoma, for example, have their own "mini-TCPA" statutes that reach some automated systems the federal definition no longer covers.
- The abandonment rules apply to predictive dialers on their own terms. If your system dials more lines than you have agents, the 3% rule applies regardless of how the ATDS question comes out.
The practical test is simple. Does a human decide to place each individual call, and does a human speak when it connects? If yes, you're in the lowest-risk category. If software decides when to dial, or a recording does the talking, consent and abandonment rules apply in full.
Consent rules for autodialed and prerecorded calls
The consent you need depends on two questions: the dialing method, and whether the call is telemarketing (selling something) or informational (an appointment reminder, a fraud alert, a delivery update).
| Call type | To a cell phone | To a residential landline |
|---|---|---|
| Manually dialed, live person, informational | No TCPA consent needed | No TCPA consent needed |
| Manually dialed, live person, telemarketing | No ATDS consent needed, but DNC rules apply | DNC rules apply |
| Autodialed or prerecorded, informational | Prior express consent | Prerecorded: generally allowed with limits; check exemptions |
| Autodialed or prerecorded, telemarketing | Prior express written consent | Prerecorded: prior express written consent |
"Prior express written consent" means a signed agreement, and e-signatures count. It has to clearly authorize calls from your company to a specific number and state that consent is not a condition of purchase. Keep the record: the form wording, the timestamp, the page and the IP address. If a lead disputes consent, that record is your defense.
Revocation matters as much as collection. Under FCC rules that took effect in 2025, a consumer can revoke consent by any reasonable means, and you have to honor it promptly, within 10 business days at the outside. "Stop calling me," said on a recorded call, counts. Your team needs a way to flag it that same minute.
What is the maximum abandonment rate allowed by TCPA?
The cap is 3% of calls answered by a live person, measured per calling campaign over a 30-day period. Both the FCC's TCPA rules and the FTC's TSR use this standard.
A call is "abandoned" if the person answers and isn't connected to a live agent within 2 seconds of finishing their greeting. That "hello… hello?… click" experience is exactly what the rule targets. Predictive dialers create it when they dial ahead of agent availability and more people pick up than the system expected.
The rules come with obligations that dialer vendors sometimes leave out of the sales pitch:
- Play an identification message on every abandoned call. Within 2 seconds, a short prerecorded message has to give your business name and a callback number, with no sales pitch.
- Let each call ring for at least 15 seconds or four rings before the dialer gives up.
- Keep records that show your abandonment rate per campaign, so you can prove you stayed under 3% if anyone asks.
- Allow an opt-out on prerecorded telemarketing calls: an automated keypress or voice option that adds the person to your internal DNC list.
A worked example: assume a predictive campaign gets 4,000 live answers in a month. 3% of 4,000 is 120. The 121st dead-air hang-up puts you out of compliance for the whole campaign period. Teams that run predictive dialers usually set the pacing well below 3% so a busy afternoon can't push them over.
TCPA dialer rules on calling hours, DNC and caller ID
These rules apply no matter what dialer you use, including manual click-to-call.
Calling hours
Telemarketing calls are allowed only between 8 AM and 9 PM in the called party's local time. The rule follows the recipient's time zone, not yours. A Boston team calling a Seattle lead at 8:15 AM Eastern is calling at 5:15 AM Pacific. Area code gives you a rough guess at the time zone, but people keep their numbers when they move, so use the address on file where you have one.
Several states set narrower windows or ban calls on Sundays and some holidays. If you call nationally, build your rules around the strictest state you call into, or hold a per-state table.
Do Not Call
Three separate obligations get lumped together under "DNC":
- National DNC Registry. Before making telemarketing calls, you need access to the registry for the area codes you call, and you have to re-scrub your lists at least every 31 days. An established business relationship or written permission creates exceptions, but they're narrower than most teams assume.
- Internal (company-specific) DNC list. Anyone who asks you to stop goes on it, and the request applies to your whole company, not only the rep who took it. You need a written DNC policy and trained staff to hold the TCPA's "safe harbor" defense.
- State DNC lists. Some states keep their own lists.
Separately from the registry, there's a known population of serial TCPA plaintiffs and frequent DNC complainers. Screening them out is cheap risk reduction, not a legal requirement. Our standalone TCPA & DNC Litigator Scrub checks each number against known TCPA-litigator lists and DNC-complainer lists for $0.005 per contact. A 1,000-contact list costs $5 to scrub. That is small next to statutory damages of $500 per violation, up to $1,500 if a court finds the violation willful. The scrub doesn't replace your National DNC Registry access or your internal list. It reduces risk on top of them.
Caller ID
Telemarketers must transmit caller ID: a number (and a name, where the carrier supports it) that the person can call back during business hours to make a DNC request. The Truth in Caller ID Act prohibits spoofing a number with intent to defraud or cause harm. Calling from a number you don't own, or rotating through numbers to dodge spam labels, is how teams get their calls flagged. We cover how name display works in our branded caller ID guide.
Where the Ready Dialer fits, and where it doesn't
The Ready Dialer is a manual dialer. Here is exactly what it does:
- Click-to-call from the dial pad in the Ready dashboard or inside GoHighLevel
- Consented call recording and transcripts
- Inbound calls that ring the open dial pad
- A Missed call card in the Inbox thread for each missed call
It has no auto dialing, queue dialing, voicemail drop, transfer, barge or whisper, and no speed-to-lead auto-dial. On the compliance checklist, that design removes some risks and leaves others with you:
- ATDS risk is low. A person clicks every call, so you're not dialing from a random or sequential number generator.
- Abandonment doesn't apply. Nothing dials ahead of an agent, so there are no dead-air hang-ups to count toward the 3% cap.
- Prerecorded-voice consent doesn't apply, because the dialer plays no recordings to the person you call.
- Some of calling hours and DNC is built in; the rest is your job. The dial pad refuses a call outside the contact's local calling hours, to a contact who texted STOP or is marked Do not call, and a fourth call in 24 hours to a Florida, Maryland or Oklahoma number. It does not check the National DNC Registry or the other state windows, and caller ID is still yours.
- Recording consent is a separate law. California and several other states require all parties to consent to a recording. Disclose at the start of every recorded call, wherever the other person is.
The tradeoff, stated plainly: if your model depends on predictive dialing across thousands of numbers a day with several agents, the Ready Dialer isn't built for that. You'd need a predictive system and a full abandonment-rate compliance program. If you're weighing that path, our automated calling system breakdown walks through the types and when a human dialer is the better choice.
Worked example: cost per connect on a manual dialer
The Ready Dialer bills $0.025 per minute, with each started minute billed as a full minute. There are no seat plans, and no minutes come bundled in: every minute bills at that one rate.
Assumptions for one rep's day (yours will differ):
- 120 dials
- 25 live connects, averaging 4 minutes 20 seconds, so each bills 5 minutes
- 95 non-connects, which bill nothing: the Ready Dialer bills answered time only
The math:
- Connects: 25 × 5 = 125 minutes
- Non-connects: $0
- Total: 125 minutes × $0.025 = $3.13 for the day
- Cost per connect: $7.50 ÷ 25 = $0.13
Many teams pair the call with a text to leads who have opted in to texts. That means a short note when the form comes in, then a manual call from the pad within the first few minutes. A one-segment text on our Standard rate is $0.0075/segment plus a $0.0045 carrier fee. That all-in figure excludes the optional compliance surcharge: scrubbing and landline validation are each $0.003 per segment when switched on. Replies land in the same inbox as the call history. Texting has its own consent rules and needs 10DLC registration; registration costs $25 at submit for the first month, and most approvals take 2 to 7 days.
For industry-specific versions of this workflow, see auto dialer for insurance agents and the best dialer for real estate wholesaling.
The practical checklist
No dialer is TCPA compliant on its own. Compliance comes from the dialer plus your consent records plus your process. Before your next campaign:
- Match the dialing method to the consent you hold, with written consent for any autodialed or prerecorded telemarketing.
- If you run a predictive dialer, track abandonment per campaign per 30 days, keep it under 3%, and play an ID message within 2 seconds.
- Enforce 8 AM to 9 PM recipient-local, plus any stricter state windows.
- Scrub against the National DNC Registry at least every 31 days, keep an internal list, and honor revocations fast.
- Transmit a real, callable caller ID that you own.
- Disclose call recording at the start of every recorded call.
If a manual, human-on-every-call setup fits your team, you can create an account and try the Ready Dialer from the dashboard or GoHighLevel. Run your own consent and DNC process alongside it.
FAQ
What is the maximum abandonment rate allowed by TCPA?
3% of live-answered calls, measured per calling campaign over 30 days. A call counts as abandoned if the person isn't connected to a live agent within 2 seconds of their greeting. Abandoned calls must also get a short identification message with a callback number.
Is a click-to-call dialer an autodialer under the TCPA?
Generally not under federal law. After Facebook v. Duguid, an ATDS has to use a random or sequential number generator, and a person clicking each call doesn't. Some state laws define autodialers more broadly, so check the states you call into.
What hours can telemarketing calls be made?
Between 8 AM and 9 PM in the called party's local time, under federal rules. Some states set shorter windows or restrict certain days.
Do I need consent to manually call a cell phone?
For a live, manually dialed call, the TCPA's autodialer consent requirement doesn't apply. If the call is telemarketing, Do Not Call rules still do. Calls that use a prerecorded or artificial voice need consent no matter how they're dialed.
Does using the Ready Dialer make my calls TCPA compliant?
No tool can do that. The Ready Dialer's manual click-to-call design avoids autodialer and abandonment issues, but the Ready Dialer refuses calls outside local calling hours and to contacts who opted out, while DNC Registry scrubbing, caller ID and recording consent remain your responsibility. Compliance is always the caller's obligation.