Short Code Leasing

U.S Short Code Leasing

Short codes are administered by the Short Code Registry (also known as the Common Short Code Administration or CSCA) who oversees the technical and operational aspects of short code functions and maintains a single database of available, reserved, and registered short codes. Short codes and services are subject to U.S. carrier approval, and therefore the CSCA fees paid for the initial lease of a short code are non-refundable regardless of whether any wireless carrier agrees to certify your short code. In addition, businesses are required to keep their campaign(s) up to date. If a campaign is changed or added it needs to be resubmitted for review per carrier policy. Additional information regarding the short code certification process may be found here.

Lease a Short Code

A CSC is leased for an initial three-month term after which it is billed monthly. The leasing fees for “vanity” short codes are higher than those of “random” short codes. Vanity short codes can be very effective in helping consumers remember and use your short code. Many companies deploy several short codes to support a variety of services. Five-and-six-digit codes are leased in three-month blocks, while four-digit codes are leased for an entire year in advance.

If you prefer to select a code (the vanity option) you can go to http://www.usshortcodes.com/ to search for available short codes. For your convenience, this site also has a list of vanity words generated from available short codes. The initial leasing cost is the full amount for the duration of the registration period (lease period is a minimum of 3 months). The actual time to lease your code is relatively short and is accomplished within a couple of days.

Each short code application (program brief) submitted by Convey on a customer’s behalf is subject to approval from the applicable mobile network operators (MNO). convey has no control over an MNO’s approval process for short codes and will bear no liability if a short code application is rejected by an MNO. Furthermore, if an MNO rejects a short code application, convey has no obligation to refund any short code-related fees paid by our customer to Convey prior to such MNO’s rejection of the application.

Renew Your Code

After your initial three-month term, you will be opted automatically into Convey’s auto-renew option for the convenience and flexibility of extending the lease of your CSCs beyond the term expiration date via an automatic credit card payment.

If you do not want to auto-renew, please reach out to your Account Director.

Canadian Short Code Leasing

Certification is done after the short code is provisioned by the carriers and is submitted to the CWTA, after which point the lease of the code is awarded. Once reviewed, applications are submitted to the Canadian carriers during their weekly Tuesday meeting with CWTA. At that time, if carrier approval is granted, a letter of approval detailing the provisioning date(s) is published. The timeframe is typically similar to that of a U.S. short code certification - eight to twelve weeks.