SMS Setup & Text Messaging

SMS is available on the Plus plan. You need two things before you can send texts:

1. An active Plus subscription — upgrade under Admin › Billing if you’re on the Essentials plan.
2. Completed carrier registration — US carriers require businesses to register before sending SMS. This is a one-time process; how long it takes depends on which registration path your co-op is on (see below).

Members who want to receive texts need a phone number on file and need to opt in to SMS notifications. They can do both themselves on My Profile: edit Family Information, add the phone number, and tick the box next to their name under Text messages.

A second adult in the household can get texts too, once a number is saved for them. If they have their own login, they turn texts on themselves under Your texts at the top of My Profile. If they don’t, someone in the household can turn them on from My Profile or the term review by ticking a box that says they have that adult’s permission, or can email the adult a link to decide for themselves. That consent belongs to the contact rather than to the admin sending the text, so a STOP reply stops texts for that person and not for the whole household.

A family joining for the first time can opt in on the way in instead. Your co-op’s join form carries the same checkbox in its registration step, and the first screen shows a preview of it so people can see before they start that texts are optional and that joining does not depend on them. Only the real checkbox in the registration step records consent.

US carriers require businesses to register before sending SMS at scale. This prevents spam and ensures your texts are delivered reliably. New co-ops go through a faster toll-free path; co-ops that were already registered before toll-free became the default stay on the older 10DLC path. Your type is determined automatically. You don’t need to choose, and the two paths ask for slightly different information.

Toll-free (what new co-ops get) is usually approved in about 1–3 business days. 10DLC (existing customers who stay on that path) takes longer, since it has three separate review stages, typically 2–4 weeks from start to finish. Either way, HomeschoolGo shows your current status on the Text Messaging page so you’re not left guessing.

Once your registration is approved, your dedicated number is shown at the top of the Text Messaging page. This is the number your families will see when they receive texts from your co-op.

Share this number with your members so they recognize it and don’t mark it as spam. A quick announcement (“Our co-op’s new text number is...”) goes a long way toward deliverability.

Once approved, the Text Messaging page also shows your monthly usage, useful for keeping track of how many texts you’re sending across a term.

Text blasts go to every active member who has a phone number on file and has opted in to SMS. They’re designed for urgent or time-sensitive messages, not routine announcements (use the Announcements feed for those).

There is a second way to send a text, once an admin has switched it on under Settings › Programs. An announcement can carry a short text alert alongside it, so the news lands in the feed and by email for everyone and as a text for the families who opted in. That is the better choice when the same message needs both. The Announcements guide covers it.

You can write a text now and schedule it to go out later, useful for morning-of reminders you want to compose the night before.

Scheduled texts appear in a list on the Text Messaging page with a Cancel button. You can pull them back any time before they go out. Messages are sent within about a minute of the scheduled time.

Before sending to your whole list, send a test text to yourself. This confirms your wording looks right and verifies your number is active.

Every text you send is listed under Text message history at the bottom of the Text Messaging page, newest first, with who sent it, which audience it went to, and what happened to it.

A text takes a few minutes to work its way through the phone carriers, so the labels change after you hit send. Here’s what each one means:

• 18 delivered means the carrier confirmed the message reached that many phones. This is the number that matters.
• 3 in transit means the carrier has those messages but hasn’t confirmed delivery yet. Usually it settles within a few minutes. A phone that’s off or out of service can sit here longer.
• 1 blocked means the carrier refused to deliver it. The most common reasons are a family who replied STOP, a disconnected or landline number, or a carrier spam filter. Click the counts on any message to see which families were blocked and why, so you know who to follow up with another way. Each number in that list shows its family. If the number belongs to one adult in the family, such as a second parent, it shows that adult’s name as well. A text that went to a student’s own phone shows the student’s name the same way.
• 22/22 sent appears right after you send, before any carrier has reported back. It means your co-op’s number accepted the message for that many recipients, which is not the same as anyone receiving it.

A Failed label means nothing went out at all, and Partial means some recipients got it and some didn’t. Both are worth a second look before you assume everyone saw the message.

Texting isn’t one-way. When a family replies to your co-op’s number, their message shows up in a Text inbox tab next to Text Messaging, and you can write back from the same screen. It becomes available once your carrier registration is fully approved — there’s nothing separate to turn on.

A photo or other attachment a family sends isn’t shown in the inbox — you’ll see a note that one was sent, but not the file itself. Replies you send from the inbox count toward your monthly text allowance, the same as an outbound blast.

Carrier registration rejections are more common than you’d expect. Carriers scrutinize business information carefully. When Twilio rejects your submission, the Text Messaging page tells you specifically what to fix so you’re not guessing.

A family says they’re not getting texts. What should I check?

Ask them to confirm they have a phone number on file in My Profile and that SMS is enabled under My Profile › Notification Preferences. If both are set correctly, ask them to check whether their carrier blocked the number. This occasionally happens with toll-free numbers from unfamiliar senders. Sharing your co-op’s number in an announcement first helps families recognize and whitelist it.

Can I send texts to specific families instead of everyone?

Yes. On the Text Messaging page, change the Audience dropdown to Selected families. A family picker appears so you can choose exactly who receives the message. You can also target Board / admin only or Teachers & admins as preset groups. That second one is your staff (Owners, Admins and Teachers), not families who have claimed volunteer shifts, so use Selected families to reach those.

Underneath the Audience dropdown is an Include opted-in secondary contacts checkbox. Primary contacts are always included; ticking this also reaches the second adult in each of those households, where that contact has opted in and has a number on file. If both contacts share one number, it is texted once.

Second adults start out opted out, so ticking the box can add nobody at first. When that happens the form says how many secondary contacts in the audience have a number but haven’t turned texts on. An admin can’t switch it on for anyone. A contact with their own login turns on their own texts while signed in. For a second adult with no login, someone in their household can turn their texts on from My Profile or the term review after ticking a box confirming they have that adult’s permission, or use Email them a link so the adult decides themselves. Anyone can also text START to your number. The first text a newly opted-in number gets confirms the sign-up and says how to reply STOP. If someone changes a contact’s phone number, that contact’s texts turn off until they agree again for the new number. A family applying on your join form picks the same two options for their second adult, and they take effect when you approve the application. Admins can email the link from a family’s edit panel in Families. Only the primary contact can turn on texts to the primary phone, and HomeschoolGo keeps a record of when and how each person agreed.

When someone turns texts on, your number sends them one short confirmation saying what they signed up for and how to stop (reply STOP) or get help (reply HELP). Carriers expect it. It doesn’t count toward your monthly text allowance.

Can we text students?

Yes, students whose parent has opted them in. Wherever a parent fills in a student’s details (adding or editing a child on My Profile or My Students, and each student on the term review) there is a field for the student’s own cell phone and a Send co-op texts to this phone box. It starts unticked, and the parent gives the consent for that one student.

When you send, tick Include opted-in students under the Audience. It is offered for All active families and Selected families, never for the board or teacher audiences, and students are left out unless you tick it. A student whose number is the same as a parent’s gets the text once. A student can reply STOP, and that stops texts to that student only.

Is there a limit on how many texts I can send?

Texting includes 500 messages a month, which is roughly five full-roster blasts at a hundred families. A usage meter on the Text Messaging page shows where you are, and the allowance resets at the start of each month whether or not you used it.

If that is not enough, you can buy a one-time top-up from the same page: 500 messages for $15, 1,000 for $25, or 2,000 for $45. Click Buy more messages on the usage meter and pick a pack. Purchased messages never expire and are never reset, and they are only spent once the month’s allowance is gone, so buying early never wastes anything. The meter shows how many of your remaining messages were purchased.

One thing to know before a big send: the count is per recipient, so a message going to 200 families uses 200 of your allowance, not one. Message length does not change that. A long message is delivered in more than one part and the form tells you so, but it still counts as one per family. Before you send, the form says exactly how many families it will reach and how many credits that will use.