Transactional vs promotional SMS — what's the difference?
India's TRAI regulations force you to pick a category up front. Picking wrong gets your traffic blocked.
Every SMS sent to an Indian number must be tagged with one of four DLT categories: transactional, service-implicit, service-explicit, or promotional. The category controls who you can send to, when, and at what price.
The quick rule
- Transactional — OTPs and critical alerts tied to a user action. Allowed 24x7 to everyone, even DND-registered numbers.
- Service-implicit — status updates for something the user initiated (order shipped, refund processed). Allowed 24x7 to everyone.
- Service-explicit — reminders and nudges on a subscribed service. Allowed 24x7 to users who opted in.
- Promotional — offers, deals, newsletters. Only allowed to non-DND numbers, only 9am–9pm IST.
Browse other help categories
Getting started
Create your account, add INR credits, complete DLT registration and send your first compliant SMS, WhatsApp message or OTP — all in under fifteen minutes.
WhatsApp Business API
Business API onboarding, template approval and categories, broadcast consent rules, quality rating and tiers, and setting up a shared WhatsApp team inbox.
AI WhatsApp Agents
Train your AI WhatsApp agent on your own knowledge, sync your product catalogue, configure handoff triggers, and serve customers across twelve Indian languages.
OTP & Transactional
Priority routing to the fastest carrier, automatic retry and failover, idempotency keys that stop double-sends, and WhatsApp fallback when SMS is slow.
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