SMS Basics
Consent — who gets texted
The default that surprises everybody, where consent comes from, and how STOP works.
Last updated September 25, 2026
The three states
| State | Meaning | Will they be texted? |
|---|---|---|
| Opted in | They said yes. | Yes |
| Opted out | They said no, or replied STOP. | No |
| Not set | Nobody has ever asked. | Yes, unless your organisation only texts people who agreed (below). |
Whether that is acceptable depends on where you are and how you got the number. In many places texting somebody who never agreed is against the law regardless of what the software allows. Gorilla Dash will not stop you; your regulator might.
Only texting people who agreed
If you would rather not text anybody who has never been asked, an organisation administrator can change the default for the whole organisation. When the setting is on, marketing texts go only to people whose consent is recorded as Opted in, and anybody whose consent is Not set is skipped. To switch it on:
- Select Settings, then Communications Settings, and open the SMS tab.
- Find the SMS consent section.
- Turn on Only text people who have agreed to receive SMS.
- Read the confirmation and choose Turn on.
The setting covers marketing texts: SMS campaigns from the organisation and from every tribe (a tribe is one location, branch or business unit inside your organisation), and marketing automations and CRM sequences that send marketing. People who opted in on an enquiry form or survey, or whose SMS setting was switched on by your team, still receive them. Transactional messages, such as order confirmations and appointment reminders, are not affected.
Where consent comes from
- Enquiry forms — when the tribe has SMS consent wording switched on, the answer is recorded.
- Customer surveys — a consent question on a survey writes a record.
- By hand — toggling SMS on a contact, which records who changed it and when.
- A STOP reply — recorded as an opt-out automatically.
- The carrier — if a network reports somebody already unsubscribed, that is recorded too.
Every change is logged on the contact's timeline as SMS consent: opted in or opted out, with the method. You can see the full history on the contact, and on the Consent tab of a phone number.
Asking properly on your forms
Each tribe can switch on SMS consent wording for its enquiry forms and set its own labels. Turning that on is the single most useful thing you can do — it turns "we assume they don't mind" into a recorded yes you can point at.
How STOP works
Every campaign message has an opt-out line appended automatically. When somebody replies with STOP — or STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END or QUIT — they are opted out immediately, and their recent campaign records are updated to show it.
A STOP from a number that does not match a contact in your organisation is dropped entirely. And a STOP opts somebody out — it does not add them to your blocked numbers list, which is a separate thing.