SMS STOP: the one-word reply that ends a brand’s texts
Every marketing text ends with “Reply STOP to opt out”. What happens after a customer does is where a brand keeps its word or doesn’t.
SMS STOP is the reply a person texts to a business to stop its marketing texts, and the opt-out the business must then honour. In the US, the FCC’s rules treat words such as stop, quit, end, cancel and unsubscribe as an opt-out. The business may send one confirmation text and has no more than 10 business days to stop.
What SMS STOP means
A customer who joined a brand’s text list replies STOP to leave it. The brand’s texting platform reads the reply, marks the number as opted out and sends one message to confirm. After that, no more marketing texts should arrive.
The wireless industry’s CTIA Messaging Principles and Best Practices (May 2023) ask senders to use standard STOP wording in opt-out instructions. They also ask senders to act on everyday language such as “please opt me out”. Senders should send one final confirmation per campaign, with nothing after it.
The US rule on texting STOP
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) changed its rules under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) in a 2024 order published in the Federal Register. Consumers can revoke consent in any reasonable manner that clearly says they want no more calls or texts. A reply using the words stop, quit, end, revoke, opt out, cancel or unsubscribe counts. A request must be honoured within a reasonable time not exceeding 10 business days. A sender may send a one-time text confirming the request, which the FCC presumes falls within the consumer’s consent if it goes within 5 minutes.
The FCC set 11 April 2025 as the date those rules took effect. This is general information about US rules, not legal advice. Other countries set their own.
How a STOP reply is checked
CRM and compliance teams test it by joining the list from a spare phone, replying STOP and logging what comes back. The confirmation should arrive within minutes. Any marketing text after it is a breach worth knowing about, and the same test with “please stop texting me” shows whether everyday wording is honoured too.
Obsession collects what companies show only to customers, step by step: their screens, emails and texts, member prices, trial limits, quotes and cancel offers, each dated with a screenshot. Teams and AI agents look up any company through the API or MCP, and a company not yet covered is added on request. For SMS STOP, that means the reply sent, the confirmation with the time it arrived and any text that still came afterwards. Each is dated, for your own brand and for competitors’, which is the evidence behind opt-out compliance.
In the US, the FCC’s rules accept any reasonable way of saying it, and the CTIA guidelines ask senders to act on everyday language as well as the STOP keyword. This is general information, not legal advice.
One confirmation of the opt-out. The FCC presumes it falls within the consumer’s consent if it is sent within 5 minutes, and the CTIA guidelines say no further messages should follow it.
What is one-click unsubscribe?Sources
In the order the page cites them. Every page was read on 11 Nov 2026.