Account Activation & KYC Review

Account activation gates everything else you do on Sent. This guide covers every stage of the process, from initial KYC submission through to channel setup, with solutions for the issues developers encounter most often.

"Waiting for approval" with no ETA or status updates

Symptoms: After submitting your application on the final Review & Submit step of the onboarding wizard, the dashboard shows a message like:

Waiting for approval: Your compliance details are under review. You'll be notified once approved.

What's happening:

• Sent's compliance team reviews every submission manually to satisfy carrier and regulatory requirements.
• Typical review time is 1-3 business days. It can take longer if your submission is incomplete or requires clarification.
• If you are targeting US SMS, your business details are also submitted to The Campaign Registry (TCR) for 10DLC approval, which adds additional processing time (see TCR submission pending below).

What to do:

1. Check your email inbox, including spam and promotions folders, for any "Action Required" messages from Sent. These emails request clarification or corrections needed before approval can proceed.
2. Verify that every field in the compliance form is filled out completely. Partial submissions are held until the missing information is provided.
3. Confirm your website is live and accessible. A website that returns a 404 or is password-protected will delay review.
4. If you have been waiting more than 5 business days with no communication, email support@sent.dm with the email address associated with your Sent account.

KYC / compliance form confusion: what's required

Symptoms: You are unsure what information to provide, or your submission was returned for corrections.

The compliance form asks for your legal business name, tax ID (EIN in the US), registered business address, a live website URL, a use case description, and the URL where end users opt in to receive messages. For field-by-field guidance, including what to do if you don't have a website yet, see Compliance Form Questions.

Common rejection reasons: a missing privacy policy, no visible messaging opt-in disclosure, a website that is not live, or a vague use case description. Compliance Submission Rejected explains each one and how to resubmit.

Individual developer vs business entity

Symptoms: You are an independent developer or sole trader and are unsure whether you can register without a formal business entity.

Solution:

Sent requires business-level verification for all accounts. This is a regulatory requirement imposed by carriers and cannot be waived. However, you do not need to be a registered corporation.

• Sole traders and self-employed individuals can register. Use your personal name as the business name and provide your tax registration number (SSN or EIN in the US, UTR in the UK, or the equivalent in your jurisdiction).
• Side projects and hobby apps still require the same business-level details. Carriers enforce these rules uniformly regardless of the scale of your messaging.
• If you are unsure which tax ID to use, consult your local tax authority or accountant. Sent cannot provide tax advice.

What Sent reviews during KYC

Every submission is checked against five criteria before approval:

• Valid business details: business name, registered address, and tax ID must be verifiable and match tax-authority records.
• Active website: reachable, with a clearly linked privacy policy page.
• Clear messaging opt-in mechanism: your website or app shows how end users consent to receiving messages.
• Messaging use case: what you send, to whom, and how frequently; used to classify your traffic type with carriers.
• Compliance with local regulations: your use case must comply with the laws of your target regions (TCPA, GDPR, PECR, CASL, and others); Compliance & Regulations summarizes each framework with authoritative sources.

Cannot use platform features while waiting

Symptoms: Dashboard sections such as Contacts, API Keys, Templates, and Channels are locked or greyed out while your account is under review.

What you can do during review:

• Browse the getting-started guides and API reference to plan your integration.
• Explore the Templates section to learn about template structure and draft templates locally. You will not be able to submit them until approved.
• Set up your local development environment and prepare your codebase for integration.

What you cannot do during review:

• Generate or view API keys
• Create or manage contacts
• Submit templates for carrier approval
• Send messages (including sandbox/test messages)
• Configure webhook endpoints

Once approved, you will receive an email notification and all dashboard sections will unlock automatically.

Post-approval onboarding issues

After your account is approved, you set up your sending channels and numbers in the dashboard. The following issues may arise at this stage.

No phone numbers available

Symptoms: The phone number dropdown on the Choose Your Sender Number step of the Sender Profile wizard is empty or shows no available numbers for your region.

Solution:

1. Click the Refresh button to reload available inventory.
2. Phone number availability varies by country and region. Some regions may be temporarily out of stock.
3. If no numbers appear after refreshing, contact support@sent.dm with your preferred country and region. The team can check inventory and provision a number manually if stock is available.

"Something went wrong" during Sender Profile setup

Symptoms: The Sender Profile setup step displays: "Something went wrong: We could not complete your onboarding. Please try again."

Solution:

1. Click Try Again once. This error is often caused by a transient backend issue.
2. If the error persists after retrying, clear your browser cache and attempt the setup in an incognito/private window.
3. If it still fails, contact support@sent.dm with a screenshot of the error. Include the browser and OS you are using.

Messages sending from short code instead of your dedicated number

Symptoms: After setting up a dedicated phone number, messages are still being sent from a shared short code.

The outbound number is determined by the Sender Profile your API request is authenticated as, not by a request body field. See Messages Routing to Wrong Sender Number for the fix.

WhatsApp channel requires a Facebook account

Symptoms: The WhatsApp channel setup prompts you to connect a Facebook account, which you were not expecting.

Solution:

WhatsApp Business API channels are managed through Meta (Facebook). To set up WhatsApp on Sent, you need:

1. A Facebook account (personal account is fine for initial setup)
2. A Meta Business Account that has completed Meta Business Verification. Create one at business.facebook.com if you don't have one. Meta requires verification before a WhatsApp Business Account can be shared with partners like Sent, so complete it before starting the connection flow.

This is a Meta requirement, not a Sent-specific one. The dashboard will guide you through the connection flow step by step; see Prerequisites for WhatsApp setup for the full list.

TCR submission pending with no visibility

Symptoms: Your account is approved by Sent, but you see a message like:

Your case has been submitted to TCR and Sent is waiting for a response.

You have no visibility into the status or timeline.

What's happening:

For US SMS messaging, all businesses must be registered with The Campaign Registry (TCR) for 10DLC (10-digit long code) compliance. This is a separate process from Sent's internal KYC review and is handled by an external body.

Timeline:

• TCR review typically takes 3-7 business days after Sent submits your details.
• In some cases, particularly for new brands or unusual use cases, it can take longer.
• This process runs in addition to Sent's own review, so total time from signup to sending can be 1-2 weeks for US SMS.

What to do:

• Nothing. Sent handles the TCR submission on your behalf. There is no action required from you at this stage.
• If TCR rejects the submission, the Sent support team will contact you with details about what needs to be corrected (typically business name mismatches or use case clarification).
• If you have been waiting more than 10 business days since your Sent account was approved and you still cannot send US SMS, contact support@sent.dm.

API returns 401 Unauthorized

Symptoms: API calls return 401 Unauthorized with an "Invalid or missing API key" error. Because your account is still partway through onboarding, the error looks activation-related.

Why this happens:

Onboarding status never causes a 401. A valid API key authenticates at every stage of the activation process, including while compliance review is still in progress. Until you complete onboarding, the platform caps how many messages you can send, but that cap is enforced as a sending quota with its own error message, never as an authentication failure.

A 401 always means the credential on the request failed:

• The x-api-key header is missing from the request.
• The key value is wrong: truncated, padded with whitespace, or copied from a different environment.
• The key was rotated or deleted, so the value your client sends no longer exists.

If your client keeps retrying with a bad key, the API stops returning 401 after 10 consecutive failures and instead returns 429 Too Many Requests ("Too many failed authentication attempts") until a lockout period expires.

Solution:

1. Open Dashboard → API Keys and compare the key character for character with the value your client sends. Watch for whitespace or truncation introduced by environment-variable handling.
2. Confirm the key is sent in the x-api-key request header.
3. If the key was recently rotated, update every environment that still holds the old value.
4. If you are receiving 429, stop the retry loop first, fix the key, and wait for the period in the Retry-After response header before retrying.

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403 Forbidden on organization-scoped endpoints

Symptoms: Some API endpoints, such as listing users, return a "You do not have access to this organization or profile" error with status 403 Forbidden. Other endpoints (such as listing profiles) respond correctly with the same key.

Why this happens:

User-management endpoints check the email address on the account your API key belongs to. That email must either own the target organization or profile, or hold an active user role on it granted by invitation. If it has neither, the endpoint returns 403. Some actions, such as inviting a user, additionally require the admin role.

A separate 403 ("Profile API keys cannot use x-profile-id") occurs when a request sends the x-profile-id header with a profile-scoped API key. Only organization API keys can act on behalf of profiles.

Your account is an organization from the moment it is created. There is no separate upgrade step, and creating a Sender Profile does not change which endpoints your key can access.

Solution:

1. Confirm the API key belongs to the organization or profile you are targeting. Retrieve the key from Dashboard → API Keys while signed in to that account.
2. If a team member needs access, ask the organization owner to invite their email under Dashboard → Users. Actions such as inviting users require the member's role to be admin.
3. If the failing request sends the x-profile-id header, switch to an organization API key, or remove the header when authenticating with a profile key.

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Sender Profile creation fails with a "duplicate key" error

Symptoms: Clicking Unlock Sender Profiles or attempting to create a Sender Profile returns an error along the lines of: "duplicate key violates unique constraint."

Why this happens:

This is a database-level conflict that can rarely occur during Sender Profile creation. It is not caused by anything in your configuration and requires Sent support to clear.

Solution:

1. Contact support@sent.dm with your account email and the exact error message.
2. Sent support will identify and clear the conflicting record.
3. Once resolved, you will be notified to retry Sender Profile creation.

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Still waiting?

If you have worked through the preceding steps and your issue is not resolved, contact the Sent support team:

• email: support@sent.dm
• Include: The email address associated with your Sent account, a description of where you are stuck, and any error messages or screenshots from the dashboard.
• Response time: The support team typically responds within 1 business day.

For general questions about the platform, check the FAQ or browse the getting-started guides.

Related Guides

• Login, Signup & OTP Verification: if you're having trouble logging in or verifying your phone number
• Compliance & 10DLC Issues: for details on 10DLC registration, A2P requirements, and compliance form guidance
• WhatsApp Setup: if you're setting up WhatsApp as a channel after account approval

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