Realm Text Messaging
This overview explains how text messaging works for communication with your congregation for group notifications, volunteer reminders, and one-way announcements. Follow the steps in related articles for setup and maintenance.
Realm text messaging lets your staff and leaders send texts to individuals who have opted in to receive them. You can use texting for group and team notifications, volunteer serving reminders, and one-way announcements to your congregation.
Getting started
To start sending texts, your church must enroll in a texting plan and be approved by the Campaign Registry (TCR). The enrollment process takes about 10 minutes, and approval typically takes 5–10 business days. See Enroll in Realm Text Messaging to get started.
How texting works
Your church is assigned a 10-digit texting number when you enroll. All outgoing texts are sent from this number, and your Texting ID, that you select, appears at the beginning of each message so recipients know who it is from.
Before you can text anyone, they must opt in by completing a consent form or by texting START to your church's texting number. This is a federal requirement. Federal regulations require organizations to obtain explicit consent before sending text messages. When an individual completes the opt-in consent form, they are confirming that they want to receive texts from your organization on a specific mobile device.
Individuals can opt in two ways:
- By completing the consent form sent through an opt-in email
- By texting START to your church's Realm texting number
Individuals can opt out at any time by replying STOP to any text. Replying STOP removes them from all Realm text notifications. To opt back in, they must text START to your church's texting number.
Ways to send texts
Realm supports several types of text messages:
- Authorized Texting Users — Administrators and people you designate can send texts to individuals or groups. Texts flow from the sender to the recipient, i.e. one-way texts. Recipients cannot respond to the sender. See One-Way Texts.
- Group and Team Texting— When a group or team leader sends a message to the Connect inbox, opted-in members can receive a text notification with the message subject. If the message is long, the text includes a link to open the inbox. Texts flow from the sender to the inbox, which then sends text notifications to opted-in recipients. Recipients cannot reply by text. While you can enable replies for the inbox, recipients must go to the inbox to reply because it cannot capture text (SMS) responses. See Connect Inbox Texts.
- System-generated texts — Realm can automatically send texts to volunteers for assignments and serving reminders.
Group participants and volunteers cannot send texts to each other through Realm.
Monthly text limit
Each text sent to an individual counts toward your monthly limit. For example, a one-way text sent to 25 people counts as 25 texts — even if some are not deliverable. If you exceed your monthly limit, an overage fee applies for each additional text until the end of the billing period. You can review your current usage and plan details from the Text Messaging Subscription page.
What Next?
Follow this guide to acquaint yourself with the basics and complete initial setup. Later, you can reference additional articles explaining error message, character limits, text history, and other common questions.