Disclaimer: This is general information, not legal advice. If you operate at scale or in a complex regulatory environment, talk to a TCPA attorney. The penalty for a TCPA violation is real ($500–$1,500 per message), so it’s worth getting right.
Why TCPA matters for studios
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) regulates how businesses contact consumers via phone and SMS. Studios are not exempt. The two most common ways studios get into trouble:
- Sending marketing SMS without explicit consent.
- Continuing to send after a STOP reply.
Both can result in class-action lawsuits at $500–$1,500 per message. A studio that sends 5,000 unconsented messages over a year can face $2.5M+ in liability. This is not theoretical — it happens.
What you must do
(See the structured steps above.)
What the snapshot handles for you
- Consent capture on every form, with above-the-submit-button language.
- A2P 10DLC registration during your 10-hour onboarding (other firms charge $150 — we don’t).
- STOP-keyword honoring across all marketing workflows, with immediate suppression.
- Consent logging per submission with timestamp, IP, and form name.
- Studio identification on every marketing SMS template.
- Annual re-consent flow for inactive contacts at the 12-month mark.
What you still need to do yourself
- Choose marketing message content that doesn’t deceive or mislead.
- Honor any member’s specific verbal opt-out (e.g., they tell a coach in person to stop texting them) — log it manually so it persists.
- If you operate in multiple states, review state-level TCPA augmentations (California, Florida, Washington have stricter rules in some areas).
What to avoid
- Don’t pre-check opt-in boxes. Express consent must be active.
- Don’t continue SMS after STOP. Even one message after STOP is a TCPA violation per message.
- Don’t share phone lists with other businesses. Consent is studio-specific.
- Don’t use random 10-digit numbers without 10DLC registration. Carriers will rate-limit, and you’re out of compliance.
What ‘transactional’ means
The transactional exception allows business-initiated reach-out that isn’t marketing — a coach replying to a member’s question, an appointment reminder for a confirmed booking, a payment-failure notification. Marketing SMS (promotional offers, re-engagement campaigns) requires explicit prior consent.
The line gets blurry. A “we miss you, come back” SMS is marketing. A “your card on file failed, please update” SMS is transactional. The retention nudges and dunning sequences in the snapshot are designed to keep clear of the line.
When to get a lawyer
- You operate in 5+ states.
- You have 1,000+ members.
- You’re sending more than 50,000 outbound messages per year.
- You’ve received a TCPA complaint or demand letter.
In those cases, an hour with a TCPA-specialized attorney to review your funnel is well worth it. For most boutique studio operators, the defaults in the snapshot + the steps in this guide cover the standard requirements.
Get the snapshot with TCPA defaults wired in.