If your business has an EIN, your brand registration comes down to two options: Low Volume Standard (LVS) and Standard. The identity requirements are identical: same EIN checks, same legal-name matching. The difference is what you pay and how much you can send.
The comparison
| Low Volume Standard | Standard | |
|---|---|---|
| EIN required | Yes | Yes |
| One-time brand fee | ~$4 | ~$4 (+~$40 optional secondary vetting) |
| Daily volume | Capped at roughly 2,000 message segments/day to T-Mobile, low AT&T rate class | Score-based tiers up to unlimited (T-Mobile) / thousands of MPM (AT&T) |
| Secondary vetting | Not available | Optional, unlocks higher tiers |
| Campaigns | Multiple | Multiple |
| Best for | Reminders, notifications, low-volume conversational | Marketing at scale, growing volume |
Choose Low Volume Standard when…
- Your daily traffic fits comfortably under ~2,000 segments. A clinic sending 150 reminders/day, a store sending order updates, and a service business doing two-way scheduling all fit with room to spare.
- You want minimum cost and friction. No vetting fee, no vetting wait.
- Your messages are short. Remember the cap counts segments, not messages: 2,000 segments is 2,000 short reminders but only ~600 three-segment marketing messages.
Choose Standard (with vetting) when…
- You run real marketing volume. A 5,000-subscriber promo list cannot physically drain through an LVS cap in a day on T-Mobile.
- You are growing. If you expect to cross the cap within months, registering Standard now avoids a migration later.
- Delivery timing matters. Higher AT&T rate classes drain queues faster; time-boxed sends (flash sales, event-day logistics) benefit directly.
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The incremental cost of Standard is essentially the ~$40 secondary vetting (one-time, renewable yearly) that makes the higher tiers real (without a good score, Standard’s defaults are similar to LVS). So the question is simply: is being able to send 10–100× more per day worth $40? For any active marketing program, obviously yes. For a reminder workflow that peaks at 300 messages a day, obviously no.
Upgrading later
The upgrade path LVS → Standard exists and is routine: the brand re-registers at the Standard tier (with the fee delta), you add secondary vetting, and campaigns pick up the new limits. Expect some processing days. The reverse (realizing mid-campaign that your launch blast is queueing behind a daily cap) is the scenario to avoid by choosing honestly up front.
Whichever tier you pick, campaign review is identical: same description standards, same website checks. The tier changes your pipe, not your paperwork.
Frequently asked questions
Is Low Volume Standard the same as Sole Proprietor?
No. LVS requires an EIN and supports multiple campaigns and numbers. It is a full Standard-family brand with capped throughput. Sole Proprietor is for individuals without an EIN and is limited to one campaign and one number.
What exactly is the Low Volume Standard daily cap?
The commonly cited figure is on the order of 2,000 message segments per day to T-Mobile (the carrier with explicit daily caps), with a low AT&T rate class. Treat your provider’s dashboard as the authoritative number for your brand.
Can I have both LVS and Standard brands?
A legal entity registers one brand identity; you would upgrade the brand rather than run two tiers in parallel. Multi-entity businesses (each with its own EIN) register separate brands per entity.