Understanding Sending Numbers and How to Manage Them
Last updated: July 20, 2026
When you send a broadcast on Switchboard, your messages are sent from a pool of phone numbers registered to your account. This article explains how your pool of numbers works and how to manage them!
Why do we send from a pool of numbers on 10DLC?
If your organization is sending on 10DLC, you have a pool of phone numbers with your preferred local area code that your texts are sent from - not just one individual number by default. This is to account for different area codes or to ensure speed/deliverability!
We give you more than one sending number to send from because historically sending on one sending number has been worse for long-term deliverability. However, as the deliverability space is changing, we are giving you the ability to manage your sending pool yourself!
All the numbers in your sending pool are associated with your specific organization.
Why do I only have one sending number for toll free?
If your organization sends on toll free instead of 10DLC, you'll notice you only have one sending number instead of a pool. You are not allowed to send on multiple toll-free numbers at once. With 10DLC you can send on a pool of numbers, whether it's to account for different area codes or to ensure speed/deliverability.
Why would I consider changing my active sending number settings?
You might want to change which sending numbers are active for the following reasons:
You're noticing lower engagement or overall text performance. While swapping your sending number is not a guaranteed way to improve performance, it is a lever worth testing!
You want to test how recipients respond to messages from a number they haven't heard from before, or ones they haven't received a message from in a while.
Managing your Number Pool
There are a couple ways that you can manage your sending numbers.
Enabling Sticky Sender: Sticky sender is a feature that ensures when you text an individual from a specific sending number, all subsequent texts to that same individual will come from the same number. This feature is "off" by default.
Enabling causes each contact to be "locked" to whichever number most recently sent them a message. So recipients will receive broadcast messages from from the most recent sending number for all broadcasts moving forward once enabled. Read more about Sticky Sender here!
Changing Which Sending Numbers are Active: Managing your sending numbers lets you control which specific numbers are active or inactive in your sending pool.
Read more about Swapping Sending Numbers below!
Changing Active Sending Numbers
How many active numbers do I need to have?
You must have a minimum of one sending number active in your account, but we recommend having multiple active sending numbers for the best deliverability performance.
How do I change which sending numbers are active?
Go to Texting > Sending Numbers
Click "Manage Active Numbers"
Select or unselect each number to set which numbers are active or inactive in your sending pool
Click "Save Changes"
Does changing my active sending numbers affect sticky sender?
Yes, if you change sticky sender to enabled (you must manually change this in your settings) and you toggle a number in your pool to inactive, sticky sender can no longer be applied for recipients who were previously assigned that number. Those recipients will be assigned a new number from your active pool in your next broadcast. Sticky sender only works as long as the number a recipient is assigned to is active!