# Toll-free SMS (United States and Canada)

> Toll-free SMS uses an 8XX number as the sender for application messages to the US and Canada; it requires a verification process with the carriers before traffic is delivered reliably.

In North America, application traffic runs from three kinds of numbers: short codes, toll-free numbers and ten-digit long codes registered under [10DLC](https://smsmeteor.com/glossary/10dlc). Toll-free messaging needs a one-time verification of the business and the use case; unverified traffic is heavily filtered.

None of these options deliver an alphanumeric brand name: recipients in the US and Canada always see a number. The brand therefore belongs in the first words of the text.

At SMSMeteor: messages to the US and Canada leave from numeric senders assigned automatically; brand verification programmes are not part of the product, which is why the country pages state "numeric sender" for both.

Related terms: [10DLC](https://smsmeteor.com/glossary/10dlc), [Short code](https://smsmeteor.com/glossary/short-code), [Sender replacement](https://smsmeteor.com/glossary/sender-replacement)

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Source: https://smsmeteor.com/glossary/toll-free-sms (HTML). Generated by SMSMeteor from the same data as the page. Summary of the whole site: https://smsmeteor.com/llms.txt