# Transactional SMS

> A transactional SMS is a message the recipient expects because of something they did: a login code, an order confirmation, a delivery update or a security alert. It is not marketing and may bypass quiet hours.

Transactional messages are triggered by the recipient's own action or by an event on their account. They are time-sensitive, individually addressed and not promotional. Regulators and carriers treat them more leniently than marketing: they do not require the same consent and are usually exempt from quiet-hour rules.

The line is about content, not about how you feel about the message. A receipt that ends with a discount code is promotional. Sending marketing flagged as transactional is the fastest way to have a route closed, because carriers see the pattern.

At SMSMeteor: set `window.quiet_hours` to `bypass` on transactional traffic so codes and alerts leave at any hour; the flag is recorded and audited. See the [OTP use case](https://smsmeteor.com/use-cases/otp-verification).

Related terms: [Promotional SMS](https://smsmeteor.com/glossary/promotional-sms), [OTP (one-time password)](https://smsmeteor.com/glossary/otp), [Quiet hours](https://smsmeteor.com/glossary/quiet-hours)

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