What actually counts as an opt-out
STOP is the obvious case. Clear phrases, an AI check on unclear replies, hostile wording, and quiet hours all decide whether the next text goes out.
This is how Statxt handles opt-outs in the product. It is not legal advice. When a contact takes back permission to be texted, their number goes on your workspace DNC list, the contact is marked unsubscribed, and the conversation is stopped. Later campaigns skip the number. A one-to-one send is refused with a compliance block. Nothing in settings turns that off.
Keywords, phrases, and the unclear middle
These replies opt someone out immediately, in any capitalization, including spaced-out letters such as "S T O P": STOP, STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, QUIT, REMOVE, OPTOUT, and OPT OUT. A reply that is the keyword, or starts with it, counts. So do clear phrases such as "do not text me", "remove me", and "take me off your list".
People rarely write the keyword by itself. "Not interested, leave me alone", "wrong number", and "lose my number" go to an AI compliance judge, and so does a reply that only mentions a keyword in passing, such as "I can stop by Saturday". The judge has to be at least 80 percent confident before it opts the person out. The verdict is stored with its confidence and the reason.
Hostile replies are on by default
Negative Reply Auto-DNC, under Compliance, Settings, treats hostile or profane replies as opt-outs. Owners and admins can turn it off. It is looking for whole words, so "scam" does not match "scampi". Changes save on their own.
Add the people who asked some other way
Compliance, DNC List, Add Number is for the request that came in by phone, email, or in person. Pick a reason, add a note if you want the team to see it, and the block is immediate. The same action exists on a conversation and as a bulk action in Contacts. Source on the list shows Manual Entry, Bulk Import, Auto-Blocked, or System.
If you are moving off another tool, import the old suppression file before the first campaign. The file can be CSV, TXT, XLS, or XLSX, with numbers in a column named phone_number or phone.
Only owners and admins can take a number off the list, and only when the person has clearly agreed to hear from you again. A contact can also opt back in themselves by replying with just START, UNSTOP, SUBSCRIBE, or OPT IN.
Night sends are skipped, not queued
Quiet Hours Enforcement is on by default from 9:00 PM to 8:00 AM in the recipient's time zone. Start can be 9, 10, or 11 PM. End can be 8, 9, or 10 AM. Campaign recipients inside that window are skipped, not held for morning, so a late blast can miss part of the list. Allow 1:1 messages during quiet hours lets a personal reply through while campaigns stay blocked.
After a blast, the confirmation notes how many people were excluded for DNC. A jump in that number is worth reading before the next send. Numbers carriers already rejected are a different block, the Failed Number Directory guide, and they are not the same decision as an opt-out.
The click-by-click version lives in the Opt-outs & DNC guide.
Walk through it in the product
The guides cover these same workflows step by step, with the screens you will actually use.