Texting your customers in Florida: five rules in plain words

A text is often the quickest way to reach a customer. It is also where a small shop can get sued. Florida allows at least $500 for each unlawful text, three times that if it was willful, and it reaches anyone who “knowingly allows” the text to go out (F.S. 501.059).

Every insurance form we read left texting-law claims out, so your protection is in the words you send and when you send them.

• 3 of 3insurance forms we read that leave texting-law claims out

  Source: Three insurance forms we read: a Hiscox small-business professional liability form (2013), Coalition’s standard cyber form in a 2025 issued policy, and a Travelers cyber form (2020). All three exclude texting-law claims.

These are the five rules we follow on every line we set up. Where a rule is a cautious choice rather than the law, we say so.

1. A missed-call text says sorry, and when you will call back

This is the only automated text we let go out at night without being asked. It answers the customer’s own call and sells nothing. We use this wording and nothing else. You may add your own phone number, but no “call us” wording.

Hi, this is [Business]. Sorry we missed your call. Someone will call you back [by 9 a.m. tomorrow]. If texting is easier, reply here. Reply STOP to stop texts. / Responda STOP (o ALTO) para no recibir mensajes.

For customers who speak Spanish:

Hola, le escribe [Negocio]. Disculpe que no pudimos contestar. Le devolveremos la llamada [mañana antes de las 9 a. m.]. Si le es más fácil, responda por aquí. Responda STOP (o ALTO) para no recibir mensajes. / Reply STOP to stop texts.

Leave out:

• a price, a discount, “24/7”, “same-day”, “open now” or any other claim about availability or quality
• “call us back now”
• any link
• any question about the job

Why no questions? Florida counts a text that gathers information for a sale as a sales text. Keep both stop lines, in both languages, on every text, even when you send only one language. Send at most one per number in any 24 hours, and never to a number that has opted out.

2. Job texts need an OK at booking

Confirmations, “on the way” texts and “invoice ready” texts carry facts about the booked job, and nothing else. Get the customer’s OK when they book. A spoken yes is enough, but log who said it, when and how. Send as many as the job needs. A job text may go at night for an emergency the customer asked for.

When a customer texts you, a person may answer while they are texting. In a conversation the customer started, never send an automated follow-up once they go quiet.

3. Anything that sells needs written consent

Promotions need written consent. That includes offers, discounts and any reminder about a quote sent to the customer instead of to you. The consent must have all four parts:

1. a signature (a ticked box or a “YES” reply counts)
2. the phone number
3. the name of the business that will text, and a clear authorization for it to send automated marketing texts to that number
4. two disclosures: that signing authorizes those automated texts, and that agreeing is not a condition of any purchase

A phone number on an invoice is not consent. Send promotions between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. in the customer’s time zone, at most one a day. Florida’s own window for sales calls is 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. (F.S. 501.616).

Consent is not the only condition. You also need a one-page written do-not-text policy, shown to the staff who talk with customers (47 CFR 64.1200(d)). And check with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services whether those texts need its telemarketing license or a notarized affidavit of exemption (F.S. 501.608). Asking the Department costs nothing.

Review asks have their own rules. Send them to every customer whose job was finished in the last 18 months and who said texting was fine, with that logged. Ask all of them, not only the happy ones.

Send thanks and one link to your own site or Google, in the daytime: one ask, plus at most one reminder. Never add a coupon, a discount, a referral ask or “book again”, and never send to an old list without that logged OK. We check the review-ask wording against the FTC’s review rules before we use it.

4. One STOP stops everything

One opt-out stops every text from that business, at once. It counts in any wording, in English or Spanish: STOP, ALTO, PARAR, BASTA, “no me escriban”. It counts by text, call, email or in person.

• Send one plain confirmation within five minutes, in the language of the request, with no marketing.
• If a reply is unclear, pause texts to that number and let a person look.
• Log every consent and every opt-out. Delete none of those logs; a do-not-call request must be honored for 5 years from when it is made (47 CFR 64.1200(d)(6)).

Florida gives a business 15 days after a STOP to end sales texts before a customer can sue (F.S. 501.059). Do not use the 15 days. Stop at once.

Source: Florida Statutes, section 501.059, the Florida Telephone Solicitation Act: consent, damages and the STOP rule.

5. Your business sends, and you approve every word

The business that texts is the sender of record. It owns the number and its texting registration. It approves every template, message type and list in writing. It vouches for consent on every number it adds. Anyone who sets up texts for you should work this way. We send no promotions from our own accounts.

Some trades have extra bans:

• Roofing and restoration. No text, box or promotion offers a homeowner a rebate, gift, gift card, cash, coupon, deductible waiver or any other thing of value for a roof inspection or a roof damage claim. No automation pays a referral reward on a job funded by insurance proceeds (F.S. 489.147, up to $10,000 a violation). Any flyer, door hanger or text we help with that mentions a roof claim carries the notice the law requires, in 12-point type or larger, and at least half the size of the biggest type on the piece: the homeowner pays the deductible, waiving it is insurance fraud, and so is filing a false claim.
• Mold. No automation routes paid leads between a mold assessor and a remediator (F.S. 468.8419). The clearance test on a job you remediated always goes to a separate licensed assessor; we never set up a schedule that books your own crew to assess it.

• $10,000the most for each violation of Florida’s ban on roofing and insurance-claim incentives

  Source: Florida Statutes, section 489.147: roofing and insurance-claim incentives.

Where to start

Write your missed-call text today, word for word from rule 1. Then check who on your list said yes to texts, and how you know.

Our pest control page shows where texts like these fit at a pest company: the text back after a missed call, and the route-day texts, some of them in Spanish.

These are the rules we follow as of September 30, 2026.

Sources, in plain words

• Florida Statutes, section 501.059, the Florida Telephone Solicitation Act: consent, damages and the STOP rule. http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0500-0599/0501/Sections/0501.059.html
• Florida Statutes, section 501.616(6): hours for sales calls, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2025/501.616
• Florida Statutes, section 489.147: roofing and insurance-claim incentives. http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0400-0499/0489/Sections/0489.147.html
• Florida Statutes, section 468.8419: referrals between mold assessors and remediators. http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0400-0499/0468/Sections/0468.8419.html
• CTIA Messaging Principles and Best Practices, 2023: the carriers’ rules on opt-outs. https://api.ctia.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/230523-CTIA-Messaging-Principles-and-Best-Practices-FINAL.pdf
• Code of Federal Regulations, 47 CFR 64.1200(d): a written do-not-call policy, staff who know it, and a do-not-call request honored for 5 years from when it is made (d)(6). https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-B/part-64/subpart-L/section-64.1200
• Florida Statutes, sections 501.603 and 501.608(1)(b): who needs Florida’s telemarketing license, and the notarized affidavit of exemption. https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2025/501.608
• Three insurance forms we read: a Hiscox small-business professional liability form (2013), Coalition’s standard cyber form in a 2025 issued policy, and a Travelers cyber form (2020). All three exclude texting-law claims.

Read next

• How to follow up on an estimate in Florida, and when a reminder text needs consentWhen to call, what to say, what Jobber’s reminders do and why the reminder goes to you first.
• How fast should you call back? What the speed-to-lead studies measuredWhere the five-minute rule comes from, what it counted and how to time your own call-backs from your call history.