How Unsubscribes and STOP Replies Work

People can stop hearing from your church at any time, and Church HQ respects that without anyone having to remember.

Email

Every email Church HQ sends carries an unsubscribe link. Someone who uses it is skipped in all future bulk email from your church.

They still get account email: invitations, password resets, email confirmations and volunteer scheduling requests. Those are not marketing, and a volunteer who cannot receive a schedule request cannot serve.

Text messages

A text that replies STOP (or UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, QUIT) stops texts twice over: Twilio blocks them at the carrier, and Church HQ marks the person opted out so they are skipped in every send.

Only the person can undo it, by texting START (or YES, UNSTOP) to your church’s number. Changing it on their record in Church HQ only changes Church HQ’s copy; Twilio keeps blocking until they text START themselves. That is a carrier rule, not a Church HQ one.

Where to see it

A person’s record shows their communication preferences, per channel. The preview before a send tells you how many people will be skipped, and why.

Opting out of texts does not affect email, and the other way round.

Good to know

• Only message people who agreed to hear from you. Rules such as the US TCPA apply to churches.
• A send to nobody is blocked, with the counts, so an audience that is entirely opted out cannot look like a successful send.