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If you tap Send on a reply and nothing happens — or the message shows up but never marks delivered — work through these three causes.

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1. Your Rivet number is still being provisioned

If you signed up in the last few minutes and try to send a text right away, the send fails because Rivet hasn’t finished allocating your number yet. Provisioning normally takes 60 to 120 seconds. Symptom: The welcome screen still says “Setting up your number” or the app shows your number as “pending.” Sends from this state silently fail. Fix: Wait until the welcome screen flips to “ready” (you’ll get an SMS at your personal number when it does). Then retry the send.

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2. The recipient number isn’t in the right format

Rivet sends SMS only to North American numbers — Canada and the US, with the +1 country code. Anything outside that is rejected. What works:
  • +15195551234
  • 5195551234 (Rivet adds the +1 automatically)
  • (519) 555-1234
  • 519-555-1234
What doesn’t:
  • A UK or European number. Outbound to non-NA numbers is disabled across the board.
  • A number with the wrong country code.
  • A number that’s missing a digit (a typo — the send fails with a bad-recipient error, which surfaces in the message thread).
Inbound SMS works from anywhere — clients in other countries can text your Rivet number and the message arrives in your inbox normally. Only outbound is restricted to North America, for cost-abuse reasons.

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3. Carrier filtering on the recipient’s side

Rare, but it happens. Some Canadian mobile carriers (Bell, Telus, Rogers) filter messages from numbers they don’t recognise, especially messages with URLs or that look templated. The send leaves Rivet, but the carrier silently drops it before delivery. Symptoms: The message shows as sent in the thread, but the recipient says they never got it. Other messages to the same recipient sometimes land, sometimes don’t. What helps:
  • Avoid URLs in the first message to a brand-new contact. Once they’ve texted you back, you’ve built reputation with the carrier and links are fine.
  • Keep messages short and human (“Hi, this is Sarah from Riverside — can we reschedule for Thursday?”) rather than templated.
  • If filtering persists for a specific client, ask them to text you first. The carrier whitelists outbound replies to a number that’s already messaged you.
This is a known and unfortunate part of how Canadian SMS carriers work — there isn’t a guaranteed fix on Rivet’s side. Toll-free upgrades mitigate it but cost more and aren’t worth it for most practitioners.

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What about messages that look sent but aren’t delivered?

The thread shows your reply with no “Delivered” tag, or there’s a small warning icon next to it. If the icon shows, hover (desktop) or tap (mobile) — it’ll tell you the error code. The most common are:
  • 30003 — the recipient’s phone is unreachable (off, no signal, or the number is no longer in service). Retry later; if it persists for the same recipient, the number may have changed.
  • 30005 — unknown destination. Usually a typo in the number. Confirm with the client and update the contact.
  • 30007 — message blocked by the carrier. This is the filtering case above.

Calls not coming through

Same loop, but for inbound calls instead of outbound text.

Contacting support

What to send if filtering keeps happening to the same recipient.