What's the actual onboarding timeline for Postscript on a Shopify Plus store, from install to first live campaign?
Plan 2 to 3 weeks to a first live campaign on the toll-free path. Postscript syncs with a store in "up to 15 minutes," toll-free verification runs "approx. 3-10 business days," an existing list upload takes "3 business days," and the first campaign gets a compliance review during business hours (help.postscript.io, September 2026).
The timeline is set by three queues, not by your team
Postscript install is fast. What follows is three approval queues that run on someone else's clock, and every slipped Postscript launch we have seen slipped in one of them.
| Stage | Published duration | Who controls it |
|---|---|---|
| App install and store sync | "Postscript may take up to 15 minutes to sync with your store" | You |
| Terms of service and privacy policy updated and live | Not published. Budget days if legal review is involved | You |
| Toll-free number verification | "Approx. 3-10 business days," including a Postscript website review that "can take up to 5 business days," then "a human audit by Twilio on behalf of carriers" | Postscript, then the carriers |
| Existing subscriber list upload | "Our team uploads and tags subscriber lists in 3 business days" | Postscript |
| First campaign compliance review | Monitored "Monday through Friday from 9:00 am to 8:00 pm ET," with same-day approval or denial during those hours | Postscript |
| Short code, if you choose one instead | "Approx. 4-7 weeks via application," $750 per month at carrier cost | The carriers |
All figures per help.postscript.io, September 2026.
The toll-free stages overlap only partly. You cannot upload a list and send a double opt-in confirmation before verification completes, because "Unverified TFNs will be blocked from sending text messages (including Double Opt-In 'reply Y' messages, impacting subscriber list growth) to subscribers in the United States and Canada."
The order of operations that actually compresses it
- Fix the website first. Postscript's published rejection reasons for toll-free verification include a site that is "Not Live or Password Protected," an incomplete or unpublished product catalog, impermissible SHAFT-category content, and incomplete registration details. Every one of those is fixable before you install anything.
- Have the registration details ready on day one. For a US entity that means the Employee Identification Number, the full physical address including suite or unit, and a contact using a domain-specific email address rather than a free mailbox.
- Publish the terms and privacy language before you collect a single subscriber. Postscript's compliance checklist requires the opt-in disclosure to carry "Message and data rates may apply," "Message frequency varies," and "Reply HELP for help; STOP to opt-out," with the terms of service naming the program, the message frequency, opt-out instructions, customer care contact, and the line that "Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages."
- Start the list upload while verification runs. The three-business-day upload queue is independent of the verification queue. Uploading requires certifying that "you collected subscribers in a TCPA-compliant manner," so this is the week to find the opt-in evidence rather than the week to discover you do not have it.
- Turn on checkout collection. On a Plus store with checkout extensibility, Postscript's guidance is to use the checkout extension path rather than the legacy Marketing options toggle: the standard-checkout instructions state "If you are a Shopify Plus merchant and have upgraded to Checkout Extensibility, please skip this step." Note that the marketing SMS collection itself is not Plus-gated.
- Submit the first campaign inside business hours. The compliance team reviews Monday to Friday, 9:00am to 8:00pm ET, and decides same-day in that window. Submitting at 7pm ET on a Friday costs you a weekend.
What Plus specifically changes, and what it does not
Plus changes the checkout integration path and nothing about the queues. Verification time, upload time and campaign review are identical on Advanced and on Plus, because they are carrier and compliance processes rather than platform features. A Plus merchant who assumed the plan would buy faster onboarding has bought a different checkout extension.
When NOT to commit to a launch date
- When the site is not live and public. Verification fails on this specifically.
- When you want a short code. That is a 4 to 7 week approval, not a 3 to 10 business day one, and no amount of escalation compresses a carrier application.
- When the list's opt-in evidence has not been located. You will be asked to certify it.
- Inside four weeks of peak. A new sending number plus a first-campaign review plus a holiday freeze is three risks stacked on one date.
Timelines above are the vendor's own published figures, not a Deploi service commitment. Carrier review times vary.
The Deploi point of view
Our own position, from building on Shopify. Separate from the facts above.
- Our take: Two to three weeks is achievable on the toll-free path and only if the website, the registration details and the consent evidence are ready before install. We plan Postscript launches backwards from the carrier verification window, the same way we plan email migrations backwards from IP warming, because it is the one stage that adding people does not speed up.
- What we’ve seen: The stage that slips is never the software. It is a privacy policy that needs legal sign-off, or a list whose opt-in source nobody can evidence, and both are discovered in the week they block the launch rather than the week they could have been fixed.
- Where we disagree: Implementation quotes for SMS are written as configuration projects and priced in hours of platform work. The critical path is three approval queues that no agency controls. We would rather give a client the queue durations up front and be judged on the date than quote a two-week build and explain a carrier audit in week three.
- What this page adds: the published duration of each individual onboarding queue, that unverified toll-free numbers are blocked rather than merely filtered, that the first-campaign review runs 9:00am to 8:00pm ET on weekdays, and that Plus changes the checkout path without changing any queue.
Reviewed by Martin Dejnicki, Director of SEO & AI Search. Facts verified 2026-09-14.
Where we worked this out
Our decision records