Quiet hours are specific times during the day when you should avoid sending text messages to your subscribers (e.g., early in the morning, late at night, when they are sleeping, etc.). In addition to a bad customer experience, messages sent during these hours often lead to higher unsubscribe rates and a greater likelihood of customer complaints and spam reporting.
The TCPA states that text messages should not be sent before 8 am and after 9 pm in the recipient's local time zone. Further, Florida, Connecticut, Maryland, Oklahoma, and Washington state laws imposed stricter requirements that state text messages can only be sent between the hours of 8 am and 8 pm in the recipient’s local time zone. New Jersey's waking hours are 8 am to 9 pm in the subscribers local timezone.
To be safe, you should only send texts during the hours of 8 am to 8 pm in the recipient's local time zone.
How Postscript Approaches Quiet Hours
At Postscript, we've implemented safeguards to assist shops in complying with quiet hours when sending campaigns and automations. These safeguards also allow shops to target subscribers at times that make sense across the contiguous U.S.
Postscript prevents you from sending campaigns and automations during SMS quiet hours. For more information on how quiet hours affect automations and campaigns, check out the tabs below.
If a campaign flow is sent or scheduled to send during quiet hours, Postscript will hold off sending the campaign flow until waking hours begin in the subscriber's timezone.
Postscript will not allow you to send or schedule legacy campaigns to send during quiet hours. You will receive a notification within the Postscript app. Our recommendation is to schedule your campaign to send during the next waking hours window.
Quiet Hours Explained
Postscript's current global waking hours are as follows:
- Global legacy campaign waking hours:
- 5 am - 8 pm PT (US/CAN excluding Florida, Connecticut, Maryland, Oklahoma, and Washington)
- 8 am - 8 pm local time (Florida, Connecticut, Maryland, Oklahoma, and Washington)
- 8 am - 9 pm local time (New Jersey)
- Global legacy automation, automation flow, and campaign flow waking hours:
- 8 am - 9 pm local time (US/CAN excluding Florida, Connecticut, Maryland, Oklahoma, and Washington)
- 8 am - 8 pm local time (Florida, Connecticut, Oklahoma, Maryland, and Washington)
- 8 am - 9 pm local time (New Jersey)
Note: "local time" refers to waking hours that are observed in the subscribers' local timezone based on their phone numbers.
Compliance Best Practices
While broad campaign hours allow shops to send geographically targeted legacy campaigns during the waking hours across the country, Postscript recommends that you segment your legacy campaign sends such that messages are only sent between 8 am and 8 pm in each recipient's local time zone.
Automations are triggered by an action a subscriber takes (abandoning a cart, browsing a product, etc.) and fire automatically, so we employ the most conservative nationwide waking hours window to ensure compliance without shop oversight.
If a user subscribes to (or unsubscribes from) your store during quiet hours, Postscript will still promptly send opt-in or opt-out messages as required by federal law.
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