Valentina Akpan: Founder of Rellatech, providing administrative and operations support to executives, founders, business owners and teams. Her background combines technical support, customer success, administration and operations.
When a GoHighLevel workflow has a Send SMS step but the text never arrives, the cause is usually in one of a few places: the texting registration, the contact, the phone number, the workflow settings or the account balance.
I am a HighLevel Certified Admin, and this is the order I check them in. Each check takes a few minutes, and the first two usually tell you where the problem is.
1. Read the execution log and the conversation
Open the workflow, go to the Execution Logs tab and search for the contact. The log shows whether the contact entered the workflow, which step it reached and whether the Send SMS step ran, was skipped or failed. Then open the contact's conversation. A failed text shows an error next to the message, and the error text often names the cause, such as an unregistered number or a blocked recipient.
- ●If the contact is not in the log, the problem is the trigger or its filters (see step 5).
- ●If the step was skipped, check DND and the contact's phone number (steps 3 and 4).
- ●If the step ran but the message failed, check registration, the sending number and the wallet (steps 2, 6 and 7).
2. Check A2P 10DLC registration
If you text US phone numbers from a US local number, carriers expect your brand and campaign to be registered and approved. In GoHighLevel this is done in the Trust Center. Texts from an unregistered or rejected number are blocked or filtered by the carriers, often without a clear message to you. Check that the brand and campaign show as approved, and that the number sending the workflow texts is attached to the approved campaign. If the campaign was rejected, the reason is shown in the Trust Center. Common reasons are a website with no privacy policy, no texting consent wording on the form, or sample messages that do not match what you send. I wrote more about this on my A2P 10DLC registration page.
3. Check Do Not Disturb on the contact
Open the contact and look at the DND settings. If DND is on for all channels or for text messages, GoHighLevel will not send the text. DND is turned on automatically when a contact replies STOP, and it can also be set by an import, a form or another workflow. If the contact replied STOP, do not turn DND off yourself. The contact has to opt back in, for example by replying START.
4. Check the contact's phone number
The number needs to be a valid mobile number with the country code. A number saved without the country code, with extra characters, or a landline will fail or be skipped. If the number came from a form, check that the form's phone field saves it in the right format. Contacts imported from a spreadsheet often have this problem.
5. Check the trigger, filters and workflow settings
If the contact never entered the workflow, the trigger is the place to look. Check that the workflow is published, not left in draft, and that the trigger points to the right form, calendar, tag or pipeline stage. Check the filters on the trigger, because a filter on the wrong tag or source will exclude contacts you expect to see.
- ●Allow re-entry: if this is off, a contact who went through the workflow before will not enter it again.
- ●Time window: if the Send SMS step or the workflow has sending hours set, a text triggered at night waits until the window opens.
- ●Wait steps and if/else branches: a contact can stop at a wait step or go down a branch that has no text in it.
- ●A second workflow on the same trigger may remove the contact or add DND before the text step runs.
6. Check the number the text is sent from
Go to the phone number settings and check that the location has an active number that can send texts, and that it is set as the default, or that the Send SMS step names the right number. If the account uses Twilio rather than LC Phone, check that the Twilio account is active and connected. A number that was ported recently, released or moved to another sub-account will also stop the text.
7. Check the wallet and the message
With LC Phone, texting is paid from the account wallet. If the balance runs out and auto-recharge fails, texts stop sending until the wallet is topped up. Check the wallet and the card on file. Then read the message itself. Carriers filter some content, and link shorteners such as public bit.ly links are a common reason messages are filtered. Use your own domain in links where you can.
8. Test the fix with a test contact
Create a test contact with your own mobile number and add it to the workflow, either by triggering it the normal way or by adding the contact to the workflow from the contact list. Watch the execution log and your phone. Check the reply path as well, so replies come back into the conversation. Once the test works, check the contacts who missed the text while it was broken and decide with the business owner whether to send it to them now.
When to ask for help
If the log shows the text sent but it still does not arrive, or the Trust Center registration keeps being rejected, it can take longer to find the cause. I fix GoHighLevel workflows for coaches, clinics, agencies and service businesses, and I test each path before I hand it back. You can see how that works on my GoHighLevel workflow fixes page.
FAQ
Need a workflow fixed?
Send me the workflow name, what it should do and what is happening instead. I will review it and tell you what I need to fix it, or see how my GoHighLevel workflow fixes work.
Book a free callChoose a time that suits you on the booking page. On the call, tell me what needs attention and which tools you use. Any detailed audit or implementation is scoped separately.
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