Automated renewal reminder texts

Who sends renewal reminder texts?

Teams that renew the same customers every year and want the conversation to start before the invoice does: insurance agencies, account managers and customer success teams.

Insurance agencies text policyholders ahead of each renewal, with an offer to review coverage for anyone whose home, car or business changed. Customer success teams text the named contact on an annual contract, so questions about seats or price come up a month before the invoice.

Both work from a list with a Renewal date column, and both want a person to take over the moment the customer answers.

What does a renewal reminder sequence look like?

Three texts over three weeks, starting about 30 days before the renewal date, with a check before each follow-up that ends the sequence for anyone already renewed.

• The Condition steps look at a Status column. A Condition step reads the person’s row in your list at the moment it runs. Change a column by hand, or let your CRM’s sync change it, and the next Condition step sees the new value. Mark a row Renewed and that customer gets no further text.
• The fields come from your list, so {{Plan}} and {{Renewal date}} are whatever your columns say. If a field is empty for someone, they pause at that step with the missing column named, so nobody gets a text with a gap in it.
• The last text says plainly that no reply is needed when all is well, so a quiet customer isn’t left wondering what they missed.

When should renewal texts go out?

Start about 30 days before the renewal date and send during weekday business hours on the customer’s own clock.

Textually doesn’t count back from a date by itself, so you push each batch on the right day. Once a week, push the renewals that fall 30 to 36 days out into the campaign. Waits count whole days, from 1 to 30, and Business days only skips Saturdays and Sundays. To start a batch at a set time, use Schedule on the Launch tab and pick the date and time.

Each campaign has its own sending days and hours. With Send in each lead’s local time on, those hours follow each person’s time zone, read from the area code of their number, and Textually never sends a campaign text before 8 AM or after 9 PM on their clock, the window US federal rules set for telephone solicitations (47 CFR 64.1200(c)(1)). A text that falls due outside the hours waits for the next allowed time.

What consent do renewal reminder texts need?

The customer’s agreement to get texts from you, with a record of where and when they gave it. A plain renewal notice is a service text. Add an upgrade offer and it becomes promotional, which needs written consent in the US.

In the US, carrier guidance expects express permission for informational texts (CTIA, 2023), and texts that advertise, sent with an autodialer to a mobile, need prior express written consent (47 CFR 64.1200(a)(2)). In Canada, a message that solely gives factual information about an ongoing subscription, membership or account skips CASL’s consent requirement (s. 6(6)(d)), though it still names you and offers an unsubscribe. The renewal reminder guide covers both countries. This is a summary of public rules as of October 2026, not legal advice.

In Textually each person needs a consent record, the source and the date they agreed, carried from columns on your list or your CRM, or you confirm consent for the whole campaign at launch. A text step skips anyone without one and saves the reason on the lead.

What happens when a customer replies or texts STOP?

A reply ends the renewal sequence for that customer, and the thread waits in the shared inbox for the account owner. STOP or clear stop wording opts them out across your whole workspace.

• A reply of any kind ends the sequence for that person, and no later step goes out. The thread lands in the shared inbox with a label such as Interested or Declined, and whoever answers sends from the number the person already knows.
• STOP, or clear wording such as “please stop texting me” or “remove me from your list”, opts the person out across your whole workspace: this campaign, every other campaign that holds their number, and any you run later. The inbox won’t send to them, and a later text from them does not undo it.

Every member of the workspace sees the reply in the bell inside Textually, and each person can turn on email or browser alerts. A thread that has waited more than 4 hours is marked overdue in Needs reply. A renewal question is often a price question, so answer it the same day.

A normal reply ends only the campaign it is matched to. If the same person sits in another campaign, that one carries on until you pause them on its Leads tab or they reply there too. That matters when a customer is in an onboarding or check-in campaign at the same time.

How do I send renewal texts from my CRM?

Connect the CRM, match its renewal date field, and the records come into a list you push into the renewal campaign. Each reply and opt-out is written back on the record.

Salesforce logs each reply and opt-out as a completed task, and HubSpot and Zoho CRM get a note. Any field, such as Plan or Renewal date, can be matched by hand and used in a text. With Keep in sync on, Textually reads changed records every hour, so a renewal status you match from the CRM keeps the Status column current for the Condition steps.

An agency management or billing system without an integration works through a CSV export or the API.

Guides on this topic

• Renewal reminder texts: sequences that start a month out9 min
• Insurance text messages for quotes, renewals and claims10 min
• How to text existing customers: sequences and consent rules10 min