Quiet Hours

What are quiet hours?

Quiet hours are periods — usually late evening, night and sometimes Sundays or public holidays — when businesses should not send promotional messages to consumers.

How do quiet hours work?

Quiet hours define when a brand should stay silent. They exist because a promotional SMS lands on a personal device that most people keep within reach day and night, so a late offer feels more intrusive than a late email.

The rules come from three sources. Some are written into law, some are agreed by mobile operators and enforced through contracts, and some are house policies a business adopts to protect response rates. In France, the AF2M Business Messaging Charter 2026 allows promotional SMS and RCS only between 08:00 and 21:30, with Sundays and public holidays tolerated but not recommended. Many other European markets regulate consent rather than clock time.

Quiet hours apply to promotional content. Order confirmations, delivery updates and one-time passwords are service messages and can be sent when the event happens.

Example

A retailer running a pan-European sale sets a send window per country and schedules in each recipient’s local time zone, so the French segment finishes before 21:30.