Data Retention
Last updated: October 5, 2026
The short version
- Your message history stays while your account is open, because the inbox and logs are built on it.
- Opt-outs are kept long enough to keep honoring them.
- When you leave, we delete your data within 90 days.
How long SimpleSMS keeps each kind of data, and why. "Deleted" means removed from our production systems; backups are overwritten on their normal cycle after that.
| Data | Kept for | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Message content and media | Life of the account, or until you delete it or ask us to | Message history, the shared inbox, and support |
| Message metadata and delivery receipts | Life of the account | Delivery logs, billing disputes, abuse investigations |
| Blocked messages (up to 320 characters) | Life of the account | Review of content-screen decisions |
| Opt-out and opt-in records, including opt-in proof you record (through the API or a contact import) and each number's subscription preference per topic | While the account is open, and at least 4 years after the last message to that number. Deleting a contact does not delete these: they belong to the phone number | To keep honoring opt-outs and topic preferences, and to answer TCPA claims |
| Contacts (phone number, name, email, company, state, tags, custom fields, notes, source), segments, subscription topics, and import records (file name, who ran it, row counts) | Life of the account, or until you delete them | The address book, broadcast audiences, and merge fields |
| Which broadcasts a number was included in, and each broadcast's recipient list and results | Life of the account | Contact history and broadcast reporting |
| Verification attempts | Codes expire after 10 minutes and are only ever stored hashed; outcomes kept for the life of the account | Billing and fraud prevention |
| Lookup results | Cached for 24 hours. A message sent while a result is cached keeps the recipient's carrier name as part of its metadata | Cost and speed; delivery logs |
| Customer records (customers API) and per-customer usage counts | Life of the account, or until you delete the customer (usage counts and attribution on past messages stay with the message history) | Attributing traffic and usage to the businesses you send for |
| Automation events you send us (event name, phone number, your user id, properties) | 30 days | Starting and advancing your automations; showing recent events in the console |
| Automation runs (recipient, the event properties that started the run, steps taken, why it ended) | Until the run ends, then 30 days. A run ends after at most 90 days | Running the flow; showing you what each run did |
| Automation flows (steps and message text) and the links between your user ids and phone numbers | Life of the account, or until you delete the flow | Running your automations |
| API request logs | Up to 30 days | Debugging and security |
| Account audit log (who changed keys, team, webhooks, spend limits, numbers, consent, topic preferences, contact imports, segments, topics, settings, automations, and from which IP) | Life of the account | Security and accountability |
| Delivery statistics (counts by day, carrier, and sending number) | Life of the account; hourly detail 9 days | Deliverability reporting and degradation alerts |
| Account usage metrics (message counts per hour and day, first-send times) | Daily counts 120 days; hourly counts until reported (about an hour); first-send times for the life of the account | Business reporting (Privacy §8) |
| Webhook delivery logs (status code, response time, and the first 2 KB of your endpoint's response) | 30 days | Debugging your webhook integration |
| Undelivered webhook events (a reference to the event, not a second copy of it) | 30 days, or until you replay or dismiss them | Recovering events your endpoint missed |
| Brand and campaign registration details (including the example messages and description you write, and draft examples we suggest until you replace or confirm them), website check results, and the copy of what was filed for carrier review each time you submit | Life of the registration, plus 1 year | Carrier and registry requirements; showing what the carriers reviewed |
| Suggestions read from your website when you ask us to fill in a registration (business details and page addresses; never the pages themselves) | About 10 minutes; cleared within the hour | So that asking again does not read your site a second time |
| Each phone number's registration status and its history (status changes and the registration it is linked to), and the review items our team works from (registration submissions, live-access requests, requests for a toll-free number or short code, reviews that are running long) | Life of the account | Showing you where a number stands; reviewing and following up on your registration |
| Account data | Life of the account, then 90 days | Running the account |
| Product update subscriptions (email address, sign-up source, confirmation and unsubscribe dates) | Until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete it; after you unsubscribe we keep the address only as a do-not-email record, unless you ask us to delete it | Sending the updates you asked for, and honoring unsubscribes |
| Billing and invoice records | 7 years | Tax and accounting law |
| Fraud and abuse signals | As long as needed to protect the network | Preventing repeat abuse |
When an account closes
Within 90 days after an account closes, we delete its message content, metadata, contacts, and account data. We keep only what the table above says outlives the account (opt-out records, billing records, fraud signals), and anything the law or a valid legal hold requires.
Deleting sooner
Customers can ask us to delete specific messages, contacts, or all of their data at any time by emailing support@joinsimplesms.com. Message recipients can use the process in Privacy §9.