# Consent & subscriptions

How Instasent tracks who you may message: two independent axes — a marketing preference and a channel suppression — per channel, the exact panel labels for each, and how the consent model connects to campaigns, channels and your data sources.

**Language:** en
**Audience:** platform
**TLDR:** Consent tracks two independent axes per channel: a marketing preference (opted in, opted out, or no preference) that contacts set themselves via STOP/START, and a channel suppression that blocks every send and only an admin can lift. RCS shares SMS's consent rather than tracking its own. Both axes are set on the contact's Channel preferences card or via API.
**Translation key:** platform.consent.overview
**Search keywords:** consent, subscription, subscriptions, unsubscribe, opt-out, opt out, opt-in, opt in, suppression, suppressed, blocked, marketing preference, accepts marketing, subscribed, no preference, channel preferences, reactivate, resubscribe, STOP, START, consentimiento, suscripción, baja, supresión, preferencia de marketing
**Related pages:** /platform/es/consent, /platform/en/consent/marketing-preference-vs-suppression, /platform/en/consent/subscription-attributes, /platform/en/consent/rcs-sms-shared-consent, /platform/en/consent/opt-outs-reactivation, /platform/en/consent/managing-via-api, /platform/en/campaigns/compliance-policies, /platform/en/channels/compliance-defaults
**Docs index (every page):** https://docs.instasent.com/llms.txt
**This zone's index:** https://docs.instasent.com/platform/en/llms.txt
**This page:** https://docs.instasent.com/platform/en/consent/ (HTML) · https://docs.instasent.com/platform/en/consent.md (Markdown)
**Other language (es):** https://docs.instasent.com/platform/es/consent.md

Before every send, Instasent asks itself one question: **are you allowed to message this
contact on this channel?** The answer is decided by **two independent axes**, tracked
**per channel** — and they really are independent: a contact can accept marketing on SMS
and be unreachable on WhatsApp, or opt out of marketing yet still get a service notification.
Keeping the two axes apart is exactly what lets "I don't want promotions" mean something
different from "don't contact me at all."

## The two axes

Every contact carries, on each channel, two pieces of consent state:

| Axis                     | What it answers                                              | Default       |
| ------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------- |
| **Marketing preference** | Does the contact accept marketing on this channel?           | No preference |
| **Channel suppression**  | Is the contact suppressed from *everything* on this channel? | Subscribed    |

- **Marketing preference** is a three-state value: the contact has **accepted** marketing
  (opted in), **declined** it (opted out), or has **no preference** recorded yet. A new
  contact, or one imported without consent data, starts with **no preference** — neither a
  yes nor a no.
- **Channel suppression** is the harder line. A suppressed contact is removed from *all*
  marketing on that channel, whatever their marketing preference says. It's reserved for
  the strongest signals — a repeated opt-out, a manual block — and, unlike the marketing
  preference, a contact can't lift their own suppression.

These are two separate axes, not two values on a scale. A contact who declined marketing
is still **subscribed** (active) on the channel — they simply don't get marketing. A
contact who is **suppressed** gets nothing, no matter what their marketing preference is.

## Where you see them: Channel preferences

On a contact's [profile](/platform/en/audience/contacts-profiles#channel-preferences),
the **Channel preferences** card shows both axes, one row per channel — **SMS / RCS**,
**Email** and **WhatsApp** — with two columns:

- **Subscribed** — the suppression checkbox. When you clear it, the contact is suppressed:
  removed from all marketing on the channel.
- **Accepts marketing** — the marketing preference, a **three-state checkbox**: checked
  (opted in), unchecked (opted out) or indeterminate, shown as **No preference** when no
  value has been recorded yet.

![The Channel preferences card on a contact profile, with rows for SMS / RCS, Email and WhatsApp and columns for Subscribed and Accepts marketing](/platform/en/consent/images/consent-overview--1-channel-preferences.png)
*The Channel preferences card: marketing preference and suppression, per channel.*

The card's own help text spells out what each checkbox means. **Subscribed** is described as
*"Total channel suppression. Turn it off and the contact stops receiving anything on this
channel, including sends with the Basic consent policy. Only your team or the API can reverse
it."* And **Accepts marketing** notes that *"Only affects sends with the Opt-in or Opt-out
consent policy. Sends with the Basic policy still arrive as long as the contact remains
subscribed. The contact usually changes it themselves via STOP/START or an unsubscribe link."*

## How the model connects to the rest of Instasent

Consent is a connection point: several parts of the panel read or write these two axes, but the
model itself is explained here. Read on for each piece:

- [How consent works](/platform/en/consent/marketing-preference-vs-suppression) - Marketing preference versus suppression in depth, and the who-receives matrix that combines a contact's state with a campaign's policy.
- [Subscription attributes](/platform/en/consent/subscription-attributes) - The five per-channel attributes behind the two axes, and which channels have a set.
- [Shared consent (RCS & SMS)](/platform/en/consent/rcs-sms-shared-consent) - Why RCS has no consent of its own and follows SMS, in both directions.
- [Opt-outs & reactivation](/platform/en/consent/opt-outs-reactivation) - How contacts opt out (STOP or an unsubscribe link), the escalation to suppression, and who can bring a contact back.

Two boundaries worth stating up front, so you look in the right place:

- **Campaign policies** (Basic, Opt-out, Opt-in) — *which* contacts a campaign reaches and
  what a STOP does under each policy — are in
  [Compliance policies](/platform/en/campaigns/compliance-policies).
- **Per-channel defaults** — the consent policy a new campaign starts from, the inbound
  keywords, and per-channel vs global opt-out scope — are in
  [Compliance](/platform/en/channels/compliance-defaults).

To manage consent programmatically, see
[Manage via API](/platform/en/consent/managing-via-api).

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