Where tenant-owned per-recipient frequency caps sit in a TCPA posture: default off, fail-open, composed with the federal dialing window and state mini-TCPA overlays, and never a claim that a cap satisfies a statute.
This page describes a tenant-owned control, not legal advice. Whether a
cap configuration is adequate for your traffic depends on your
jurisdiction, your recipients, and what you send. Confirm with qualified
counsel.
The posture map’s voice rows control when a call may go: the federal
8 AM–9 PM dialing window, the state mini-TCPA overlays, and your tenant
quiet-hours gate. Frequency caps are the tenant-owned control for the
other half of the exposure: how many times one recipient can be reached
in a day. A cap is one of the few shipped controls that mechanically
bounds per-recipient call and message volume, which is why tenants
assembling a TCPA posture use it as a litigation-risk-reduction layer.
Frequency caps (per-recipient rolling send limits)
GET / POST / PATCH / DELETE /api/v1/frequency-caps/; Settings → Frequency caps; live per-contact usage at GET /api/v1/contacts/:id/cap-status
No rules — nothing capped until you create one
Fail-open where nothing is set (a rule-lookup failure lets the send through); fail-closed for caps you create — a send past its cap is rejected 429 FREQUENCY_CAP_EXCEEDED
Per-day voice cap. A voice cap of 2–3 per contact per rolling day
leaves room for legitimate retries inside the federal window and any
state overlay, while bounding the repeated-calls pattern behind
“too many calls” claims. Size it at or below any per-day limit counsel
identifies for a state you send to.
Per-day SMS cap. A cap of 2–3 per contact per day, scoped to your
promotional categories, reduces the repeated-message pattern that
drives consent revocation and TCPA-adjacent “too many messages” claims.
State per-day mirrors. The seven state overlays Orbit enforces
today are window and blocked-day rules only. Where counsel confirms a
state per-day call-count statute (for example Fla. Stat. § 501.059),
mirror it with a keyed category cap bound to the segment you resolve to
that state. The frequency caps guide
carries the worked example and the FREQUENCY_CAP_EXCEEDED read-back.
Not a platform mandate. No cap exists until you create one, and a
counter or rule-lookup failure lets the send through rather than
holding it. Orbit enforces what you set and nothing more.
Not a satisfaction claim. A cap bounds volume; it does not establish
consent, and no configuration here is a claim that any statute is
satisfied.
Not a when-control. Caps compose with, and never substitute for, the
federal window, the state overlays, and quiet hours: a send inside the
window can still be capped, and a capped send still waits for a slot
even inside the window. Opt-out and suppression run ahead of the cap in
the send pipeline, and the cap gate reads per-channel consent the same
way the cap-status snapshot reports it.
