Auto-send

Auto-send means a lead arrives, and the script for that column goes out without anyone pressing a button. It is the difference between "we try to text people back" and "people get texted back."

It also sends real messages to real people from your real phone number, so it has more guardrails than anything else in FoxFlow.

Two switches, not one

This is the part that trips everyone up. There are two toggles and you need both.

1. The flow's master switch — Auto-Send Scripts, on Flow Settings → Messaging. One per flow.
2. The step's switch — Auto-send this script, on each step in Flow Settings → Steps.

Both on, plus a script that isn't empty, or nothing sends. The two-switch design is deliberate: the master switch is a kill switch you can hit in one click without losing your per-step setup.

Everything that has to be true

Walk this list when a message doesn't go out. In order:

It never back-texts your existing leads

When you switch auto-send on, FoxFlow writes down the moment you did it. Only leads that enter a column after that moment get an automatic message. The same applies per step.

So the nightmare scenario — flipping a switch and blasting 400 people who filled out a card last spring — cannot happen. The app tells you this in the confirmation dialog, and the server enforces it independently.

The sending window

Nobody wants a text from their child's school at 11pm.

The sending window lives at the organisation level, in Organisation Settings → Messaging. It's off by default. When you turn it on, it starts at 8:00am to 8:00pm in your organisation's timezone, and you can change both ends.

What the window does and doesn't hold:

A lead arriving at 2am isn't lost. Its message sits queued and goes out when the window opens. The window has to be a normal same-day range — you can't run one overnight from 8pm to 8am.

Daily limits

Each number has two caps per day, and they exist to keep your number looking like a person rather than a marketing platform:

• 100 automatic sends total
• 50 of those to people you've never messaged before

Both reset at midnight in your organisation's timezone. Anything over the cap waits for the next day rather than being dropped. Manual messages and replies don't count toward either number.

FoxFlow also paces sends rather than firing them in a burst, for the same reason.

Auto-send and auto-advance together

If a step has both auto-send and an auto-advance timer, the timer waits for the message to actually go out before it starts counting. A lead that arrives outside your sending window won't be moved along before it's been texted — otherwise you'd advance people you never contacted.

Turning it on for the first time

The order that avoids surprises:

1. Confirm FoxFlow Messaging is on — the Messaging tab no longer shows an upgrade panel.
2. Set your sending window to hours you'd be comfortable receiving a text.
3. Write the script for one step and read it out loud.
4. Turn on that one step's toggle.
5. Turn on the flow's master switch.
6. Send yourself a lead through your own form and watch it land.

Then leave it alone for a week before automating a second step.

A clock on the first message means it's queued, not lost — see how to read a message.

Next: auto-advance.