iMessage Availability Checking
The short answer
Availability checking tells you if a phone or email can receive iMessage before you send. Blue Reacher checks on demand or in bulk and routes unreachable through RCS then SMS. You know your reachable count before commit.
Key takeaways
- Availability checking is a lookup telling whether a phone or email is registered to receive iMessage.
- Blue Reacher checks in four places: on entry, on demand across segments, on single records, and at send time.
- Contacts who can't receive iMessage drop into automatic fallback: RCS first, then SMS.
- Availability checking protects campaign cost.
- iPhone availability works as an income filter.
- Teams run checks where channel choice affects the outcome.
How a message falls back
What is iMessage availability checking?
Availability checking is a lookup telling whether a phone or email is registered to receive iMessage. Reachable means blue bubble. Not reachable means Android, landline, or dead.
- Unknown flags rare lookups; Blue Reacher retries and routes through fallback. Silent check: no notification, typing indicator, or read receipt fires.
- Availability differs from mobile validation. Validation confirms real and active. Availability confirms that line can receive iMessage. Blue Reacher runs both; mobile-validated leads at $0.03.
Reachable
- What it means
- The address is registered on iMessage
- What Blue Reacher does
- Sends the blue bubble from your dedicated line
Not reachable
- What it means
- The address is live but not on iMessage
- What Blue Reacher does
- Falls back to RCS, then SMS
Invalid
- What it means
- Not a usable mobile number or email address
- What Blue Reacher does
- Skips the send, flags the record for cleanup
Unknown
- What it means
- The lookup did not resolve
- What Blue Reacher does
- Retries, then routes the contact through fallback
How does Blue Reacher check availability?
Blue Reacher checks in four places: on entry, on demand across segments, on single records, and at send time. Pre-send is authoritative since a contact who switched phones Tuesday gets routed on today's answer.
- Bulk checking is built for real list sizes. Upload a CSV or point Blue Reacher at a CRM segment; the run processes in the background. Each record gets state and timestamp written back.
- Email addresses get checked the same way as phone numbers. Numbers are normalized to E.164 on intake, so mixed-format lists from multiple exports won't break.
What happens when a contact cannot receive iMessage?
Contacts who can't receive iMessage drop into automatic fallback: RCS first, then SMS. RCS keeps rich formatting, delivery status and typing indicators on Android. SMS reaches everyone else. No branching logic to build.
- Fallback is per-message, not stamped on the contact forever. Someone on Android in March who bought an iPhone in June gets picked up as reachable on the next send.
- Every message stays in one thread in Blue Reacher and your CRM. Replies come back via webhook payload {from, content, channel, external_id}; channel tells automations how the contact was reached.
Why does availability checking matter for cost and list hygiene?
Availability checking protects campaign cost. iMessages are unlimited at $249/line/month with no per-message fees, paced at 50 opted-in / 30 cold new contacts a day, so the reachable half costs the same whether you send 100 or 10,000.
- List hygiene is the second payoff. Invalid flags surface dead numbers in your CRM, sequences stop burning on addresses that will never answer, and reply rate becomes real.
Those are our assumptions. The Blue Funnel Map runs the same arithmetic on the funnel you actually have, and you keep the map either way.
Run these numbers on your funnelCan iMessage availability work as an income filter?
Can iMessage availability work as an income filter?
iPhone availability works as an income filter. iPhone households sit near $85,000 median income, roughly 40% above Android households.
- For B2B teams, the signal is about budget and seniority. Split a 10,000-contact list, get 6,000 reachable; that group is on average the higher-budget half.
How teams use availability checking across the funnel
How teams use availability checking across the funnel
Teams run checks where channel choice affects the outcome. iMessage drives 2-3x the reply rate of cold email with a 98% open rate and 90% read inside three minutes.
- Cold outbound bulk-checks and sequences the reachable segment first. Dead-list reactivation strips invalids and hands back a live list with channel assigned. Speed-to-lead checks the instant a form creates a record.
- Confirmations and reminders go out on the channel the prospect actually reads. No-show recovery uses the reachable flag to choose between a blue-bubble nudge and a call.
How do you set up availability checking?
How do you set up availability checking?
Availability checking is on by default when your line is live. Import, pre-send and fallback all run out of the box with no rule to build before your first send.
- GoHighLevel users get it natively with the state written back as a filterable field. Every other CRM connects via REST API. Single check: POST to https://api.bluereacher.com/v1/check-availability.
- Nothing to install and no A2P registration required. White-glove activation is normally $449 and waived.
Frequently asked questions
Does an iMessage availability check send anything to the contact?
No. An availability check is a silent lookup against the address itself. No message arrives, no notification fires, no typing indicator shows, no read receipt is generated. Run it across a hundred thousand contacts and not one of them will know it happened.
Can you check iMessage availability in bulk?
Yes. Upload a CSV or select a CRM segment, and Blue Reacher checks the whole list in the background, writing a state and a timestamp back to every record. You get your reachable, not-reachable and invalid counts before you spend any send budget.
What happens if a contact is not on iMessage?
Contacts who are not on iMessage fall back automatically to RCS, then to SMS. The decision happens per message at the moment of send, the conversation stays in one thread, and the inbound webhook payload includes a channel field so your automations know which one delivered.
Can you check an email address for iMessage, not just a phone number?
Yes. Plenty of contacts have an email address registered to iMessage rather than a mobile line, and Blue Reacher checks both. Feeding the checker a work email is often how you reach a decision-maker who reads messages on a laptop.
How often should you recheck a list?
Recheck cadence depends on the age of the data, and Blue Reacher handles most of it. Every outbound message runs a fresh pre-send check, so routing always uses the current answer. For a list you have not touched in six months, run a full bulk check first.
Does availability checking cost extra?
No. Availability checking is included in the $249/line/month plan, which covers unlimited iMessages (50 opted-in / 30 cold new contacts/day), no per-message fees. Annual is $1,949/line. Only add-on: mobile-validated leads at $0.03 per contact.
Does availability checking require A2P registration?
No A2P registration is required for availability checking or for sending on Blue Reacher. Your dedicated line is set up and managed for you during white-glove activation, and there is nothing for you to install or file.
See your reachable rate before you send a single message
Bring your list, get the split. Every contact who comes back reachable is a lead you already paid for, one blue bubble away from a live conversation. Blue Reacher checks every contact for iMessage availability, routes the rest through RCS and SMS automatically, and sends blue-bubble texts straight from your CRM at 2-3x the reply rate of cold email. $249 per line per month, unlimited iMessages paced at up to 50 opted-in / 30 cold new conversations per line per day, no A2P registration required. Book your Blue Funnel Map and ask us to open it by text: we'll run the check on your list during the call.