How your number gets here.
Porchlight sends text messages to people who never signed up for Porchlight. That is the whole point of it, and it is also the part most worth being careful about. This page is the complete record of how a number reaches us, who agreed to what, and how to end it.
A hiker can never enter someone else’s phone number. There is no field for it anywhere in the product — not at filing, not in settings, not in support. A number can only ever be typed by the person who owns the phone, on their own screen, from their own link.
- Step 1
An invitation, by email.
A hiker names the people who should be told if they don’t come back, and gives an email address for each. Porchlight emails that person to ask. Nothing is texted at this stage, because at this stage we have no phone number and no permission to have one.
- Step 2
They open their own link.
The email carries a link to a page that belongs to that one person and that one relationship. They can accept, decline, choose what they hear about, or leave — all from the link, with no account and no password.
- Step 3
They type their own number.
Email is what they already agreed to. Text messages are a separate choice, switched off until they make it, and offered like this:
Also text meYou’re getting Sam’s plans by email. If you’d like a text as well, add your number — it stays yours, and Sam never sees it.
Your mobile number(303) 555-0148Send me a codeOverdue alerts by text are free for everyone, on every plan.
Message rates apply. We’ll send one code now.
- Step 4
We text one code. They enter it.
One message goes to that number, carrying a code. Until the code is entered on the page, texting stays off — so a mistyped digit reaches a stranger exactly once, with a code in it and nothing else.
The only message an unconfirmed number receives418205 is your Porchlight code. It expires in 10 minutes.
- Step 5
Only then does anything else send.
With the code confirmed, that person receives the notices they chose — and only those. They can change which ones, switch texting back off, pause everything, or leave entirely, at any time, from the same link or from porchlighted.com/manage.
What we actually send
Every message is plain text. No images, no marketing, no newsletters, no emoji, one link and never a shortener. These are real messages, not examples written for this page.
How often depends entirely on how often the hiker goes out. Someone on one list might hear from us twice a month; someone on three might hear from us twice a week. Nobody hears from us when nothing is happening.
Stopping
- Reply STOP to any message. Texting ends immediately, for every hiker who named that number, not just the one who sent the last message.
- Reply MANAGE to get a link back to the page where everything can be changed without ending it.
- A STOP is permanent by default. If the account that added someone is deleted, the record that they said stop survives it — otherwise a re-invitation years later would quietly start texting a person who had already said no.
Message and data rates may apply. Porchlight never charges the person receiving a message, and overdue alerts by text are free on every plan, including the free one.
- Operator
- Gladwight LLC, trading as Porchlight
- Opt-in type
- Web form, confirmed by one-time code sent to the number entered
- Who enters the number
- The owner of the phone, on their own screen. No third party can enter it on their behalf
- Message category
- Account notifications. No marketing, promotional or affiliate content is ever sent
- Keywords honored
- STOP, MANAGE, YES, OK
- Policies
- Privacy policy · Terms of service