TCPA Autodialer Rules for Power and Predictive Dialers

"Auto dialer", "power dialer" and "predictive dialer" are sales categories. None of them appears in the statute. The TCPA asks two narrower questions of any call placed with software, and they are the ones that decide exposure: was the equipment an automatic telephone dialing system in the legal sense, and did the call deliver an artificial or prerecorded voice? A lot of dialer marketing answers the first and says nothing about the second.

Power, predictive and auto dialers

These are industry descriptions, and vendors use them loosely: one vendor's power dialer is another's predictive dialer with the ratio turned down. What matters legally is how a particular system gets the numbers it dials, how many lines it dials per agent, and what the called person hears.

The federal autodialer test after Facebook v. Duguid

The statute defines an automatic telephone dialing system as equipment with the capacity to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random or sequential number generator, and to dial them (47 U.S.C. § 227(a)(1)). For years courts split on whether "using a random or sequential number generator" applied to storing numbers as well as producing them, which decided whether any dialer that called from a stored list was an autodialer.

In Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid (April 2021) the Supreme Court resolved it: to be an autodialer, the equipment must have the capacity to store or produce numbers using a random or sequential number generator. Dialing a stored list automatically is not enough on its own. That took a great deal of list-based dialing outside the autodialer half of § 227(b).

The appeals courts have read the decision narrowly since. The Ninth Circuit (Borden v. eFinancial, 2022) and the Eighth (Beal v. Outfield Brew House, 2022) held that a system using a number generator only to pick the order in which to call a list of real numbers does not qualify, and the Third (Panzarella v. Navient, 2022) held that the call itself must use the generator, not merely that the equipment could.

Two limits keep that from being the end of the story. First, whether a specific platform can use a number generator depends on its design, and that is a factual question about the system, best answered by counsel with its specifications in hand. Second, the autodialer test is only one of the triggers.

What applies whatever the dialer

• Artificial or prerecorded voice. Section 227(b) separately covers calls that deliver an artificial or prerecorded voice: to a mobile, they need prior express consent, and prior express written consent for marketing under the FCC's rule (the Fifth Circuit holds the statute asks only for prior express consent, oral or written); to a residential line, the same for telemarketing, subject to exemptions. Duguid did not touch this, and the Court said so. The FCC has since ruled that AI-generated voices are "artificial" (February 2024).
• Do Not Call. The national registry and company-specific do-not-call rules in § 227(c) apply to telemarketing calls however they are dialed, a hand-dialed call included. Registry access runs through the seller's own SAN.
• Calling hours. No telemarketing call before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. in the called person's time zone under federal rules, and several states are stricter. See calling hours by state.
• Revocation. An opt-out has to be honored within 10 business days, across channels. A dialer that is not synced to the suppression list will keep calling people who asked it to stop. See the 10-business-day opt-out clock.

Statutory damages are the same whichever rule is broken under § 227(b): $500 per call, up to $1,500 if a court finds the violation willful or knowing. A Do Not Call claim under § 227(c)(5) needs more than one call to the number within 12 months, is worth up to $500 per violation, and allows a defense for a caller that kept reasonable procedures with due care.

The 3% abandoned-call rule

Predictive dialing creates its own obligation. Because it dials ahead of agent availability, some answered calls reach nobody, and a person who answers to silence has received exactly the call the rules were written to stop. Under 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(a)(6)-(7), a telemarketing campaign must:

• Abandon no more than 3% of calls answered live by a person, measured over a 30-day period for a single calling campaign, and separately for each further 30-day period a campaign runs.
• Connect the person to a live sales representative within two seconds of their completed greeting, or the call counts as abandoned.
• On every abandoned call, play a prerecorded message that says the call was for telemarketing and gives the business's name and a number for do-not-call requests, together with an automated voice or key-press way to opt out.
• Let an unanswered call ring for at least 15 seconds or four rings before disconnecting.
• Keep records that show the campaign stayed inside those limits.

The FTC's Telemarketing Sales Rule treats an abandoned call as an abusive practice and offers a safe harbor on the same terms: 3% per 30-day campaign, two seconds, 15 seconds or four rings, a recorded message naming the seller, and records. The rule turns on whether the call was telemarketing, not on the equipment. A power dialer set to one line per agent stays well inside these limits by design, which is much of the reason teams choose one; set higher, it can abandon calls like any predictive dialer.

Ringless voicemail and voicemail drops

Ringless voicemail places a recorded message directly into a voicemail box without ringing the phone. The FCC ruled in November 2022 that it is a call under the TCPA when delivered to a wireless number: it uses a prerecorded voice, so it needs prior express consent, and written consent when it is marketing. The absence of a ring does not change the analysis. Since the Supreme Court's 2025 decision in McLaughlin Chiropractic v. McKesson, courts are not bound by the FCC's reading of the statute, but none of that makes an unconsented ringless voicemail campaign a sound bet.

A voicemail drop, where an agent or the dialer leaves a recorded message after reaching an answering machine, raises the same question, because the message is prerecorded. Treat both as prerecorded calls and hold the consent before the campaign runs.

State laws that reach further

Federal law is the floor. Several states wrote their own definitions of automated calling, and none of them depends on a random or sequential number generator:

• Florida covers an automated system for the selection and dialing of numbers, a two-part test since the 2023 amendment.
• Oklahoma kept the older wording: selection or dialing.
• Maryland requires prior express written consent for telephone solicitations using an automated system for the selection or dialing of numbers, or a recorded message.

On the words of these statutes, a dialer comfortably outside the federal definition can still be inside a state one. No court decision we could verify has settled whether dialing a stored list meets them, so treat it as open. See state mini-TCPA laws for the rest.

Before a list goes into the dialer

1. Hold consent for any recorded, AI or ringless voicemail message, and prior express written consent where it is marketing.
2. Scrub the National Do Not Call Registry under your own SAN at least every 31 days, and apply your internal do-not-call list.
3. Remove known TCPA litigators. A serial filer's number is a real, connected line that passes every quality check, and a Do Not Call scrub keeps it, because litigators do not register. See batch TCPA litigator scrub.
4. Decide what line types the campaign should reach. A mobile-only campaign needs landlines, VoIP and disconnected numbers out. A team that dials landlines by hand needs them kept, with the line type known.
5. Set pacing for the 3% cap and keep the abandonment records the rules expect.

NumberBroom covers steps 3 and 4 in one pass. The full scrub removes litigators, landlines, VoIP and disconnected numbers and delivers a file of connected mobiles. Litigators only removes the litigators and keeps every other answered row, landlines included, with line_type, carrier and activity_score appended, which suits a power dialer that works landlines. It does not record consent or track abandonment. For step 2, a signed-in paid scrub can add a federal Do Not Call Registry check, under your own FTC subscription (SAN), included free on lists of up to 1,000 numbers; state lists, your internal list and the 31-day schedule stay yours. Upload a list with litigators only selected; the first 20 rows preview free before you pay.

Frequently asked questions

Cameron Hoffman

Founder, NumberBroom · 10 years in telecommunications and marketing

Cameron Hoffman is the founder of NumberBroom and has spent 10 years working in telecommunications and marketing. He built NumberBroom after repeatedly watching outbound teams dial purchased lists that were full of dead numbers, landlines and TCPA litigators.