# What is a throughput SLA?

> A throughput SLA is the contractually guaranteed sustained rate at which an aggregator will accept your submissions and deliver them to the operator — typically expressed in messages per second (MPS) or transactions per second (TPS). For OTP services, marketing-burst campaigns, and operator-grade integrations, throughput SLA is often more important than the unit price.

- Canonical URL: https://www.broadnet.me/answers/what-is-throughput-sla
- Language: en
- Last reviewed: 2026-09-27
- Publisher: BroadNet (https://www.broadnet.me)

## What 'sustained' means

Most aggregators publish a default per-bind TPS; BroadNet sets no fixed per-account limit and agrees capacity per bind with each account, up to 30,000 SMS/s per node. The SLA promise: that rate is sustainable indefinitely, not just for a 10-second burst. Sustained throughput depends on the aggregator's downstream operator routes and any rate-limits the operator imposes. A 1,000 TPS aggregator-side bind throttled by a 200 TPS operator route gives you 200 TPS effective for that destination.

## Burst vs sustained

Burst TPS is what you can submit for short windows before queues back up. Sustained is what you get for the long run. Most production integrations care about sustained; OTP services care about burst (a marketing-trigger event can produce a 10x OTP-request spike for 30 seconds). BroadNet sets no fixed per-account limit: quote your peak-to-mean ratio when you size, and capacity per bind is agreed with your account team, up to 30,000 SMS/s per node.

## How to raise it

Higher TPS is provisioned per bind, per destination. The constraints: operator-side route capacity (some operators cap inbound A2P trunk capacity), your aggregator's connection pool to that operator, and your own infrastructure's ability to produce submissions at that rate. BroadNet provisions higher TPS through a sales conversation; lead time depends on route headroom and on whether additional operator agreements are needed.

## What the SLA should specify

Five things. Sustained TPS per bind. Burst TPS and burst duration. Latency p95 and p99 at the SLA throughput. DLR delivery latency. Credit/penalty structure if the SLA is missed. Without all five the SLA is a marketing claim, not a contract.

## Related

- [All answers](https://www.broadnet.me/answers)
- [Glossary](https://www.broadnet.me/answers)
- [What is route failover in messaging?](https://www.broadnet.me/answers/what-is-route-failover)
- [What is hop-by-hop latency in SMS delivery?](https://www.broadnet.me/answers/what-is-hop-by-hop-latency)
- [SMS pricing per MT — what you're actually paying for](https://www.broadnet.me/answers/sms-pricing-per-mt-explained)
- [SMS API](https://www.broadnet.me/products/sms-api)
- [SMPP integration](https://www.broadnet.me/developers/smpp)