Active Brand — Capabilities & Feature Setup

Overview

An ACTIVE brand is one whose organization has completed document verification with Apple Business. This page covers how a brand reaches ACTIVE state, how new locations are published once it does, and the features that become available — including Branded Mail, logo, and cover photo management.

Reaching Active State

All organizations begin in an unverified status after completing initial setup in Apple Business. A brand reaches ACTIVE state when the organization's document verification is submitted and approved. Verification can be initiated at any point after brand creation — the brand does not need to be fully configured first, and setup can continue in parallel while the review is in progress.

On submission, the organization transitions to IN_REVIEW and a review is created for every brand under the organization that has not yet been approved. Apple Business reviews the submission. On approval, a brand becomes ACTIVE.

If verification is rejected, all brands under the organization become INACTIVE and any pending locations are rejected.

Location Publishing

Once a brand is ACTIVE, individual phone verification is no longer required for new locations. How a location is published depends on whether the brand had any phone-verified locations before document verification was approved.

No Prior Phone-verified Locations

New locations publish automatically after creation with no additional verification or review required. Location data is still validated — a location can be rejected if it fails data checks.

Prior Phone-verified Locations Exist

Apple Business checks two attributes of the new location against the brand at the point it is added:

• The location's primary category must match the brand's primary category
• The location's website domain must match the brand's website domain

Both conditions must be met for the location to publish automatically. If either condition is not met, the location is held for Apple Business review before it can be published.

Brand Features

Business Caller ID (BCID)

BCID can be configured on a brand at any point after creation but does not publish until the organization is approved. If BCID has already been configured when the organization is approved, the following sequence completes automatically.

1. Organization approval triggers a brand and logo bundle review.
2. BCID is held pending brand approval.
3. On brand approval, BCID is enabled on the brand.
4. BCID is published.
5. The business owner is notified by email and API.

Branded Mail

Branded Mail requires an ACTIVE brand with a published logo before setup can begin.

Logo and Cover Photo

On an ACTIVE brand, logo and cover photo updates are bundled into a single Apple Business review. Both assets cascade to all associated locations on approval.

1. Upload logo and cover photo. Each asset passes validation before publishing.
2. Both assets are registered on the brand. The bundle review begins once both assets are ready to publish.
3. Once both images are published, a single bundled submission is sent to Apple Business for review.
4. On bundle approval, both logo and cover photo are published and cascade to all associated locations.

note

Cover photo on a phone-verified brand publishes immediately without Apple Business review and cascades to locations as soon as the image is validated. On an ACTIVE brand, it is held with the logo until the full bundle is reviewed.