Most UK teams that get TPS wrong are not reckless. They screen their lists once, at import, and then the list sits in a CRM for months while the registers move underneath it. Around 28 million numbers are on the TPS and the DMA standard is data no more than 28 days old, so a list screened in March is not evidence of anything by June. The fix is boring and structural: screen at the moment of use, not at the moment of import. Zapier is the cheapest way to do that if your CRM has no native TPS app.

What you are building

One Zap, three steps: the event that creates or surfaces a phone number, a TPSClear step that screens it, and a write-back of the verdict to the record the rep will look at. The rep sees tps-listed next to the number before dialling and does not dial. The audit record ID goes on the same record, which is what you produce if the ICO asks how you knew the number was clear.

The TPSClear app in the Zapier directory has two actions. Screen Phone Number takes a UK number and returns a status (clean, tps-listed, ctps-listed or unknown), a boolean Safe to Call, a timestamp and an audit record ID. Add Number to Suppression List puts a number on your own do-not-call list, after which Screen Phone Number never returns it as safe. There is no trigger, deliberately: the register is not an event stream, and polling it would recreate the stale-list problem in a new shape.

Before you start

  1. Sign in at tpsclear.co.uk/account. It emails you a link; there is no password to set.
  2. Create a test key. Test keys are free and screen against fixtures, so you can build the whole Zap and watch it branch without spending a credit. Live keys come later.
  3. Have a Zapier account on any plan that allows multi-step Zaps, since you need at least trigger, screen and write-back.

Step 1: the trigger

Pick the event that means "a rep is about to see this number". In practice that is one of:

  • New person or deal in the CRM (Pipedrive, Close, Copper, Capsule, Zoho and most others have a "new record" trigger).
  • New row in a Google Sheet, which is what a lot of small outbound teams still call a dialler list.
  • Form submission (Typeform, Jotform, a website form via webhook) where a phone number is captured.

If your CRM only exposes "updated record", add a Filter step after it so the Zap continues only when the phone field changed. Otherwise every note added to a record re-screens the number and you spend credits on nothing.

Step 2: screen the number

Add a TPSClear step, choose Screen Phone Number, and connect with the test key. Map the phone field from step 1 to Phone Number. UK numbers in any common format are accepted (07700 900123, +44 7700 900123, 02079460000) and normalised to E.164 in the output.

Put something in Campaign Reference. It is optional, but a value like q3-renewals means your audit log can later be filtered by campaign, which is the question an investigator actually asks: "show me every check you ran for this campaign".

Test the step. With a test key you get a deterministic fixture verdict back, and you can see the shape of every field before wiring the write-back. Zapier will show Safe to Call as true or false.

Step 3: write the verdict back

Update the record from step 1 with three fields: the status, the Checked At timestamp, and the Audit Record ID. Create the custom fields in the CRM first if they do not exist. A single text field called TPS status is enough for reps; the other two are for you.

If your reps work from a dialler queue rather than the CRM, add a Filter step on Safe to Call is true before the step that pushes the number into the queue. Listed numbers then never reach a rep's screen at all, which is a stronger control than a red label they can ignore.

Going live

Buy a pack at /account, create a live key, and swap it into the Zapier connection (Zapier lets you add a second connection and switch the step to it). Live checks screen the real TPS and CTPS registers and spend one credit each. Packs start at £9 for 1,000 checks and unused credits last twelve months, so a team that screens a few hundred leads a month is looking at pounds, not a subscription. Current prices are on the pricing page.

The second Zap: honouring opt-outs

TPS is not the only list you must respect. Anyone who tells you to stop calling has opted out under PECR regardless of whether they are on the register, and your obligation is to honour that across every campaign and every tool from that moment on. Most teams keep this in a spreadsheet, which is how it gets missed.

Wire Add Number to Suppression List to wherever the request arrives: a "do not contact" checkbox in the CRM, a Typeform, or a shared inbox rule that catches "stop calling me". Adding a number is free and takes effect immediately. From then on Screen Phone Number returns it as not safe, whatever the register says, so the opt-out is enforced by the same step that enforces TPS.

Re-screening older records

A verdict is good for 28 days under the DMA standard. For campaigns that pull from an existing list, add a scheduled Zap: a Schedule trigger (monthly, or weekly for high-volume teams), a Find step that pulls records whose Checked At is older than 28 days, and the same Screen Phone Number plus write-back pair. This is where the campaign reference earns its keep, because the audit log now shows a fresh check tied to the campaign that used it.

What this does not cover

  • Consent. A clean TPS verdict means the number is not registered. It does not mean you have a lawful basis to call. Existing-customer relationships, prior consent and B2B context still matter; see when you can call a TPS number.
  • CTPS scope. Corporate numbers are on a separate register and the rules differ for sole traders and partnerships. The screen checks both, but the B2B rules are worth ten minutes if you sell to businesses.
  • Zapier's own cost. Each step is a Zapier task, billed under your Zapier plan. A three-step Zap on a few hundred leads a month sits comfortably inside the entry tiers.

When to skip Zapier

If you are on HubSpot, install the native app instead. It screens on every phone change, in workflows and on a daily backfill, and writes the verdict onto the contact with no Zap to maintain. If you have engineers and volume, the REST API does bulk screening and webhooks directly, on the same keys and the same credits. Zapier is the right tool for the large middle: a real CRM, no native app, no engineer to spare, and a legal exposure since February 2026 of up to £17.5 million or 4% of turnover that a £9 pack makes very hard to justify ignoring.