SMS messaging gives you the ability to send SMS messages via plain text email or directly via our API. You can also receive replies from the recipient and view these in our App, via the API or have replies forwarded to your email address. This service is ideal for customers who wish to include an SMS communications method and would like to manage this through our App. Common use cases are transactional messaging such as OTPs/2FA, alerts/notifications, confirmations or reminders. There are specific terms of service when sending SMS messages.
Your account has a monthly message limit that can be customized to your sending requirements. This limit starts at 50, and increases to an initial limit of 10,000 once your account has been fully activated. To request a higher limit, contact our support team. If you attempt to send messages after you’ve reached your limit, the messages will be queued and sent when your account allows this.
Full reporting of sent and received SMS messages as well as a detailed summary covering the current and previous billing periods are located in the "Reports > SMS Messaging" section of the App.
SMS settings are located in the "Sending > SMS Settings" section of the App.
Enabling Email to SMS
Navigate to the "Sending > SMS Settings" page in the App. In the "Email to SMS" section, click the "Change settings" link and use the checkbox to enable or disable the feature.
SMS Settings
-
Dedicated numbers - A dedicated number (also known as a virtual or static number) allows you to send from, and receive into, the same number. A recipient can save the number in their phone and, as a result, know who future messages are coming from. Click the "Manage your dedicated numbers" link to view and purchase numbers - we currently provide numbers for the United States, United Kingdom and Australia.
For sending SMS to USA/Canada recipients, mobile carriers require all senders to register a USA dedicated number and a questionnaire will need to be completed for verification.
-
Message size limit - Limit the number of SMS messages that will be generated from a single email, so that you do not accidentally send an excessive number of messages. A single SMS message is 160 characters, and, depending on the message limit that you set, if the message exceeds 160 characters multiple SMS messages will be sent. On the "SMS Messaging > Sent" tab under the "Units" column it shows how many messages were sent (e.g. if it shows as having 3 units then the message was broken into 3 messages) and note that SMS charging is per unit. View our SMS Messaging Character Limits article for more information. The maximum message size is 10 units (1,530 characters).
If you attempt to send an email that has more characters than the total number of characters shown in this setting, the email will be rejected (if message truncation is not turned on) and you'll receive an email advising you about this.
-
Message truncation - Enabling this feature allows oversized messages that exceed your message limit to be sent but the content will be truncated to suit the message limit.
-
Default sender number - Choose the default number your SMS messages will be delivered from (the number displayed on the recipient's device). Send using a number from a shared pool or a dedicated number if you've purchased one (a dedicated USA number is required when sending to USA/Canada recipients).
-
Socially aware sending - Restrict when SMS messages are sent. Enter the hours and time zone when SMS messages are allowed to be delivered. All messages sent outside this time will be queued until this time period begins.
- Smart encoding - Replace any Unicode characters with their GSM equivalent. This reduces the number of units that need to be used per message.
'Email to SMS' Settings
On the "Sending > SMS Messaging" page, click "Change settings" under the "Email to SMS" section.
-
Email to SMS Enabled - If your account has somehow become compromised, or you otherwise need to immediately stop all SMS messages from sending, deselect this option.
-
Email subject line - Choose to include or exclude the email's subject line in your SMS content.
-
Forward replies - Add a particular email address here to receive email notifications including their reply when your recipient responds. The address will need to be a verified sender (by sender domain or single sender email).
-
SMS end tag - Choose to have a custom SMS end tag. Any email content after the tag will be ignored. This is useful for cutting off email signatures from text messages and ensuring unwanted content doesn't become inadvertently included.
- SMS Bounce Notifications - Enable to receive bounce notifications when an email to SMS bounces and choose whether that goes to the original sender or a designated email address. If setting a designated address, it will need to be a verified sender (by sender domain or single sender email).
Sending an 'Email to SMS' message
Once you have set up SMS messaging, you are ready to start sending emails as SMS messages:
1.
Compose the email.
2.
Make sure you are sending the email using your SMTP2GO account (so we know it's coming from you), then send it to “xxxxxxxxx@sms.smtp2go.com”. Replace the x’s with the recipient's phone number including the country code (e.g. "15126436337@sms.smtp2go.com" or "442000000@sms.smtp2go.com"). You can optionally put a '+' symbol at the start of the email address.
If you only ever send to USA/Canada recipients, and want to avoid having to put +1 at the front of a recipient's number, you can send to "phonenumber@sms-us.smtp2go.com" instead of "phonenumber@sms.smtp2go.com".
Note: You cannot send the email via external SMTP servers to "phonenumber@sms.smtp2go.com" (or "...@sms-us.smtp2go.com"). The email needs to be sent via your SMTP2GO account.
Once you've sent the email, you can navigate to the "Reports > SMS Messaging > Sent" section to display the message sent and view the status. You can choose to resend or forward messages at any time.
Send an SMS using the test feature
You can test sending an SMS using the "Send a test message" feature on the SMS Messaging page.
Sending an SMS message using the API
More advanced users may prefer sending SMS messages via our API which allows you to send to an array of numbers programmatically (maximum of 100) at a time. Details of our SMS API are available here.
SMS Received
If recipients reply to SMS messages, these will be visible in the "Reports > SMS Messaging > Received" section of the App. You can choose to send a reply back to the recipient from this section if you wish (replies are billed at the normal rate). Replies can be obtained via the API.
In the SMS Settings, you can optionally choose to have SMS replies automatically forwarded to an email address. A "Forward replies" option is additionally available within the dedicated number's settings, so you can set a custom email address to which replies will be forwarded for that specific number.
Note: responding via email to the forwarded reply will not be delivered to the recipient - you will need to reply from within the App.
SMS History
SMS history on the "Reports > SMS Messaging > Sent" page will be stored and visible for a year.
SMS Statuses
Sent SMS messages can have the following seven statuses:
-
Sending - Currently being processed.
-
Submitted - Submitted to the downstream provider - i.e. a local SMS network provider. Messages with this status have often been delivered successfully, but the downstream provider hasn't provided confirmation.
-
Delivered - Sent and confirmed delivered by the downstream provider.
-
Failed - Failed to be delivered, for a reason such as: a message validity check failed, a gateway failure occurred, the message was dropped, the message was detected as duplicate and dropped, etc.
-
Rejected - Blocked by the SMS network. e.g. the destination address has blocked the sender.
-
Held - Held due to having reached your account's sending limit. Messages will be sent once the limit is increased, unless you choose to discard them (contact the Support team to assist).
- Scheduled - Held until the time is within your chosen socially aware sending hours (if enabled).
If you hover over the Status event such as "Failed", it will display the failure reason.
Opt-outs
When sending a message, it may be a legal requirement to provide recipients with the option to opt-out from receiving further messages from you.
Our system is configured to automatically unsubscribe anyone who replies with any of the following keywords: STOP, UNSUBSCRIBE, or UNSUB.
An example opt-out/unsubscribe sentence you could include in your messages is:
Reply STOP to opt out
Attempts to send to a number that has chosen to opt-out will be blocked and have the Status of "Rejected".
If a number previously opted out and wishes to receive your sms messages again, please contact support who can resubscribe the number.
SMS Pricing
Pricing is per unit (a unit is a single 160 character SMS) and displayed in USD. There are no carrier surcharges added on top of this pricing as they have been factored in already.
| Location | |
|---|---|
| USA (excl. territories) | $0.012 |
| Canada | $0.016 |
| United Kingdom | $0.06 |
| Ireland | $0.08 |
| Australia / NZ | $0.07 |
| Israel | $0.34 |
| Everywhere else | $0.12 |
SMS usage is billed monthly, regardless of the plan you are on.
MMS Messaging
MMS messaging is available in the USA, Canada, Australia and Puerto Rico. Pricing is USD $0.05 per MMS sent. MMS messages can have a maximum total file size of 600KB. This includes a maximum of 190KB for text content and a maximum of 410KB for an image.
To send an MMS message, compose the email and send it to "+xxxxxxxxxxx@mms.smtp2go.com" (replace the x’s with the recipient's phone number including the country code, e.g. "+15126436337@mms.smtp2go.com".
Dedicated Number Pricing
United States / Canada (+1): USD $5 per month
United Kingdom (+44): USD $10 per month
Australia (+61): USD $10 per month
Restricted Countries
Some countries are blocked for receiving SMS messages to help protect you from the risk of financial pain resulting from abuse by autobots, and artificially inflated messaging. These countries are mentioned below.
SMS Messaging in Subaccounts
SMS Messaging is available in subaccounts if enabled by the master account. The master account will set a monthly allowance for the number of messages that can be sent.
Webhooks
Webhooks can be created so your web service is notified when a specific SMS event occurs. For example, be notified when an SMS message fails. The events include Submitted, Delivered, Rejected, Sending and Failed. Webhooks are created and managed on the "Settings > Webhooks" section of the App or via the API. Further information can be found in our Webhooks article.
Support
If you have questions or need assistance with SMS messaging, please reach out to our friendly support team available in all time zones.