SMS is the acronym for Short Message Service. SMS messages are short text messages that are sent directly to a mobile phone. They are also known as text messages.

You can send an SMS message to any mobile phone on a GSM network.

Please note that many US cellphone providers are now blocking all SMS messages from external gateways. We're not sure if this is a short term or long term issue, but if you want to send SMS messages to a US phone, we recommend purchasing only a few credits to start with, and test to see if it works to the main phone numbers you are interested in sending to. Unfortunately there is not much we can do about this as this is a policy of the recipient network.

You can set the sender number that should appear on SMS messages you send from the Personalities screen.

Unfortunately, some network operators recently began marking all incoming SMS messages which do not initiate from an actual mobile phone with a single specific number. This means that all messages from any form of web-based SMS are marked with the same sender number/initiator ID. We have no idea if this is going to be a short term issue or more long term, but there is nothing we can do about it - it's a policy of the recipient network, not the sending network.

To send SMS messages, you must pre-buy SMS credits at 12 cents each. Each time you send an SMS message, the required credits (or portions thereof) are deducted from your account. If you do not have enough credits at the time, the message will not be sent. Note that this may prevent you from being notified about incoming messages if you have set up rules to do so using SMS. To prevent this, you may want to set up your account to either automatically purchase new SMS credits, or to notify you when you run low. You can do this, as well as manually purchase more credits, via the "Purchase SMS Credits" link in the "Options" screen. However, you will need to have enough funds in your account pool before you can purchase SMS credits, so if you don't have enough funds, first go to "Options" -> "Add funds" and add the required funds to your account pool.

See the SMS Pricing Guide for a list of areas and how many credits it costs to send to each. The difference will be deducted from your pool when the message is delivered (so there may be a short delay after you send a message before your credit balance is accurately displayed).

Note: Only paid accounts can send SMS messages.