What is Virtual SMS?

Virtual SMS enables you to send and receive SMS text messages over the internet without having to use a physical phone. This is especially useful when you want to use software to communicate with telephone networks that would be impossible on a physical phone, e.g. Uber notifying a customer that their car is outside or to have local phone numbers in different countries.

Virtual SMS enables you to use local virtual phone numbers to send messages, enabling recipients to reply to you without incurring international charges.

There are three main ways to send Virtual SMS text messages:

API: Using software you write, send text messages to a REST API over the internet to an API vendor like Twilio. This approach enables you to deeply integrate Virtual SMS into your systems to achieve the use cases below.
Software: Using software you purchase that includes messages and phone numbers, typically with a graphical user interface (GUI).
Software + API: Using software you purchase that sends Virtual SMS text messages via an API not provided by the software vendor.

Sending SMS text messages via software is a common way for companies to reach their customers. SMS has 5x the open rate of email and much greater reach than apps, so Virtual SMS is used for things like:

Appointment reminders: confirming appointments to help people remember to show up
Arrival alerts: letting customers know that their service is arriving, for example Uber
Order notifications: keeping customers in the loop about the status of their orders
Shift scheduling: updating staff on upcoming shifts and changes
Text marketing: sending offers to your customers
Two-factor authentication (2FA): sending a one-time passcode to increase account security
Phone verification: verifying who people say they are