Programmable SMS

Send and receive text messages globally with the API that over a million developers depend on.

SMS built for developers

Code in the language you know to programmatically send messages to millions.

When your phone number receives an incoming message, Twilio will send an HTTP request to your server at /sms.

Twilio servers

Your app tells Twilio how to respond with a text message.

Your app

const MessagingResponse =
  require('twilio').twiml.MessagingResponse;

app.post('/sms', (req, res) => {
  const twiml = new MessagingResponse();
  twiml.message('Thanks for signing up!');
  res.send(twiml.toString())
});

View complete examples

Twilio gets the instructions from your app and sends the text message.

Thanks for signing up!

Recipient’s phone

Write the code that counts.
Get to the important work faster using helper libraries, monitoring and debugging tools, documentation in your language, and even a serverless environment to host your code.

Phone numbers that get the job done.
With phone numbers available in over 30 countries, Twilio’s inventory lets you pick the right numbers with the right capabilities for your project.

Carrier complexities handled for you.
For every message to reach its destination, a lot has to go right. We don’t leave that up to chance. Twilio handles ever-changing telecom logic and carrier specific rules to ensure your message reaches its destination.

Explore SMS docs

SMS features

Programmable SMS has the features you’ll need to build quickly and scale to production. We’ve solved the hard problems so you don’t have to.

Global, tested phone numbers
Phone numbers in 32 countries
The Twilio Super Network gives you a catalog of instantly-provisionable phone numbers.
MMS-enabled numbers in US and Canada
Send and receive picture messages and SMS on the same phone number.
Short Codes in US, CA, and UK
Send high volumes of text messages with a 5-6 digit short code using the same Programmable SMS API.

Smart content handling
Intelligent SMS bots^Preview
Build SMS bots with Twilio Autopilot so that users can interact with your app through natural conversation.
MMS rich-media support
Send and receive photos, gifs, videos, and more.
Support for any character
Intelligently detect and handle unicode characters to ensure your emoji and non-standard characters make it to their destination the way you intended.
Smart encoding
Ensure your messages aren’t split. Detect easy-to-miss Unicode characters like smart quotes, en dashes, and Unicode whitespace, and replace them with a GSM-encoded character
Intelligent concatenation
Your message, delivered as intended. We use automatic segmentation, annotation, and reassembly to guide your message across disparate global carrier network requirements.
Message and phone number redaction ^Beta
Protect user data by not storing the full body of the SMS in your Twilio logs. Set automatic redaction patterns to remove phone numbers, credit cards, or profanity in a message.
Opt-out management
Stay compliant with regulations. Automatically handle standard replies such as STOP, UNSUBSCRIBE, or CANCEL for messaging on long codes.

Text message delivery intelligence
Recipient area-code Geomatch
Automatically send text messages from a number with an area code closest to the recipient.
Sticky Sender
Send messages with the same phone number to create a consistent experience for the recipient and maintain conversation history.
Scaler
Spread messages across a group of phone numbers to reach large audiences in a short amount of time.
Message queueing
Automatically queue messages on each phone number to match the throughput recommendations of your downstream carrier.
Message expiration setting
Set a maximum delivery window for Twilio to send your time sensitive messages.

Add more channels with the same API
WhatsApp
Instantly reach 1.5 billion people on WhatsApp
Facebook Messenger
Reach over 1.3 billion people on Facebook Messenger.
LINE
Reach users in Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand in their favorite app.
RCS Business Messaging
RCS lets you customize your messages with branding, rich media, file-sharing, and suggested replies & actions.

See the full feature set

Build exactly what you imagine

With comprehensive documentation and our six server-side libraries, if you can imagine it, you can build it.

Arrival alerts
Twilio helps us maintain that human element of connecting in the ridesharing model.”
Anthony Velázquez, Engineering Manager
See how they built it Build it yourself
Masked phone numbers
With Twilio at the core of our texting platform, we’re able to rapidly respond to our customers’ expectations, and try and meet their needs both now and in the future.”
JB Brown, Senior Director of Mobile App Delivery
See how they built it Build it yourself
Account alerts
We chose to plug and play SMS and voice capabilities with Twilio. Twilio SMS fit in nicely as a communications channel that flows through the rest of the system.”
Devika Chawla, Director of Messaging Engineering & Platform
See how they built it Build it yourself
Two-factor authentication
There’s no good excuse not to have 2FA. Security should not be an afterthought. Plan for it.”
Sudesh Parem, Product Manager
See how they built it Build it yourself

Explore SMS project tutorials

API platforms to save you from re-inventing the wheel

APIs that handle common use cases out of the box, so you can focus on getting ahead, not simply getting started. Twilio handles the intricacies of global communications, best practices like user segmentation, privacy and more.

Twilio Notify: Multi-channel messaging
Store your users' preferences of channel — from SMS, to Slack, to Alexa — and Twilio Notify delivers your message to that endpoint.
Learn about Notify
Twilio Authy: Two-factor authentication
Authenticate users securely with a one-time passcode or push notification.
Learn about Authy
Twilio Verify: Phone verification to prevent fraud
Reduce risk of fraud by validating it’s real humans who are creating accounts.
Learn about Verify
Twilio Proxy: Anonymous real-time conversations
Mask phone numbers between users to protect personally identifiable information.
Learn about Proxy
Twilio Autopilot: AI-powered chatbots
Use machine learning and natural language understanding to build bots for SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger or any messaging channel of your choice.
Learn about Autopilot

Deploy or drag & drop

Write and deploy, or drag and drop with the Twilio Studio visual editor.

Save time and sprints with Twilio Studio. Now anyone on your team can create or modify SMS flows using your code or Twilio’s code, all within a common framework.

Learn how to build with Twilio Studio

Flexible SMS pricing options

Starting at $0.0005 per message, select the pricing option that’s right for you.

Pay-as-you-go

Pay only for what you use, when you use it. No contracts. No capacity planning.

Volume discounts

Automatically receive discount pricing once your application reaches volume scale.

Committed-use discounts

Receive larger discounts with monthly committed volume. Contact our sales team to learn more.

See SMS pricing

Build on Twilio. Code with confidence.

Send one or 1 billion messages

Twilio tests network reliability over 100,000 times a day to ensure there is capacity for your text messages.

Developers to support you when things go wrong

Support engineers know your setup and your language, wasting no time fixing your problem.

Enterprise-grade security and compliance

Data protection (GDPR), ISO 27001, SOC-2 certified for 2FA, and built-in SMS opt-out management.

99.999%+ API uptime

No scheduled downtime. We deploy old and new code in parallel to test for errors and update with code fixes in service.

No unwanted messages

120 Day, 7-point phone number cleaning so you can focus on customers, not spam.

Our ops team is your ops team

Carrier, security, and cloud ops teams work around the clock to improve service and handle incidents.

Programmable SMS

Global, tested phone numbers

Smart content handling

Text message delivery intelligence

Add more channels with the same API