SMS

Send an SMS now

Open Communications → SMS. The SMS log shows volume, today, delivered, failed, recent spend, provider status, and message rows. Use New message for an immediate send.

Choose recipients

The compose page supports:

• Specific users: search subscribers and select their phone numbers;
• Segments: choose one or more current subscriber groups;
• Mikrotiks: target subscribers associated with selected routers;
• Everyone: all eligible recipients.

Recipients without usable phone numbers are excluded by the send pipeline. Review the estimate rather than assuming the selected record count equals delivered messages.

Compose and estimate

1. Choose the audience mode and selection.
2. Write a plain-language message.
3. Insert only variables offered by the UI.
4. Review character count, SMS segment count, recipient estimate, and estimated cost.
5. Confirm the active gateway is configured.
6. If the gateway requires prepaid balance, confirm balance covers the estimate.
7. Send once and monitor the log.

The composer estimates GSM-style segments: up to 160 characters is one segment, then concatenated thresholds apply. Unicode/provider encoding can affect real billing; use the displayed estimate as operational guidance, not a provider invoice guarantee.

Templates

Reusable one-off SMS templates have a required unique name (maximum 120 characters) and message (1–480 characters). Templates save operator time but can become stale; review variables, dates, prices, and support contact before sending.

Delivery log and resend

Use channel/status/search filters to find failures. Resend one message only after correcting the cause. Bulk resend is scoped to failed records in the current channel; review the filter and count first.

Common failure causes:

• missing/invalid international phone format;
• unconfigured/revoked provider credentials;
• unapproved sender ID;
• insufficient prepaid credit;
• provider rate/recipient restrictions;
• temporary provider or handset/network failure.

SMS balance

Centipid SMS exposes a prepaid balance and self-service top-up. Low-balance alerts can notify configured administrator numbers when credit drops below a threshold. NextSMS and KiboNet report their own prepaid credit read-only on the provider page — KiboNet as a remaining SMS count — with top-up done in the vendor’s own portal. Other providers manage billing in their own account and may not report balance here.

Avoid sending to Everyone while testing provider setup or templates.