GuidesSMS quickstart

SMS quickstart

Send a text to a US or Canadian phone with the same API key, contacts and webhooks you use for email. This page sends your first one, to your own phone.

Before you start

An API key with SMS access. Every key starts with none, so give the key SMS access under API keys in the dashboard (an admin can). This page adds a test phone, which needs full_access and Send and manage. Sending alone needs Send only, on a sending_access or full_access key. A key limited to one sending domain cannot send texts.
Your own mobile phone with a US or Canadian number. Texts reach the United States and Canada only.
On Free you get 50 test texts a month, to your own verified phones. Texts to anyone else need a paid plan and a number of your own.

Send your first text

1. Add your phone as a test phone

We text it a 6-digit code. Confirm it with POST /sms/verified-phones/{verified_phone_id}/verify.

curl -X POST "https://api.rasket.com/sms/verified-phones" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $RASKET_API_KEY" \
  -H "User-Agent: acme-billing/1.0" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
  "phone": "+14155550123"
}'

const response = await fetch("https://api.rasket.com/sms/verified-phones", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.RASKET_API_KEY}`,
    "User-Agent": "acme-billing/1.0",
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    phone: "+14155550123"
  }),
});

const { id } = await response.json();

import os

import requests

response = requests.post(
    "https://api.rasket.com/sms/verified-phones",
    headers={
        "Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['RASKET_API_KEY']}",
        "User-Agent": "acme-billing/1.0",
    },
    json={
    "phone": "+14155550123"
  },
)

id = response.json()["id"]

2. Send the text

Until you have an approved number of your own, it comes from our shared test number and starts with [Test].

curl -X POST "https://api.rasket.com/sms" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $RASKET_API_KEY" \
  -H "User-Agent: acme-billing/1.0" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: order-1042-shipped" \
  -d '{
  "to": "+14155550123",
  "text": "Your order #1042 has shipped.",
  "category": "transactional",
  "tags": {
    "order": "1042"
  }
}'

const response = await fetch("https://api.rasket.com/sms", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.RASKET_API_KEY}`,
    "User-Agent": "acme-billing/1.0",
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
    "Idempotency-Key": "order-1042-shipped",
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    to: "+14155550123",
    text: "Your order #1042 has shipped.",
    category: "transactional",
    tags: {
      order: "1042"
    }
  }),
});

const { id } = await response.json();

import os

import requests

response = requests.post(
    "https://api.rasket.com/sms",
    headers={
        "Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['RASKET_API_KEY']}",
        "User-Agent": "acme-billing/1.0",
        "Idempotency-Key": "order-1042-shipped",
    },
    json={
    "to": "+14155550123",
    "text": "Your order #1042 has shipped.",
    "category": "transactional",
    "tags": {
      "order": "1042"
    }
  },
)

id = response.json()["id"]

3. Read it back

status moves from queued to sent to delivered, or to failed with a reason.

curl -X GET "https://api.rasket.com/sms/{sms_id}" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $RASKET_API_KEY" \
  -H "User-Agent: acme-billing/1.0"

const response = await fetch("https://api.rasket.com/sms/{sms_id}", {
  method: "GET",
  headers: {
    Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.RASKET_API_KEY}`,
    "User-Agent": "acme-billing/1.0",
  },
});

const { id } = await response.json();

import os

import requests

response = requests.get(
    "https://api.rasket.com/sms/{sms_id}",
    headers={
        "Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['RASKET_API_KEY']}",
        "User-Agent": "acme-billing/1.0",
    },
)

id = response.json()["id"]

What a text costs

A message is up to 160 characters (70 if it has an emoji or another special character). A longer text is sent and billed as several messages.

Every text says what it cost: segments is how many messages it was, price_each and cost are in dollars, and included is true when it came out of your plan's monthly texts. A failed text is never charged. To count a text before you send it, call POST /sms/estimate. The SMS pricing page has the numbers for every plan.

The text field is text

The field is text, never body. Our clients already return each response as { body, rateLimit }, so in the Node client a send reads rasket.sms.send({ to, text }) and in Python rasket.sms.send({"to": ..., "text": ...}).

Get a number to text people other than yourself.
Consent and STOP before you send a marketing text.
SMS webhooks to hear when a text is delivered or someone replies.