GoHighLevel SMS integration: send and receive texts through your own phone

What you need

• A GoHighLevel sub-account with premium workflow actions enabled at the agency level. Each sub-account gets 100 free premium executions.
• A textbee account with the Android app installed on the phone that holds the SIM, and an API key from the dashboard.
• For replies: a workflow that starts with the Inbound Webhook trigger. Its URL is the address textbee posts to.
• The textbee app on the phone. Download the app, then create an API key in the dashboard.

Send SMS from GoHighLevel

Use the Custom Webhook action, not the older Webhook action. Only the Custom Webhook action can set request headers, and textbee reads the API key from a header.

1. 1

   Turn on premium actions

   In the agency view open Settings and enable premium triggers and actions for the sub-account. Without this the Custom Webhook action does not appear in the action list.

2. 2

   Add a Custom Webhook action

   Open the workflow, click the plus sign after the trigger or the step that should send the text, and pick Custom Webhook.

   Field	Value
   Method	POST
   URL	https://api.textbee.dev/api/v1/gateway/send-sms
   Header	x-api-key: YOUR_TEXTBEE_API_KEY
   Header	Content-Type: application/json

3. 3

   Paste the JSON body

   GoHighLevel fills the custom values when the step runs. Keep recipients inside square brackets: textbee needs an array and rejects a plain string.

   JSON

   Copy

   {
     "recipients": ["{{contact.phone}}"],
     "message": "Hi {{contact.first_name}}, your appointment is confirmed for {{appointment.start_time}}. Reply STOP to opt out."
   }

4. 4

   Test with one contact

   Save and publish the workflow, then add a test contact with a number you can check. The text leaves the phone within a minute. In the textbee dashboard the message shows as sent, then delivered.

Receive SMS in GoHighLevel

The Inbound Webhook trigger accepts any JSON. textbee sends a flat object, so every field maps directly to a workflow variable.

1. 1

   Create the receiving workflow

   Add a new workflow, choose the Inbound Webhook trigger, and copy the URL it shows.

2. 2

   Register the URL in textbee

   In the textbee dashboard open Webhooks, create one with that URL, select the MESSAGE_RECEIVED event and set a signing secret. GoHighLevel cannot check the signature, so treat the trigger URL itself as a secret and do not post it anywhere.

3. 3

   Capture a sample

   Text the phone from another number. GoHighLevel captures the payload and lists sender, message, receivedAt and the other fields as mappable variables.

4. 4

   Act on the text

   Add a Create or Update Contact action with sender mapped to the phone field, then an Add Note action with message. Common follow-ups: add a tag such as replied, notify the assigned user, or remove the contact from the drip that sent the original text.

Ask your AI agent to set it up

The prompt below carries the endpoints, the payloads and the GoHighLevel details from this page. Change the line that starts with What I want, paste the prompt into your agent, and it walks you through the setup with your own field names and numbers.

I want to connect textbee to GoHighLevel. textbee is an SMS gateway that sends and receives SMS through my own Android phone. Help me set it up step by step.

Facts about the textbee API. Use only these. Do not invent endpoints or fields.
- Send an SMS: POST https://api.textbee.dev/api/v1/gateway/send-sms with the header x-api-key: <TEXTBEE_API_KEY> and a JSON body like {"recipients": ["+12015550123"], "message": "Hello"}. recipients must be a JSON array of E.164 numbers, even for one number. Optional fields: deviceId, simSubscriptionId, scheduledAt (ISO 8601, in the future). The response is {"data": {"success": true, "smsBatchId": "..."}}.
- Check delivery or read replies: GET https://api.textbee.dev/api/v1/gateway/messages with the same header. Filters: direction=received, smsBatchId=<id from the send>, from and to as ISO timestamps. Each row has a status such as sent, delivered, failed or received.
- Receive an SMS: textbee posts JSON to a webhook URL I register in the dashboard. A MESSAGE_RECEIVED delivery has these top-level fields: smsId, message, deviceId, webhookSubscriptionId, webhookEvent, idempotencyKey, sender, receivedAt. The header X-Signature holds an HMAC-SHA256 hex digest of the raw body, keyed with the signing secret I set on the webhook. Retries reuse the same idempotencyKey.
- Limits: One Android phone sends roughly 10 to 15 messages a minute. Text only, no MMS. Messages over 160 characters are split into segments.

What I want: Send SMS from my GoHighLevel workflows through textbee, and bring replies back into GoHighLevel as contact notes and tags.

GoHighLevel specifics you should know:
- The Custom Webhook action is a premium workflow action. It supports POST, custom headers and a JSON body textbox where custom values like {{contact.phone}} autocomplete.
- The older Webhook action cannot set headers, so it cannot authenticate with textbee.
- The Inbound Webhook trigger is also premium. It captures a sample payload from the first request and exposes top-level keys as variables.
- Premium executions cost $0.01 each after 100 free per sub-account, or less on a Workflows Pro plan.

Give me:
1. The exact clicks and field values in GoHighLevel, using its real field labels.
2. The request body or field mapping, with placeholders for my API key and phone numbers. Never ask me to paste the real key into this chat.
3. A test with one number and what a correct result looks like.
4. The three most likely failure causes and how to check each one.

Automations that work well

Appointment reminders

Appointment Booked trigger, a Wait step until 24 hours before the start time, then the Custom Webhook action. The reminder leaves your own number, which the client already knows.

Lead follow-up

Form Submitted trigger, a short thank-you text, a Wait of one day, then a second text if the contact has not picked up the replied tag.

Reply handling

An Inbound Webhook workflow that checks whether message contains YES or STOP, then updates the contact and removes it from other workflows.

Agency setup

One API key and one webhook per client sub-account. A client can be disconnected by deleting its key without touching the others. For a separate number per client, register one phone per client and pass its deviceId in the body.

New lead alert to the rep

Form Submitted or Opportunity Stage Changed trigger, then a Custom Webhook action that texts the assigned user with the lead name and phone. The rep replies from their own phone.

Failed payment recovery

Payment Failed trigger, a text with the update-card link, a Wait of two days, then a second text if the invoice is still open. Two texts recover more than an email chain.

Why teams move GoHighLevel SMS to their own phone

The bill

A cloud provider inside GoHighLevel charges per message, per number and often per carrier fee, so an agency with a few active sub-accounts pays every month for traffic it could send from a phone on a flat plan.

The reply rate

A rented long code is a number the contact has never seen. A text from the real mobile number the business already uses gets read and answered like a text from a person.

Control

The number, the SIM and the message history belong to you, not to a provider account. Switching tools later means changing one workflow action, not porting a number.

A cloud SMS provider in GoHighLevel vs textbee in GoHighLevel

Per-message prices by provider and country, with sources and dates, are on the provider comparison pages.

What works and what does not

What GoHighLevel charges

The Custom Webhook action and the Inbound Webhook trigger are premium workflow features. Each sub-account gets 100 free executions, then $0.01 per execution from the agency wallet, or less on a Workflows Pro plan. help.gohighlevel.com, checked on September 25, 2026. textbee itself charges a flat monthly plan with messages included; see pricing.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. help.gohighlevel.com, checked on September 25, 2026
2. help.gohighlevel.com: Custom Webhook workflow action, checked on September 25, 2026
3. help.gohighlevel.com: Inbound Webhook trigger, checked on September 25, 2026

Read next

• Appointment reminder text messages from your own Android number (SMS API)
• Form and lead follow-up with SMS from your own Android number
• Webhooks documentation
• Zapier SMS integration: send and receive texts with Webhooks by Zapier
• Make (formerly Integromat) SMS integration: send and receive texts with the HTTP module
• All integrations