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A two-way SMS support inbox on your own Android number

Published and updated

Customers text the number on your website and the phone sits in a drawer. A support inbox turns those texts into conversations any team member can answer from a browser, from the same number the customer already has. With textbee the sender is an Android phone holding your SIM, so the message comes from your own number, recipients can reply, and the Pro plan, up to 5,000 messages for $9.99 a month with no per message fee.

How it works

  1. Receive every inbound message through a webhook or a cursor poll of /gateway/messages and store it against the sender number as a conversation.
  2. Show conversations in an inbox ordered by last message, with assignment and a resolved state, so two people never answer the same text.
  3. Send replies with POST /gateway/send-sms from the same number, and store the sent message in the thread with its status from MESSAGE_SENT and MESSAGE_DELIVERED events.
  4. Handle STOP, HELP and after-hours automatically: an opt-out record, a short help text, and an away message that states when you will reply.

Send it

The API key comes from the dashboard and the phone registered on your account does the sending. Recipients are E.164 numbers; the example is fictional.

send-reply.sh
curl -X POST https://api.textbee.dev/api/v1/gateway/send-sms \
  -H "x-api-key: $TEXTBEE_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"recipients": ["+12015550123"], "message": "Hi, thanks for reaching out. We have your order and it ships tomorrow. Reply here if you need anything else."}'

Consent and compliance

A customer who texts you first has opened the conversation, and replying about their question needs no further consent. Do not add the number to a marketing list from that contact alone, honour STOP for anything beyond the conversation, and tell customers your reply hours.

Honest limits

One phone sends roughly 10 to 15 messages a minute, so a large blast takes time to drain. Support traffic is conversational and well inside that, but every reply is a message on the SIM plan, so long back-and-forth costs more than a phone call would. Use a SIM plan with a generous or unlimited SMS allowance.

One phone sends roughly 10 to 15 messages a minute, so a large blast takes time to drain. Carriers can filter bulk patterns on consumer SIMs. Marketing messages still need consent from the recipient under the local rules.

Frequently asked questions

Can several people answer from one number?

Yes. The number belongs to the SIM in the gateway phone; your inbox application sends through the API, so any number of agents can reply from it without touching the phone.

How do I keep messages in the right thread?

Key conversations on the customer number in E.164. Every received message carries the sender and every sent message the recipient, so the thread is a filter on one number.

Do I need a webhook or is polling enough?

Polling /gateway/messages with a cursor every few seconds is enough for a support inbox and needs no public URL. Add the webhook when you want replies to appear instantly.

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