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Sending Free SMS Text Messages From Your Application

“How can I send SMS text messages from my application for free?” I see this question asked so frequently on forums that I decided a few months back to do some research on it, and was surprised to learn of a little-known service most mobile carriers provide absolutely free.

There are lots of commercial services that provide convenient APIs to SMS gateways. The problem is, they all cost money. Most charge a monthly service fee, plus a fee for each message – often as high as 20 cents per message for casual users.

However, if you need to send SMS messages to the US and Canada, you can take advantage of the Email-to-Text capability provided by most mobile carriers, which is totally free.

An SMS address is no different from a regular email address. It consists of a 10-digit mobile number, the @ symbol, and a special domain name that corresponds to a particular carrier. For example, if your mobile number is 212-555-1234 and you’re on AT&T, I could text you by sending an email to [email protected].

Here are the domains for the most popular carriers:

  • AT&T (formerly Cingular) — txt.att.net
  • Verizon — vtext.com
  • T-Mobile — tmomail.net
  • Virgin Mobile — vmobl.com
  • Sprint — messaging.sprintpcs.com
  • Nextel — messaging.nextel.com

Keep in mind that the subject line becomes part of the message as well, usually prepended by the work “Subject:”. Since SMS messages are limited to 160 characters, you might want to omit the subject altogether, and of course keep the body of the message as short as possible. Fortunately, if your message does exceed 160 characters, you'll find that most services will split them up into multiple messages.

Hope this helps some of you cheapskates (like me!) save a little cash.

P.S. If you're aware of a domain for any carrier I didn't mention above, please leave it in the comments and I'll add it to this post.

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    Tagged as: asp-net, email

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    » Comments

    1. John Sheehan avatar

      Works great, unless your user switches carriers. You could just take their number and send a message to all the domains since only one person could have that number though.

      John Sheehan — July 3, 2009 1:11 PM
    2. Lee Dumond avatar

      @John -- As with *any* kind of contact information, it's only good until it's not. That's true of phone #s, regular email addresses, street addresses, etc. as well.

      Lee Dumond — July 3, 2009 1:33 PM
    3. googleseotools avatar

      Nice info, I've been looking for this..

      googleseotools — July 4, 2009 9:53 AM
    4. zyoud avatar

      thanks for this post, for orange how I can send sms

      zyoud — July 5, 2009 12:46 AM
    5. mux0x55 avatar

      what about Europe? Can you help me?

      mux0x55 — July 5, 2009 2:19 AM
    6. Srikanth avatar

      Does anyone know if this is possible with any of the indian carriers as well?

      -Srikanth http://www.arktan.com

      Srikanth — July 5, 2009 3:17 AM
    7. vishwajeet singh avatar

      @Srikanth,

      It does not work for indian carriers; it used to be some years back but not now.

      vishwajeet singh — July 5, 2009 6:56 AM
    8. Den avatar

      Have you seen this www.funsms.net/.../email2sms.htm

      Den — July 7, 2009 1:26 PM
    9. Pyu avatar

      I tried sending a message to two carriers, Verizon, and AllTel, both in US. But none was delivered. For test purposes, I was sending the messages using GMail.

      AllTel's domain:

      [email protected] (SMS)

      [email protected] (MMS)

      Pyu — July 14, 2009 7:25 AM
    10. Pyu avatar

      Its confirmed. the message got delivered to Verizon mobile. Great find. Thanks

      Pyu — July 14, 2009 9:41 PM
    11. Aldo avatar

      not working in kosovo

      Aldo — July 21, 2009 8:13 PM
    12. Rajesh Jain avatar

      Send 140 character Free SMS Across India with www.smswala.co.in. An excellent site for sending reliable SMS, Wallpapers, movie reviews, music reviews, chat.

      Rajesh Jain — August 9, 2009 7:38 AM
    13. Anthony avatar

      At least with AT&T, they've severely degraded the response time since this went viral. We've always been able to send SMS via email but since about 6 weeks ago, it take HOURS to receive a text-message sent via email. A coincidence? I think not. :-)

      Anthony — August 10, 2009 11:01 AM
    14. rtpHarry avatar

      I just searched out this old thread on the forums where I first heard about american carriers supporting sending sms via email - from comparing the list it seems like you have already got them all covered here but I went to the trouble of finding it and im going to post it anyway :)

      forums.asp.net/.../2674186.aspx

      rtpHarry — September 7, 2009 6:12 AM
    15. Jeff H avatar

      Here's a fairly large list from Wikipedia:

      en.wikipedia.org/.../List_of_carrier

      Jeff H — September 22, 2009 3:01 PM
    16. mobyuser avatar

      Hey try Messmo for free sms..Messmo is an easy to use program that allows you to send and receive SMS messages from your mobile phone. It is very easy to access it from your cellphone. Just point your web browser to link “m.messmo.com” and enjoy your free communication.

      mobyuser — October 30, 2009 10:33 PM
    17. Pankaj avatar

      Thanks for the list of carrier in US and Canada..Do you have any similar list about Indian Cellular carrier or if you can suggest any link where i can get indian carrier list?

      Pankaj — January 4, 2010 3:41 PM
    18. hunter sms avatar

      Its confirmed.Thanks.It,s work.

      free text message from pc

      hunter sms — January 11, 2010 10:14 PM
    19. SMSdykai.LT avatar

      SMS For Free www.smsforfree.lt

      Nemokami SMS www.smsdykai.lt

      SMSdykai.LT — January 14, 2010 2:06 PM
    20. amita avatar

      Mycantos.com, a site that provides free SMS to anyone has released an innovative SMS feature called secure private SMS.send free sms

      amita — January 20, 2010 3:30 AM
    21. amita avatar

      Mycantos.com, a site that provides free SMS to anyone has released an innovative SMS feature called secure private SMS.send free sms

      amita — January 20, 2010 3:30 AM
    22. SMSforFREE.lt avatar

      SMS for FREE http://www.smsforfree.lt

      SMSforFREE.lt — February 17, 2010 9:04 AM
    23. Bramka SMS Orange avatar

      Send free sms to Poland.

      Bramka SMS Orange

      Bramka SMS Orange

      Bramka SMS Orange — June 25, 2010 6:55 PM
    24. Free Text messages avatar

      Very nice information i have looking for this a long time.

      Free Text messages — October 13, 2010 3:21 AM
    25. fafa avatar

      Works for singapore?

      fafa — November 2, 2010 9:09 PM
    26. fafa avatar

      hi does it even work for singapre?

      fafa — November 2, 2010 9:09 PM
    27. Quertime avatar

      The link below provides complete list of email to SMS gateways.

      I hope that you will find it useful. Thankyou.

      www.quertime.com/.../arn-2010-11-04-

      Quertime — January 29, 2011 9:33 AM

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