SMS channel

Updated August 24, 2026

An SMS channel connects your own text-messaging gateway to Pluspoint, so you can send survey invitations, campaigns and one-to-one messages by SMS. Pluspoint does not resell SMS. You keep your account with the provider, and they bill you for the traffic.

Before you start

You need to be the account Owner, or belong to a team with full settings access.

At least one Team with messaging access must exist — see Teams.

You need an active account with Twilio, TurboSMS, Lifecell or SMS.to, and its API credentials to hand.

For TurboSMS, Lifecell and SMS.to you also need a Sender ID that is registered with that provider.

To receive replies, you need a Twilio phone number you can configure a webhook on.

Where to find it

Settings (left sidebar, footer area) → Channels tab, or go to https://app.pluspoint.io/account-settings/channels.

Create an SMS channel

Select Add new channel.
Choose SMS and select Continue.
Enter a Channel name.
Choose a Provider. The form then asks for that provider’s credentials.
Choose the Team that owns the channel. Only teams with messaging access are listed.
Fill in the credentials for your provider, and a Sender ID if your provider requires one.
Optionally switch on Link this channel to a location or brand and pick one.
Select Done.

Provider credentials

Provider	Fields to complete	Sender ID
Twilio	Account SID, Auth token, Phone number (international format)	Optional — leave it empty for two-way SMS
TurboSMS	HTTP API Token	Required
Lifecell	Login, Password	Required
SMS.to	HTTP API Token	Required

Credentials are stored masked, and you can replace them at any time by editing the channel. The Twilio Phone number must be a valid international number.

Sender ID rules

The Sender ID is the name recipients see instead of a number.

Rule	Detail
Maximum length	11 characters
Allowed characters	Upper and lower case letters, digits 0-9, spaces and underscores
Not allowed	A value made only of digits
Required for	TurboSMS, Lifecell, SMS.to
Optional for	Twilio

Your provider normally has to approve a Sender ID before you can use it, and some countries do not deliver alphanumeric senders at all.

Receive SMS replies

An SMS channel is two-way only when the Provider is Twilio and the Sender ID is left empty. Carriers do not allow replies to an alphanumeric sender, so a channel with a Sender ID stays outbound-only.

To turn on inbound SMS:

Set Provider to Twilio and leave Sender ID empty.
Copy the Webhook URL field, shown for Twilio only.
In the Twilio console, open the phone number you entered and paste that URL into its “A message comes in” webhook.

Replies then arrive in the Inbox as conversations owned by the channel’s team.

Provider behaviour worth knowing

Provider	Behaviour
Twilio	If the destination country does not accept alphanumeric senders, Pluspoint retries the message automatically. Authentication errors disable the channel and trigger a disconnection email. Unreachable or invalid numbers are recorded against the individual contact, not the channel.
TurboSMS	A rejected send usually means the recipient’s country or your Sender ID is not on your Turbo account’s allow-list. Ask TurboSMS to add them.
SMS.to	A “payment required” response is treated as a configuration error and disables the channel. Top up the account and save the channel again.
Lifecell	Numbers are normalised to international E.164 format, and each message is given one hour of delivery validity.

Before sending, Pluspoint replaces accented Latin letters and typographic punctuation with their plain GSM-7 equivalents: č becomes c, and curly quotes become straight ones. Pluspoint does not convert non-Latin scripts such as Cyrillic — they go to the provider unchanged.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Cause	Fix
Customers cannot reply	The provider is not Twilio, a Sender ID is set, or the Twilio webhook is not configured.	Use Twilio with an empty Sender ID and paste the Webhook URL into the number’s “A message comes in” setting.
Card shows Disconnected	The gateway returned an authentication or payment error.	Fix the account with your provider, re-enter the credentials, then select Save changes — this returns the channel to working order and reschedules campaigns that had failed.
Messages fail for one country only	Your provider does not have that destination or that Sender ID enabled.	Ask the provider to allow the destination, or send without an alphanumeric sender.
”You can’t send messages to this channel because it isn’t connected.”	The channel is disconnected.	Re-enter the credentials and save.
”Unable to send message: Invalid channel configuration”	The stored credentials or Sender ID no longer match what the provider expects.	Open the channel, re-enter the provider’s current credentials, and select Save changes.
”Couldn’t delete” when removing the channel	A live-chat channel uses this one as its Phone notifications channel.	Point that live-chat channel at another channel, then delete.
”Cannot proceed: N active campaign(s) in progress” when removing the channel	Running or scheduled campaigns, or automation steps, still use the channel.	Finish or cancel those campaigns and remove the channel from every automation step.
Accented characters look wrong on the handset	Pluspoint swaps accented Latin letters for their unaccented GSM-7 equivalents before sending.	Write copy that reads correctly without accents, or use another channel.