Sending SMS

Use cases

SMS are particularly suited to short, time-critical information – for example during the event, when your participants are on the move and hardly read e-mails.

• Campaigns: Send an SMS to a selected target group, e.g. as a reminder shortly before the event starts.‍
• Notifications: Use SMS as a channel for automatic notifications.

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Requirements

Activating SMS

Sending SMS is deactivated by default. To use SMS, please contact our support team – we will activate the feature for you.

Adding a phone number

An SMS can only be sent to contacts who have a mobile number saved. The number is validated based on the country code. The following countries are currently supported:

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If no country code is given for a number, +41 (Switzerland) is assumed automatically. Make sure you always enter foreign numbers with their country code.

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Content and character length

SMS consist of plain text. Variables (e.g. first name or event name) and formatting are not supported – all recipients receive the same text.

How many characters fit into an SMS depends on the characters used:

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If your message is longer, it is split into several SMS (segments) and reassembled on receipt. Even a single emoji or special character causes the entire message to be sent as Unicode.

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Sender and billing

Sender

"Oniva" is currently displayed as the sender. It is not yet possible to set your own sender name.

Billing

Billing is based on the SMS actually sent. If a message is split into several segments because of its length, it counts as two or more SMS. Example: a message with 200 standard characters is billed as 2 SMS per recipient.

You can find the current SMS prices on our pricing page.