Publishing SMS messages to a mobile phone using Amazon SNS
You can use Amazon SNS to send SMS messages directly to a mobile phone without subscribing the phone number to an Amazon SNS topic.
Note
Subscribing phone numbers to a topic is useful if you want to send one message to multiple phone numbers at once. For instructions on publishing an SMS message to a topic, see Publishing SMS messages to an Amazon SNS topic.
When you send a message, you can control whether the message is optimized for cost or reliable delivery. You can also specify a sender ID or origination number. If you send the message programmatically using the Amazon SNS API or the Amazon SDKs, you can specify a maximum price for the message delivery.
Each SMS message can contain up to 140 bytes, and the character quota depends on the encoding scheme. For example, an SMS message can contain:
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160 GSM characters
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140 ASCII characters
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70 UCS-2 characters
If you publish a message that exceeds the size quota, Amazon SNS sends it as multiple messages, each fitting within the size quota. Messages are not cut off in the middle of a word, but instead on whole-word boundaries. The total size quota for a single SMS publish action is 1,600 bytes.
When you send an SMS message, you specify the phone number using the E.164 format, a standard phone numbering structure used for international telecommunication. Phone numbers that follow this format can have a maximum of 15 digits along with the prefix of a plus sign (+) and the country code. For example, a US phone number in E.164 format appears as +1XXX5550100.
Sending a message using the console
Sign in to the Amazon SNS console
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In the console menu, choose an Amazon Region that supports SMS messaging.
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In the navigation pane, choose Text messaging (SMS).
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On the Mobile text messaging (SMS) page, choose Publish text message.
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On the Publish SMS message page, for Message type, choose one of the following:
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Promotional – Non-critical messages, such as marketing messages.
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Transactional – Critical messages that support customer transactions, such as one-time passcodes for multi-factor authentication.
Note
This message-level setting overrides your account-level default message type. You can set an account-level default message type from the Text messaging preferences section of the Mobile text messaging (SMS) page.
For pricing information for promotional and transactional messages, see Worldwide SMS Pricing
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For Destination phone number, enter the phone number to which you want to send the message.
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For Message, enter the message to send.
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(Optional) Under Origination identities, specify how to identify yourself to your recipients:
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To specify a Sender ID, type a custom ID that contains 3-11 alphanumeric characters, including at least one letter and no spaces. The sender ID is displayed as the message sender on the receiving device. For example, you can use your business brand to make the message source easier to recognize.
Support for sender IDs varies by country and/or region. For example, messages delivered to U.S. phone numbers will not display the sender ID. For the countries and regions that support sender IDs, see Amazon SNS supported countries and regions.
If you do not specify a sender ID, one of the following is displayed as the originating identity:
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In countries that support long codes, the long code is shown.
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In countries where only sender IDs are supported, NOTICE is shown.
This message-level sender ID overrides your default sender ID, which you set on the Text messaging preferences page.
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To specify an Origination number, enter a string of 5-14 numbers to display as the sender's phone number on the receiver's device. This string must match an origination number that is configured in your Amazon Web Services account for the destination country. The origination number can be a 10DLC number, toll-free number, person-to-person long code, or short codes. For more information, see Origination identities for Amazon SNS SMS messages.
If you don't specify an origination number, Amazon SNS selects an origination number to use for the SMS text message, based on your Amazon Web Services account configuration.
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If you're sending SMS messages to recipients in India, expand Country-specific attributes, and specify the following attributes:
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Entity ID – The entity ID or principal entity (PE) ID for sending SMS messages to recipients in India. This ID is a unique string of 1–50 characters that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) provides to identify the entity that you registered with the TRAI.
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Template ID – The template ID for sending SMS messages to recipients in India. This ID is a unique, TRAI-provided string of 1–50 characters that identifies the template that you registered with the TRAI. The template ID must be associated with the sender ID that you specified for the message.
For more information on sending SMS messages to recipients in India, see Amazon SNS Sender ID registration requirements for India.
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Choose Publish message.
Tip
To send SMS messages from an origination number, you can also choose Origination numbers in the Amazon SNS console navigation panel. Choose an origination number that includes SMS in the Capabilities column, and then choose Publish text message.
Sending a message using the Amazon SDKs
To send an SMS message using one of the Amazon SDKs, use the API operation in that SDK
that corresponds to the Publish
request in the Amazon SNS API. With this
request, you can send an SMS message directly to a phone number. You can also use the
MessageAttributes
parameter to set values for the following attribute
names:
AWS.SNS.SMS.SenderID
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A custom ID that contains 3–11 alphanumeric characters or hyphen (-) characters, including at least one letter and no spaces. The sender ID appears as the message sender on the receiving device. For example, you can use your business brand to help make the message source easier to recognize.
Support for sender IDs varies by country or region. For example, messages delivered to US phone numbers don't display the sender ID. For a list of the countries or regions that support sender IDs, see Amazon SNS supported countries and regions.
If you don't specify a sender ID, a long code appears as the sender ID in supported countries or regions. For countries or regions that require an alphabetic sender ID, NOTICE appears as the sender ID.
This message-level attribute overrides the account-level attribute
DefaultSenderID
, which you can set using theSetSMSAttributes
request. AWS.MM.SMS.OriginationNumber
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A custom string of 5–14 numbers, which can include an optional leading plus sign (
+
). This string of numbers appears as the sender's phone number on the receiving device. The string must match an origination number that's configured in your Amazon account for the destination country. The origination number can be a 10DLC number, toll-free number, person-to-person (P2P) long code, or short code. For more information, see Understanding origination numbers in Amazon SNS.If you don't specify an origination number, Amazon SNS chooses an origination number based on your Amazon account configuration.
AWS.SNS.SMS.MaxPrice
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The maximum price in USD that you're willing to spend to send the SMS message. If Amazon SNS determines that sending the message would incur a cost that exceeds your maximum price, it doesn't send the message.
This attribute has no effect if your month-to-date SMS costs have already exceeded the quota set for the
MonthlySpendLimit
attribute. You can set theMonthlySpendLimit
attribute using theSetSMSAttributes
request.If you're sending the message to an Amazon SNS topic, the maximum price applies to each message delivery to each phone number that is subscribed to the topic.
AWS.SNS.SMS.SMSType
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The type of message that you're sending:
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Promotional
(default) – Non-critical messages, such as marketing messages. -
Transactional
– Critical messages that support customer transactions, such as one-time passcodes for multi-factor authentication.
This message-level attribute overrides the account-level attribute
DefaultSMSType
, which you can set using theSetSMSAttributes
request. -
AWS.MM.SMS.EntityId
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This attribute is required only for sending SMS messages to recipients in India.
This is your entity ID or principal entity (PE) ID for sending SMS messages to recipients in India. This ID is a unique string of 1–50 characters that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) provides to identify the entity that you registered with the TRAI.
AWS.MM.SMS.TemplateId
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This attribute is required only for sending SMS messages to recipients in India.
This is your template for sending SMS messages to recipients in India. This ID is a unique, TRAI-provided string of 1–50 characters that identifies the template that you registered with the TRAI. The template ID must be associated with the sender ID that you specified for the message.
Sending a message
The following code examples show how to publish SMS messages using Amazon SNS.