Announcing: SMS Auto-Reply

NotificationAPI now supports SMS Auto-Reply, allowing you to automatically respond to inbound SMS messages without intervention.

The Problem

We have observed many of our clients don’t require complex inbound webhook workflows to process incoming SMS notifications; rather they need pre-defined canned messages such as “We got your message” or “We don’t monitor this number, reach out to support”. Until now, this required building the custom infrastructure to capture and process.

Our Solution

With SMS Auto-Reply, you can configure automatic responses directly in your send request:

notificationapi.send({
  type: 'appointment_reminder',
  to: {
    id: 'user_123',
    number: '+14155551234'
  },
  sms: {
    message:
      'Your appointment is tomorrow at 2pm. Reply YES to confirm or NO to cancel',
    autoReply: {
      message: 'Thanks for your response!'
    }
  }
});

That’s it! When the user replies, they’ll automatically receive your configured response.

Use Cases

• No-reply notices: “We don’t monitor replies to this number. For support, email support@company.com”
• After-hours acknowledgment: “Thanks for your message! Our team will respond during business hours (9am-5pm EST).”
• Confimrations: “We received and processed your request!”
• Long Running Processes: “We received your request and will get back to you in a minute.”

Getting Started

Simply add the autoReply configuration to your SMS send requests. No dashboard configuration needed - the auto-reply message is set per notification.

Check out our Inbound Messages documentation for more details on auto-reply configuration.