How to Send SMS Messages with PHP (using Nexmo or Twilio)

Introduction

When someone mentions SMS services, people tend to imagine a system of quick-messages transmission for communication between people. But in the modern world, SMS services provide high functionality useful for various tasks. Let’s have a look at some basic examples of their use:

• Business analytics, marketing, and advertising
• Alert systems (emergencies, elections, notifications)
• Monitoring and remote control systems, IoT-services
• Control and accounting systems (authentication).

Most of these systems use bulk SMS messaging. Messages are sent to several recipients, almost simultaneously. As a rule, messages are delivered sequentially to each recipient with a short delay (from 0.5 to 3 seconds, depending on the service or operator).

It’s possible to install such a system on a regular mobile phone if the number of recipients is between 10-20. But, if the number of recipients becomes larger (for example, for marketing purposes, they are usually more than 1000), this task is almost impossible to accomplish (due to hardware and software limitations of mobile phones).

Therefore, to implement the bulk SMS messaging, we’ll use special online services that allow creating a fast and reliable system by using their API and one of the programming languages.

One of the most popular and demanded languages for WEB programming is PHP.

Today, many services that enable creating modules for sending SMS messages to different individual sites or systems are based on PHP.

Let’s consider the website modules for creating codes or sending SMS messages using popular services: Nexmo SMS Messaging, Twilio SMS, and RapidAPI.

RapidAPI is the largest API marketplace out there. RapidAPI makes it easy to find, connect, and use APIs all in one platform. While many of the APIs found on RapidAPI’s marketplace are free, many of the SMS ones may require a subscription.

Without further ado, let’s learn how to send SMS messages using cURL-sessions in PHP.

Nexmo SMS Messaging API

Connect to API

A short overview of the Nexmo SMS API

Nexmo’s SMS Messaging API allows you to deliver text messages to mobile phone users around the globe through simple APIs. At the time of writing this article, the service had a 100% of Success Rate and 9.4/10 of Popularity Score. To begin using the Nexmo SMS API, you’ll need to subscribe to the API first. The APIs has a pay-per-use pricing model that charges you $0.0001 per request.

Nexmo SMS API is a service that provides SMS operations and enables you to scale them and solve various tasks:

• Automatically send and receive a high volume of SMS.
• Build SMS service apps with web technologies.
• Send SMS with low latency and high delivery rates.

However, it is only currently available to countries that don’t require a virtual number (for example, Japan).

To implement some of these functions, you need to use an endpoint at the RapidAPI’s Endpoints subsection.

To use an endpoint, you need to fill data in “Required parameters” and then test it by clicking the “Test Endpoint” button.

Description and overview of “Required” and “Optional” parameters are available at Nexmo SMS API Endpoints.

For illustration purposes, we’re not going to use all the parameters in our examples.

Header Parameters:

• X-RapidAPI-Host and X-RapidAPI-Key – RapidAPI’s parameters for project identification.

Required Parameters:

• from – the name or number the message should be sent from (alphanumeric sender ID’s are not supported in all countries).
• to – the number you are sending the SMS to in E.164 format (for example 447700900000 – requires the country code prefix).

Optional Parameters:

• text – the body of the message being sent.
• API response for the endpoint will be displayed in the right area subsection.

How to use the Nexmo SMS API with PHP

Let’s define the necessary information for Nexmo SMS API as an array:

$data = [
  'from' => 'RapidAPI',
  'to' => 'ХХХХХХХХХХХХ',
  'text' => 'Hi! I\'m a test message from RapidAPI! Have a nice day!'
 ];

Next, we will create a cURL session and fill out the required “Headers parameters”:

$curl = curl_init($url . '?' . http_build_query($data));
curl_setopt($curl,
 CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POST, true);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, [

  'X-RapidAPI-Host: nexmo-nexmo-messaging-v1.p.rapidapi.com',
  'X-RapidAPI-Key: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX',
  'Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded'
]);

It is necessary to note that in the curl_init function, we modified the requested URL and data format according to the type: “application/x-www-form-urlencoded” by using the http_build_query() function.

After that, we have to execute the current cURL session and save the response from the server and then close this session and output the response.

$response = curl_exec($curl);

curl_close($curl);

echo $response . PHP_EOL;

Here it is all together:

<?php

$url = 'https://nexmo-nexmo-messaging-v1.p.rapidapi.com/send-sms';
$data = [
 'from' => 'RapidAPI',
 'to' => 'XXXXXXXXXXXX',
 'text' => 'Hi! I\'m a test message from RapidAPI! Have a nice day!'
];

$curl = curl_init($url . '?' . http_build_query($data));
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POST, true);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, [
 'X-RapidAPI-Host: nexmo-nexmo-messaging-v1.p.rapidapi.com',
 'X-RapidAPI-Key: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX',
 'Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded'
]);


$response = curl_exec($curl);
curl_close($curl);
echo $response . PHP_EOL;

 

After executing this code in the terminal, we will get the following result:

{"message-count":"1","messages": [{"to":"'XXXXXXXXXXXX'","message-id":"XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX","status":"0","message-price":"0.08614","network":"25503"}]}

Then the SMS message is sent to the device with the required number:

The message is delivered and the code for the SMS module is ready!

Twilio SMS API

Connect to API

A short overview of the Twilio SMS API

The Twilio SMS API is a service that provides SMS messages operations and allows you to scale them to solve various tasks. This service supports multiple applications and languages.

As in the previous case, you also need to make a subscription to use the Twilio SMS API. The Twilio API costs the same as the Nexmo SMS API ($0.0001/use).

The main Twilio SMS API functions are:

• Sending SMS messages
• API authentication
• Handling replies with an SMS-bot
• Various messaging channels support
• Ability to send SMS messages during a phone call
• SMS-powered appointment reminders
• Support of notifications
• Support of many libraries to send and receive messages.

A detailed description and an overview of all endpoints for Twilio SMS API are available at the following link.

We’re going to use the endpoint, which is only for sending SMS messages – “POST Send SMS (Create a Message Resource)”.

Almost all “Required” parameters are the same as for Nexmo SMS API. The only difference is the appearance of the “accountSid” parameter, used for authentication in the Twilio’s SMS service.

So before using this service, you need to register using this link and get the authentication code.

Enter the required information and press “Start your free trial”.

To get the accountSid code, click on this link (or Twilio Сonsole – Settings – General).

Once we got the “accountSid” code, we’re ready to use Twilio SMS API.

How to use the Twilio SMS API with PHP

Let’s define the necessary information for the Twilio SMS API as the following variables:

1. URL with “accountSid” code:

$accountSid = 'XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX';
$url = 'https://twilio-sms.p.rapidapi.com/2010-04-01/Accounts/' . $accountSid . '/Messages.json';

2. The data for the request will be in the following format:

$data = [
 'from' => 'RapidAPI',
 'to' => 'XXXXXXXXXXXX',
 'body' => 'Hi! I'm a test message from RapidAPI (Twillio)! Have a nice day!'
];

Note that the field name for SMS-message has been changed from “text” to “body”, in comparison to Nexmo SMS API.

Also, the values of the “Headers parameters”: “X-RapidAPI-Host” and “X-RapidAPI-Key” will be changed, because we are going to use another service: RapidAPI / Twilio SMS API.

curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, [
 'X-RapidAPI-Host: twilio-sms.p.rapidapi.com',
 'X-RapidAPI-Key: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX',
 'Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded'
]);

The rest of the code (for the previous API) is unchanged. As a result, we should get the following PHP-file:

<?php
$accountSid = 'XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX';
$url = 'https://twilio-sms.p.rapidapi.com/2010-04-01/Accounts/' . $accountSid . '/Messages.json';
$data = [
 'from' => 'RapidAPI',
 'to' => 'XXXXXXXXXXXX',
 'body' => 'Hi! I'm a test message from RapidAPI (Twillio)! Have a nice day!'
];

$curl = curl_init($url . '?' . http_build_query($data));


curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POST, true);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, [
 'X-RapidAPI-Host: twilio-sms.p.rapidapi.com',
 'X-RapidAPI-Key: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX',
 'Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded'
]);
$response = curl_exec($curl);

curl_close($curl);

echo $response . PHP_EOL;

After executing this code in the terminal, we should get this log result:

{"accountSid":"ХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХ","apiVersion":"2010-04-01","body":"Hi! I'm a test message from RapidAPI (Twillio)! Have a nice day!","dateCreated":"2019-08-14T20:21:19.000Z","dateUpdated":"2019-08-14T20:21:21.000Z","dateSent":"2019-08-14T20:21:19.000Z","direction":"outbound-api","errorCode":null,"errorMessage":null,"from":"RapidAPI","messagingServiceSid":null,"numMedia":"0","numSegments":"1","price":"0.00750","priceUnit":"USD","sid":"ХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХ","status":"delivered","subresourceUris":{"media":"/2010-04-01/Accounts/ХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХ/Messages/ХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХ/Media.json"},"to":"+ХХХХХХХХХХХХ","uri":"/2010-04-01/Accounts/ХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХ/Messages/ХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХХ.json"}

And again, the SMS message is sent to the device with the required number:

Conclusion: Nexmo vs Twilio for Sending SMS Messages

In this article, we described how to create the PHP code for sending SMS-messaging module using the Nexmo SMS API and Twilio SMS API in RapidAPI.

Comparing the received results, we can highlight the following differences for Nexmo and Twilio services:

• Nexmo SMS is a simple, fast and easy-to-use service for sending SMS messages that don’t require much time to study it.
• Twilio SMS is a more advanced service with bulk SMS messaging, authentication, call-handling, phone numbers, and automatic notification.

The price of subscribing to these services in RapidAPI is about the same, so if you need simplicity and stability in the module for sending SMS-messages, select Nexmo SMS, and if you need the functionality, then choose Twilio SMS.

Related Links

• Top SMS APIs
• How to use an API with PHP
• Twilio SMS API Docs
• How to send SMS Messages with PHP (Twilio)