WebSMS started up in 2004. The web was a different place — Facebook had only just been launched, the iPhone was still three years away, and "texting" was a teenager's preferred form of communication. The first version of this website went live shortly after, when most New Zealand businesses were still adding "Visit our website!" to their print ads.
Twenty-two years later, the SMS service is going strong. The website, frankly, was showing its age. So we've rebuilt it from the ground up — modern layout, faster load times, clearer pricing, proper documentation for the developer integrations we've added over the years, and a directory for every NZ shortcode published by Spark, One NZ, 2degrees and Skinny.
Twenty-two years of New Zealand SMS
Schools across Aotearoa
Notifying parents about absences, sick days, last-minute timetable changes, sports cancellations and after-school pickups. SMS reaches every parent's phone, no app required.
Emergency alerts
Power outages, water-supply notices, civil-defence advisories, and on-call team activations for utilities, councils and infrastructure teams. SMS works when other channels fail.
Reminder notifications
Appointment reminders for clinics, dentists, vets, salons and trades. Booking confirmations, follow-ups, and cancellation notices that actually get read — typical SMS open rates are well above 95%.
What's new on the site
- Clearer pricing — flat per-message rates, dedicated shortcode pricing by length, free-to-end-user options. /pricing/
- Solution pages — bulk SMS, two-way conversations, OTP / 2FA, appointment reminders, marketing campaigns, phone number validation, team coordination. /solutions/
- NZ shortcode directory — every shortcode listed by Spark, One NZ, 2degrees and Skinny, refreshed daily from the carrier PDFs, with carrier, brand and pricing info per code. /shortcode-directory/
- Number portability checker — paste a number, see which carrier currently routes it. /number-portability/
- Integration pages — proper documentation for the SMS connectors we ship for Cliniko, Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, Zapier, Make.com, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Shopify, WooCommerce, Xero and more. /integrations/
- Developer documentation — the Connexus REST API now has a published OpenAPI spec, sandbox mode, and worked examples in PHP, Node.js, Python and Go. /api/connexus/
Same service, same team
Nothing about the SMS service itself has changed. Existing customer accounts, API keys, member-area logins and shortcode rentals all work as they did yesterday. Pricing is the same. The phone numbers your messages send from are unchanged.
If you're a long-time customer who hasn't logged in for a while, the members area has had a lot of polish too — clearer message history, conversational two-way SMS, better contact and group management, and a contemporary dashboard. Worth a fresh look.
Thanks for 22 years
To every school, clinic, council, infrastructure team, retailer, agency and developer who has used WebSMS over the past two decades — thank you. We're here for the next 22.