The Tells API lets engineering teams send and receive SMS, MMS, and RCS, run AI SMS and
voice agents, trigger call announcements, and query number intelligence through one
OAuth2-authenticated REST surface with webhook callbacks. Full endpoint references, SDKs,
Postman collections, and a sandbox are provided with account access — this page is the
public overview of what the platform supports.
Tells API access is provisioned per account: tell the team what you are building, and onboarding includes credentials, environment setup, and a guided first send. Start through the secure onboarding flow or schedule a 30-minute intro call with a messaging operator.
Start through the secure onboarding flow
Request a 30-minute technical scoping call
Credentials + guided first send during onboarding
Authentication
The Tells API uses OAuth2 bearer authentication. Credentials are issued during account onboarding and scoped to your workspace. Keep tokens server-side; never embed them in client code.
OAuth2 bearer tokens
Workspace-scoped credentials
Server-side use only
SMS & MMS
Programmatic high-volume SMS across US and Canada carrier routes, with 10DLC, short-code, and toll-free sender support, opt-out handling, and per-message carrier delivery receipts surfaced by sender, route, and segment.
10DLC, short code, toll-free senders
Automated STOP/HELP handling
Carrier delivery receipts
RCS Business Messaging
Verified-sender RCS with rich cards, carousels, quick replies, and automatic SMS fallback for non-RCS devices. The Tells team handles Google verification submission and carrier approvals for your brand.
Verified brand sender
Rich cards, carousels, quick replies
Automatic SMS fallback
Voice, AI agents & call announcements
AI SMS and voice agents that share conversation context, plus SMS call announcements delivered ahead of outbound dials through a REST API and dialer integrations. Escalation to humans carries the full transcript and captured fields.
AI SMS + AI voice with shared context
SMS call announcements via REST API
Human escalation with transcript
Number intelligence & lookups
Real-time validation and enrichment: carrier and line type, CNAM, and a 0–100 activity score usable directly in the send path for routing and suppression decisions. Public since the May 7, 2026 Phone Intelligence API launch.
Carrier + line-type lookup
0–100 activity score
In-send-path routing decisions
Webhooks & delivery events
Event callbacks for message lifecycle updates, including carrier acceptance, delivery, inbound messages, and opt-out events, so your systems stay in sync without polling.
Delivery + acceptance events
Inbound message callbacks
Opt-out events
Full API reference, SDKs & sandbox
The complete endpoint reference, request/response schemas, SDKs, Postman collection, sandbox environment, rate limits, and status codes are provided with account credentials during onboarding — they are account-gated rather than public. This page is the public overview; nothing here is a substitute for the versioned reference you receive with access.
Account-gated full reference
SDKs + Postman with onboarding
Sandbox environment for integration testing
Changelog
May 7, 2026 — Phone Intelligence API launched: carrier and line type, CNAM, and 0–100 activity scoring.
July 2026 — Native in-house demo scheduling on tells.co; docs hub rebuilt as the public developer overview.
Ad measurement is on. The OpenAI Ads pixel, and the ZoomInfo tag on our homepage, record visits so we can tell which ads bring people to Tells. You can turn it off here at any time.Ad measurement is off. The OpenAI Ads pixel and the ZoomInfo tag do not load, and the identifiers they had stored have been cleared.Your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, so ad measurement stays off on this site.Privacy Policy