Frequently asked questions
Primal Connect sends and receives SMS for mobile numbers in Canada and the United States. If the answer you need is not here, email support1@primaltech.com.
- Getting started
- Coverage
- Numbers and format
- Sending and delivery
- Plans and pricing
- Account and rules
Getting started
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A REST API for sending and receiving SMS with mobile phones in Canada and the United States. You post a message to an HTTPS endpoint and we deliver it to the handset. It runs on Amazon Cloud, on top of Primal Technologies’ carrier infrastructure.
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Sign up — it is free and takes a moment. There is no password to choose: the form asks for your name and email address only. Your account number appears on the page and your API token is emailed to you. Accounts start on the free Bronze tier.
Every account comes with a default sending number,
4165483344, ready to use straight away — put it in thefromfield. There is nothing to request. The API reference has a curl example, already using that number, that you can paste straight into a terminal. -
Send your token as a
tokenheader on each call. You can also pass it as atokenfield in the request body. Treat it as an opaque string — do not validate its length or character set, as both may change. -
There is no separate sandbox. Bronze is free, so your live account is your test account: send to your own Canadian or US mobile number, and point your callback URL at a test endpoint while you build. Test messages count against your monthly allowance like any other.
Coverage
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Canada and the United States. Primal Connect is built for North American messaging: every
tonumber must be a Canadian or US mobile number, and thefromnumber is your account’s North American sending number.Numbers in other countries are not supported. The API rejects them up front — the response carries a
statusother than 200 and amessageexplaining why, and nothing is sent.If you tested earlier with an international number, got
status200 and the text never arrived, this is why: the API used to accept those requests without being able to deliver them. It now refuses them instead. -
The national wireless carriers in both countries — Bell, Rogers and TELUS in Canada; AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile in the United States — and the brands that run on their networks.
Messages go to mobile phones. Landlines and many VoIP numbers cannot receive SMS, so a text sent to one will not arrive even though the API accepts it.
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Not covered. Several Caribbean countries share the +1 country code and the 10-digit format, but Primal Connect delivers to Canada and the United States only. Do not build against other +1 destinations.
Numbers and format
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Ten digits: the three-digit area code followed by the seven-digit number. Digits only — no
+, no leading1, no spaces, dashes or brackets. The same rule applies tofromandto.So
+1 (416) 555-8888is sent as4165558888. If your users type numbers freely, strip everything that is not a digit, then drop the leading1from an 11-digit result before you call the API. -
Use
4165483344. Every account comes with it as the default sending number, ready the moment you sign up, at no charge on every tier. Put it in thefromfield; it is also shown on the sign-up confirmation page and in your welcome email.You only need to contact us if you want a number of your own instead — for example one with a local area code, or one used only by your business. Email support1@primaltech.com with your account number. A number of your own is free on Bronze too.
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No. The
fromfield accepts the default number4165483344, or a number we have assigned to your account — not a personal mobile number, a number from another provider, or a number from outside North America.Alphanumeric sender names (a brand name such as
MYSHOPin place of a number) are not supported: Canadian and US carriers do not deliver them. Recipients see the 10-digit number you sent from.
Sending and delivery
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First, read the
statusfield in the JSON body, not the HTTP status line — the API answers HTTP 200 even when a request fails. Anything other thanstatus200 means the message was not sent, and themessagefield says why.The usual causes, most common first: the
tonumber is outside Canada and the United States, or is not in 10-digit form (see number format); thefromnumber is missing, or is something other than4165483344or a number assigned to your account, which answersstatus401; or this month’s allowance is spent, which answersstatus429 (see monthly allowance).If the API answered
status200 and the text still did not arrive, check that the destination is a mobile number, then email support1@primaltech.com with thetimestampfrom the response and thetonumber. -
Not yet. A
statusof 200 means we accepted the message and passed it to the carrier network. The API does not currently return a message ID, send delivery receipts, or offer a per-message status lookup.To chase a particular message, keep the
timestampfrom the response along with thetonumber, and send both to support1@primaltech.com. -
Not yet — Primal Connect is API-only for now. Email support1@primaltech.com with your account number for your month-to-date message count. When you reach your allowance, the
429response names your tier, the allowance and when it resets. -
Recipients reply to the number your message came from, and the reply comes to your account. You collect it one of two ways. If we have a callback URL on file for your account, we POST each inbound message to it as JSON. If not, messages are queued and you collect them with a GET on
/api/sms. Both are covered in section 2.2. Email support to have a callback URL added.Inbound messages count against your monthly allowance just like outbound ones. There is no separate charge for receiving.
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No. Each accepted call to
/api/smscounts as one message against your allowance, whatever its length or characters.On the phone, a text longer than 160 characters — or 70 if it contains accented letters or emoji — travels in several parts that the handset puts back together. For the most reliable delivery, keep notifications and codes short.
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There is no fixed requests-per-second limit, but there is a monthly message allowance set by your tier: 10,000 on Bronze, 5,000,000 on Silver, 50,000,000 on Gold, counting inbound and outbound together. Spend it and
/api/smsanswers429until the start of the next calendar month — retrying will not help, so queue the traffic or email sales@primaltech.com to move tier. Registration is separately rate limited per IP address, which also answers429. -
Not through the public API at the moment — SMS only. If MMS matters for your project, contact sales@primaltech.com so we can tell you where it stands.
Plans and pricing
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Bronze is free for up to 10,000 messages a month. Above that, Silver is $0.007 per message and Gold is $0.004. Tiers count inbound and outbound together, and the price is the same whether the number is Canadian or American. Full detail on the pricing page.
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Up to 10,000 messages every calendar month, inbound and outbound together, to and from Canadian and US mobile numbers. The default sending number
4165483344, the API, callbacks and polling are all included. No card is taken.The allowance renews at the start of each month. When it is used up, sends stop with
status429 until the next month — nothing is charged automatically and there is nothing to cancel. To go beyond it, move to Silver or Gold.The one cost Bronze does not cover is US carrier registration, if you text US numbers — see the next question.
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Usually, yes. US carriers require business text messages sent from 10-digit numbers to be registered with them, a process known as A2P 10DLC: you describe your business (the brand) and what you will send (the campaign). Unregistered traffic to US numbers is increasingly filtered or blocked.
If you will be texting US recipients, email sales@primaltech.com before you go live and we will take you through registration. The carriers can charge one-time and monthly fees for it; sales@primaltech.com will confirm what applies to your account before you go live. Traffic to Canadian numbers does not need this registration.
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Yes. One-time codes and phone-number verification are a supported use on every tier, Bronze included — see verification codes. Each code is one message against your allowance. If your recipients are in the US, code traffic needs US carrier registration like any other business messaging.
Account and rules
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Anyone can sign up — the form asks for a name and email address only, and individual developers are welcome. If you will text US numbers, the carrier registration asks for business details, or sole-proprietor details if you trade as an individual.
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Only text people who have agreed to hear from you, say who you are in the message, and act on opt-out replies such as STOP straight away. You are responsible for following the messaging laws that apply to you — CASL in Canada and the TCPA in the United States — and the carriers’ own content rules.
Carriers block spam, phishing and content about illegal products, and restrict cannabis, firearms, alcohol, tobacco and adult content. Accounts that send unsolicited or prohibited messages may be suspended. If you are building a platform that sends on behalf of many users, talk to sales@primaltech.com first: it changes how US registration works.
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We email it to you when you register, from
contact@bigplanettelecom.com. It is deliberately never shown in the browser — that keeps an automated sign-up from walking away with a working credential. If it has not arrived after a few minutes, check your spam folder. If you have lost it, email support1@primaltech.com and we will reissue one; we cannot show you the existing one again. -
It is sent from
contact@bigplanettelecom.comthe moment the account is created, so it usually lands within a minute or two. Check your spam or junk folder first, and add that address to your safe senders. Corporate filters are the usual culprit — if you registered with a work address and nothing arrives, try a different mailbox or email support1@primaltech.com with your account number and we will resend it. -
Because you would never use it. The account is driven entirely through its API token — there is no password login to the API. Asking for one added a step and gave you another secret to manage for no benefit, so we removed it.
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Technical questions and requests for a number of your own go to support1@primaltech.com. Pricing, tiers, US registration and contracts go to sales@primaltech.com. Anything else, info@primaltech.com.