You can use Payabli’s pay by SMS functionality to send payment links to customers, enabling your customers to pay in a quick and convenient way.

Pay by SMS is an add-on feature. Before you can start sending payment links by SMS, the Payabli team must configure SMS sending for your organization. Contact us for more information.

How it works

Pay by SMS allows you to send payment links for your invoices directly to customers, by text.

This diagram shows the high-level overview of how pay by SMS functions.

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Step 1: Send the payment link

The merchant can generate and send a payment link for an invoice via the API, or send a payment link via the UI. Payabli checks the customer record for their opt in status. If the customer has already consented to receiving SMS and email from the merchant or partner, then the payment link SMS is sent almost instantly (skip to Step 3).

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Step 2: Opt in process

If the customer hasn’t already consented to receiving SMS messages, Payabli sends an email to the email address on file for the customer. This email invites the customer to opt in to SMS communications. If the customer opts in, the SMS provider will send a text to the customer phone number on file, with the required consent process. After the customer completes the opt in process, they can receive payment links via SMS.

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Step 3: SMS sent

The customer receives an SMS with a message that reference’s the paypoint’s DBA name and a shortened payment link. The message looks like this, where Paypoint DBA is the paypoint’s DBA name.:

You’ve received an invoice from Paypoint DBA. Click the link to pay: linkabli.com/384h34kl34 From here, the customer can click the shortened link to go directly to the payment page.

Considerations

Here are some things you need to know about the pay by SMS functionality:

  • You can only send payment links for invoices. You can’t create payment links for bills.
  • Customers must opt in to receive SMS communications. If they decide not to opt in, you can’t send them SMS messages.
  • If a customer replies STOP to the SMS, they’re opted out from receiving future texts. The paypoint would have to opt them back in
  • The opt-in process is started automatically the first time you send a customer a payment link via text. You can also kick off the opt-in process manually using the /Customer//consent endpoint.
  • Payment links sent by SMS expire after three days.
  • Opt in emails and texts are sent only to the email address and phone number on the customer record. If there isn’t an email address or phone number on the record, you will get an error.
  • SMS messages for a payment link can be sent to only one phone number, which is the phone number on the customer’s record.