A delivery photo and a delivery notification need different message content. Choose the transport that carries the information your recipient needs. Check whether your sending path supports it.
What does each service carry?
SMS carries text in small network parts. MMS carries a multimedia message that the phone retrieves.
Plain Latin text fits 160 characters in one SMS segment. A longer message has room for 153 in each part. A 161-letter message therefore needs two parts, holding 153 letters and eight letters.
Characters outside the compact alphabet reduce those limits to 70 and 67. Some characters count double. The encoding page shows the exceptions, including emoji that take twice the space.
MMS carries media separately from that SMS text allowance. The MMS technical specification describes notification and retrieval of the multimedia message. The phone needs a working path to retrieve the content.
A text split into several SMS segments remains SMS. Its segment count determines how many billable parts you send.
Can any SMS number send MMS?
A number needs MMS capability. The provider's sending API must support MMS too.
Bird's number capabilities can include sms, mms and voice. Check that list before acquiring a number for a particular service. The numbers guide explains how to filter searches by capability.
An mms entry describes the number's capability. It does not establish that every API using that number supports an outbound MMS request.
The receiving side matters too. Apple's messaging guide requires a carrier plan supporting SMS/MMS. Test the receiving carriers and devices you need, because an SMS-capable recipient alone does not establish MMS support.
Can I send MMS through Bird's SMS API?
You cannot send MMS through Bird's SMS endpoint by supplying media_urls.
The endpoint rejects that field with HTTP 422 SMSUnsupportedFeature. It does so even when the sender's number lists mms as a capability. Buying another MMS-capable number does not remove that API restriction.
For text, you submit text, from, to and category. The body must fit twelve segments. A longer body receives a 422 instead of being shortened. Sending SMS documents the supported request.
How can I deliver media with an SMS notification?
Host the media and include its URL in the text when a link meets the recipient's needs.
For example, the message can tell a customer that their delivery photo is available at your website. The SMS carries the notification. The browser retrieves the photo when the customer opens the link.
Keep the essential information in the text, because the recipient may have no data access when it arrives. Use a domain you control. Public link shorteners explains the filtering risk of shared shortening services.
A link is an application choice. Bird rejects an unsupported MMS request instead of converting it to SMS.
Which should I choose?
Choose SMS for text. Choose a supported multimedia path when the media must appear inside the message.
- Use SMS for notifications whose essential information fits in text.
- Use SMS with a hosted link when opening the media separately works for your recipients.
- Use MMS only through a sending path with confirmed number, carrier and device support.
In short
Longer SMS still uses SMS segments.
Splitting a text into several parts does not turn it into MMS.
MMS depends on support along the route.
Check the sending number, provider, receiving carrier and handset before relying on media delivery.
A number capability does not enable Bird's MMS send path.
Bird's SMS endpoint rejects media_urls with HTTP 422 SMSUnsupportedFeature.
A media link is a separate design choice.
SMS can carry a link to hosted media. Opening it needs a browser and data access.