Receive SMS replies on your numbers

Bird SMS used to be outbound only. Now, when someone texts one of your numbers, Bird stores the message beside your sends and pushes it to your endpoint as sms.received, so you can answer a reply without polling for it.

What's new

• The sms.received webhook. Subscribe from the API, the SDKs, bird webhooks create, or the MCP server. The payload carries the body, the segment breakdown, both numbers, and the sending operator where the carrier reports one, so you can act on a reply without a second request.
• Inbound messages in the API and the log. GET /v1/sms/messages?direction=inbound returns what you received, and each message opens in the SMS log with its body and timeline.
• Received-message metrics. The SMS Metrics page shows received volume with its period-over-period change, and a Received messages page breaks it down by number, country and sending operator, so you can see which of your numbers is taking the traffic.

Replies are yours to act on

Bird records a reply and passes it to you; it does not interpret it. A STOP arrives as an ordinary sms.received, and suppressing future sends to that number is your integration's job for now. We will say so clearly here when that changes.

One change to existing webhooks

carrier and mcc_mnc are now omitted from sms.sent, sms.delivered and sms.received payloads when the carrier does not report them, rather than arriving as null. That matches the way the message resource has always reported these fields. If you branch on null for either, check for absence instead. sms.accepted now also carries segments, the count your send is billed on.