SMS Messaging - Hiveku Builder

Send and receive SMS and MMS from any DID on your account. Threaded inbox, auto-replies, templates, group messaging, and full carrier compliance — all in /dashboard/communications/ under the SMS tab.

This is inbox-style SMS for human-driven conversations between your team and your customers. For sending SMS programmatically from your application code (e.g., 2FA codes, transactional alerts), see Connect Twilio. The two products complement each other.

What you can do

Threaded inbox

Every conversation grouped by contact, with full history.

Send and receive

From any of your DIDs that has SMS capability.

MMS

Send and receive images, GIFs, video, and other media. US/Canada only on most networks.

Group messaging

Multi-recipient group threads (US/Canada).

Auto-replies

Out-of-office, “we got your message”, or after-hours replies.

Templates

Reusable snippets with variable substitution.

Click-to-text from CRM

Open a thread from any CRM contact’s page.

Voicemail-to-SMS

Voicemails delivered as SMS with transcription.

Sending an SMS

Pick a thread or start a new one

Existing thread: click the conversation. New thread: click Compose and enter a phone number.

Pick the sending number

If you have multiple DIDs, choose which one to send from. Replies come back to that number.

Type, attach, send

Plain text plus rich media. The composer has an emoji picker, a GIF button that searches and attaches a GIF, and an attach button for images from your device — up to 10 attachments per message. Adding any media promotes the message to MMS. You can also send media with no text at all.

The recipient’s reply appears in the same thread, and you’ll see a desktop notification (and optionally an email or Slack alert). The same rich composer is available everywhere you can text: the SMS inbox, the quick composer on CRM contact pages, replies on SMS helpdesk tickets, and SMS steps in sequences. Scheduled sends and sequence steps deliver their attached media when they fire.

Receiving SMS

Inbound SMS arrives in the SMS tab in real time — if you have the inbox open, a new reply appears in the thread without refreshing the page. Hiveku threads by phone number, so you see a single conversation across all messages with that contact, regardless of which DID you used to send. If the inbound number matches a CRM contact, the thread links to that contact and the message lands on their activity timeline.

Auto-replies

Auto-replies fire on inbound SMS based on rules you configure.

Out-of-office
After-hours
Keyword-based
First-touch

Activate manually before vacation. Inbound SMS gets a one-time auto-reply: “Thanks — I’m out of office until April 30. For urgent issues, call (555) 123-4567.”

Auto-reply is rate-limited per recipient (one auto-reply per 24 hours by default) so you never accidentally storm a contact.

Templates

Pre-written messages with variable substitution. Save common replies as templates and insert them in one click.

Template: "appointment-confirm"
Body: "Hi {{first_name}}, confirming your {{meeting_time}} appointment. Reply YES to confirm, RESCHEDULE to move."

Variables can come from the CRM contact, the booking record, or the thread context.

Group messaging

Send a single SMS to multiple recipients. Two modes:

Mode	Behavior
Group thread (MMS group)	All recipients see each other; replies go to the whole group. US/Canada MMS only.
Broadcast	Each recipient gets the message individually; replies come back as separate threads. Best for announcements.

Broadcast messaging has stricter carrier rules. Sending the same message to many recipients in a short window can trip spam filters. For marketing-volume sends, use a registered 10DLC campaign and respect rate limits.

Rate limits and compliance

US and Canada SMS is governed by carrier rules — primarily 10DLC for local numbers and toll-free verification for 1-800-style numbers. Hiveku registers your numbers automatically when you buy them, but final approval can take a few days.

Number type	Throughput before approval	After approval
US local 10DLC	~1 msg/sec, may be filtered	Up to 30+ msg/sec, low filtering
US toll-free	~3 msg/sec	Higher, depending on traffic profile
Short codes	n/a	Available on enterprise plans

Hiveku enforces opt-out compliance automatically. If a recipient texts STOP, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, QUIT, or STOPALL to one of your numbers, all future messages from any of your numbers to that recipient are refused. They can text START or UNSTOP to opt back in. See Compliance and Recording for the full opt-out behavior and the Do not text list.

CRM integration

Every SMS thread auto-links to a CRM contact. From any contact’s page in /dashboard/crm/, you can:

See the SMS history
Click “Send SMS” to open a thread
Reference SMS context in CRM notes and tasks

Your AI Sales Co-pilot reads SMS history when prepping for a meeting and can draft replies for your approval.

AI agents can text

The Sales and Helpdesk AI agents can send SMS and MMS as part of the conversations they work — a follow-up text to a CRM contact, or a reply on a helpdesk ticket that arrived by text. The recipient is always locked to the contact or ticket the agent is working on; an agent can never text an arbitrary number. Every agent send passes the same gates as a manual send: the opt-out list, carrier registration status, and your account’s sending caps.

API

# Send an SMS
curl -X POST https://api.hiveku.com/api/communications/sms \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer hk_live_xxx" \
  -d '{
    "from": "+14155551234",
    "to": "+14155559876",
    "body": "Hi! Confirming our 3 PM tomorrow."
  }'

# List threads
curl "https://api.hiveku.com/api/communications/sms?type=threads" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer hk_live_xxx"

# List messages in a thread
curl https://api.hiveku.com/api/communications/sms/threads/thr_01HQ/messages \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer hk_live_xxx"

MMS specifics

MMS supports image/jpeg, image/png, image/gif, video/mp4, and a few others. Size limits depend on the media type:

Media type	Limit	Why
Still images (JPEG, PNG, WebP)	5 MB	Carriers resize these automatically in transit
Animated GIF, video, audio, PDF	600 KB	Carriers pass these through unresized and strip anything oversized — the text still delivers, but the recipient sees a blank attachment

The upload dialog enforces the right limit per type and tells you when a file is too large, and the built-in GIF picker automatically selects a rendition small enough to deliver. Outside North America, MMS support is spotty — fall back to a hosted link in plain SMS for those regions.

Troubleshooting

My SMS didn't deliver

Most common causes: recipient is on a carrier blocking unverified senders (10DLC pending), recipient texted STOP previously, recipient’s number is a landline with no SMS gateway. Delivery status appears on each message — check the icon next to it.

MMS images aren't sending

Some carriers downgrade MMS to SMS when the image is too large or in an unsupported format. Resize images under 1 MB and use JPEG or PNG. International recipients often can’t receive MMS at all.

MMS says delivered but the recipient sees a blank message

The media was too large for the recipient’s carrier. Carriers strip oversized pass-through media (animated GIFs, video, audio) while still delivering the text — so the message shows as delivered but arrives empty. Keep those types under 600 KB; the GIF picker does this for you automatically.

Auto-replies aren't firing

Check the auto-reply rule is enabled, the time condition matches the current time/zone, and rate limiting hasn’t already sent one to this recipient in the last 24 hours.

​What you can do

Threaded inbox

Send and receive

MMS

Group messaging

Auto-replies

Templates

Click-to-text from CRM

Voicemail-to-SMS

​Sending an SMS

​Receiving SMS

​Auto-replies

​Templates

​Group messaging

​Rate limits and compliance

​CRM integration

​AI agents can text

​API

​MMS specifics

​Troubleshooting

​Next steps

Phone numbers

Compliance

What you can do

Sending an SMS

Receiving SMS

Auto-replies

Templates

Group messaging

Rate limits and compliance

CRM integration

AI agents can text

API

MMS specifics

Troubleshooting

Next steps