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TextLink LLC · 2026 – active

SMS gateway sold as a SaaS product

The story

A gateway that needed a technical person became a product non-developers run themselves.

A spare Android phone sends SMS through its own SIM at carrier cost. We extended an open-source gateway into the product TextLink sells: dashboard, integrations, billing and public site.

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Worth noting

  • · Around 19.4M messages at 99.2% carrier delivery
  • · About $0.001 a message, close to 95% below 10DLC
  • · No 10DLC registration, no A2P paperwork

The problem

Sending SMS to US numbers at scale means 10DLC: brand vetting, campaign approval, weeks of paperwork, and aggregator pricing from around $0.0075 a message. For smaller operators in GoHighLevel, lead-gen and fleets, that is expensive and slow enough to push them toward notifying clients by hand. Android gateways that send through a phone's own SIM exist, but each needs a technical person to stand up and maintain. TextLink wanted that infrastructure mass-market, with interfaces a non-developer can use.

Outcome

It sells as a self-serve product on AppSumo across five lifetime tiers, from a single operator to unlimited SIMs, with unlimited messaging inside every tier. As of writing, around 19.4M messages have gone out across 3,800+ connected phones, at an average send of about 2.3s.

What we built

We extended the open-source gateway core so one installation serves many customers, and built the product around it. Non-developers work from a dashboard: one inbox for every conversation, bulk campaigns with delivery tracking, SIM warmup that builds a new number's reputation, and analytics down to reply rate and opt-outs. Agencies attach a SIM to each GoHighLevel location and send and reply from the CRM they already use. Developers get a public API. Pairing a phone is a QR scan. We also designed and built the site that sells it.

Covers

Accounts, teams and locations, chat inbox, bulk campaigns, SIM warmup, GoHighLevel integration, public API and verification, device pairing and telemetry, billing, analytics, presentation site.

How we approached it

We started from a proven open-source gateway so the effort went where the product value was. First we hardened and extended the core so it could carry many customers. Then came the commercial surface: a dashboard a non-developer can operate, billing, and above all the GoHighLevel integration, because that is where the buyers already work. Sending through real consumer SIMs means the sender's reputation is part of the product, which is why SIM warmup and delivery tracking exist. The developer API exists so other software can build on it.

In use

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