Messaging terms, in plain words.

One billable piece of an SMS. A GSM-7 message fits 160 characters in one segment; longer messages split into parts of 153. UCS-2 messages fit 70, then 67 per part.

The standard SMS alphabet: Latin letters, digits and common punctuation. It is the cheapest encoding. A few characters such as € and [ ] count as two.

The encoding used when a message contains any character outside GSM-7, such as an emoji or a curly apostrophe. It fits fewer characters per segment.

The name a text appears to come from, such as ACACIA. Branded sender IDs are available in Uganda once the networks approve them. A branded sender can’t receive replies.

A phone number or shortcode that can receive replies. Replies arrive in the team inbox.

The international phone number format: a plus sign, the country code and the number, with no spaces. For example +256770123456.

A message Meta has approved in advance. Businesses must use one to start a conversation. Templates take positional parameters such as a name or order number.

After a customer messages you on WhatsApp, your team can reply freely for 24 hours. Outside the window, start again with a template.

A WhatsApp event saying the customer opened the message. It appears as the read status.

A DNS record listing the servers allowed to send email for your domain.

A signature added to each email, checked against a public key in your DNS. It shows the message really came from your domain and wasn’t changed.

A DNS policy telling receiving servers what to do with mail that fails SPF or DKIM checks.

A record that a contact agreed to receive messages on a channel. API sends must include consent: true, and fallback and campaigns only use consented channels.

A block on a destination and channel, for example after a STOP reply. Removing one needs separately verified consent and operator review.

Trying the next channel a saved contact agreed to when a channel is unavailable or a send fails. Uncertain attempts are never resent automatically.

The moment a provider takes the message. Shown as sent. It is separate from delivery, which the carrier or Meta reports later.

A report from the carrier or Meta that the message reached the handset. Not every route supports one.

The most a campaign, or a single request with maxCostMicros, may spend. A campaign pauses rather than exceed its cap.

The price of a send, worked out before anything is charged. It shows the provider cost and the service fee separately.

The quoted amount held from your balance when a send is queued. Unused reservations return to your balance.

Millionths of a US dollar. API amounts such as costMicros use micros, so 39200 means $0.0392.

Your prepaid USD balance. Top up with mobile money; credit is added once the payment is verified.

A unique value you send with each request. Retrying with the same key and payload returns the original message instead of sending twice. A different payload with the same key returns 409.

A key starting sv_test_ that only runs simulations. It never contacts a provider or touches your wallet.

A POST request SavaraFlow sends to your server when a message status changes.

An HMAC-SHA256 hash of the timestamp and body, sent as X-Savara-Signature. Recompute it with your secret to confirm the event is genuine.