KAPOW! SMS Gateway

.../> I came to the KAPOW! website and it's an easy to use website that makes sending sms simple. I saw the prices and was happy, it costs me 12p to send a message from my mobile and their most expensive price per message is 8.5p so these a saving straight away! I sent an e-mail to the help desk as I was a bit unsure about how I would use the service and I got a friendly and helpful response within an hour, which I was really impressed with! They offered ...
...then i would definatly recomend KAPOW! They make sending SMS simple, there are help pages through the site and the customer service people are friendly and help straight away.


PS: They do have a referre scheme so if you refer your friends or your boss you can get 10% on every sale. Which might be nice. ;o)


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Incase you didn't know, an SMS gateway works like this:
SMS from my PC-->SMS gateway-->SMSCentre(o2 etc)-->mobile phone

The Kapow site is http://www.kapow.co.uk/

I use SMS from the internet to send messages to my friends and relatives instead of using my mobile phone. I started off using free sms from yahoo, lycos and uboot, but it was really unreliable and most of the time the message appeared to be from a funny number instead of from my mobile. Also I would ask people if they got my messages as they hadn't replied and they would say that they didn't receive anything from me. Another thing that annoyed me was that most of the time the websites added a 'tag' which advertised their company, this meant that half the message I was sending had already gone. Even when I sent test messages to myself the quickest a message came through to myself was 2minutes.

When I was arranging a party for my best mates birthday I decided that it would be much quicker to invite the guests initially via text message. I had heard of 'bulk messaging' and started to look for sms services on the web, and as I needed the service to be really reliable I didn't mind paying a bit of money. I saw a few websites that looked really flashy but not many showed me the price of SMS and wanted me to register before I made my decision.

I came to the KAPOW! website and it's an easy to use website that makes sending sms simple. I saw the prices and was happy, it costs me 12p to send a message from my mobile and their most expensive price per message is 8.5p so these a saving straight away! I sent an e-mail to the help desk as I was a bit unsure about how I would use the service and I got a friendly and helpful response within an hour, which I was really impressed with! They offered me a free trial, which no other company had done and I said I'd like to try it. They then replied 15minutes later giving me some log in details and telling me I had 20 free credits. I logged in and sent one message through the web form and I started counting to see how long it took, I was suprised that by the time I had counted to 7 the message was on my phone! I then bought some credits and haven't had any problems since!

Ok, now I'll explain a few things:

Price

100 £8.50 (8.5p)
1,000 £80 (8p)
5,000 £350 (7p)

Kapow use a credit system where each credit is worth one text message and credits last an entire year. This, compared to other companies is great, many companies charge a set up or monthly fees, but with kapow you just pay for credits. Also other companies charge one and a half credits for certain networks or to certain countries but kapow only charge one credit where ever the message is sent-so I can text my sister in Spain really cheaply!

Sending SMS

Kapow offer a few different ways of sending SMS.

E-mail
This is my personal fave, all you have to do is type the telephonenumber@kapow.co.uk on the 'To' line and you put the message on the 'subject line'.

Webform
There is a form on the website where you type in the number and message in to the appropraite fields.

CSV(comma seperated values) file
This is the method I use if I'm sending a message to a few friends (like when I pass exams or am planning a party etc). All you have to do is open a file like word pad and put all the numbers so there is one on each line and then the top line has the number a comma and the message, like so:
077xxxxxxxx,I past my exam and got an A.
077xxxxxxxx
07xxxxxxxxxx
07xxxxxxxxxx
etc
Then you save the file, log in and upload it. You can then send it out straight away or set a date and time for it to be sent.

HTTP
I used this method a couple of times just to see what it's like but I think it's really for if you are integrating sms into a website. Basically you simply type some text in to your web broweser and change some variables to make your number and message.

From id
For a one off charge you can have the 'origionator' of the messages that you send changed from the default of 'kapow.co.uk' to your mobile number or name. Kapow don't add any text to the message you send either so you get to send a full 160 characters.

I read the review by pacmanblitz on kapow and he seemed to think that it's only good for companies but i definatly do not agree with that. Free sms is ok, but if you need a reliable service then i would definatly recomend KAPOW! They make sending SMS simple, there are help pages through the site and the customer service people are friendly and help straight away.

PS: They do have a referre scheme so if you refer your friends or your boss you can get 10% on every sale. Which might be nice. ;o)

 

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