SMS

The SMS page lets your firm claim a phone number so you can send and receive text messages with clients. Until you set one up, the SMS option in the Communications inbox is disabled.

To open it, go to Settings → SMS in the sidebar.

You’ll see one of three states:

What an SMS number gives you

Your number is shared across the firm — every team member sends and receives through it.

Setting up your number

When no number is set, the page opens with a search form:

Search for a number
────────────────────────────────────────────
Area code: [503]            [ Search ]

Type a 3-digit area code (optional — leave blank for any area code) and click Search. Assure Pro returns up to ten available numbers:

(503) 555-0142   [ Claim ]
(503) 555-0287   [ Claim ]
(503) 555-0391   [ Claim ]
...

Click Claim on the number you want. Assure Pro:

1. Reserves it for your firm.
2. Hooks it up so inbound SMS routes into your inbox.
3. Refreshes the page to show the claimed number.

The whole flow takes 2–3 seconds.

[Screenshot: SMS number search results]

What the active-number card shows

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  (503) 555-0142                                 │
│  Active                                         │
│                                                 │
│  Connected since May 22, 2026                   │
│  Last SMS sent 3 hours ago                      │
│                                                 │
│  [ Release number ]                             │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

The card shows your number, an Active badge, when you connected it, your last activity, and a Release number button.

Releasing your number

Click Release number. You’ll see a confirmation:

Release (503) 555-0142? You’ll lose this number. Conversations stay, but you won’t be able to send new SMS until you claim a different number.

Confirming returns the number to the pool. Someone else may claim it within minutes.

Your conversation history stays in Assure Pro — SMS is just disabled for future messages until you claim a new number.

Costs

Phone numbers cost about $1–$2 per month and messages cost roughly 1 cent each. Most plans include a generous SMS allowance, and overage (if any) is passed through onto your Assure Pro invoice. Check your plan tier for the SMS allowance.

Heavy users (1,000+ messages per month) may see overage on their invoice.

How inbound SMS gets to you

When a client texts your number:

1. Assure Pro receives the message.
2. It looks up the sender’s phone number and matches it to a client.
3. If matched, the message lands in the inbox under that client’s thread.
4. If unmatched (the phone number isn’t on any client), the message lands in a special “Unmatched” view that owners and admins can triage.
5. The matched thread surfaces a notification — in-app or email, depending on your Notifications preferences.

End-to-end, this takes well under a second.

How outbound SMS works

When a team member opens compose on a client thread and picks SMS:

1. They type the message (up to 160 characters per SMS segment).
2. They click Send.
3. Assure Pro routes the message through your number.
4. The carrier delivers it to the client.
5. Delivery confirmation comes back automatically.

The thread shows the message immediately, then updates the delivery status (sent, delivered, and read where supported).

Pause vs release

Today there’s no “pause my number temporarily.” It’s all-or-nothing.

If you want to silence inbound SMS without releasing the number, contact support — we can flip a switch on our side. A self-service pause is on the roadmap.

Compliance

Opted-out clients show a No SMS badge on their profile. Their thread keeps existing messages, but the SMS option in compose is disabled for them.

Activity log

Each SMS event shows up in the firm activity log:

• Number claimed or released.
• Each inbound and outbound message.
• Delivery failures.
• Client opt-outs.

Common gotchas

• Claiming is fast, releasing is final — release only when you’ve decided.
• No number = no SMS anywhere — compose hides the SMS option.
• The client needs a phone number on their contact record — outbound to a client without a phone fails quietly.

What’s not supported yet

Permissions

Next

• Communications channels — using SMS in the inbox.
• Notifications & email — alert preferences for SMS replies.
• Integrations — for email, the sister channel.