Community

Community text messaging for your app.

Event reminders, new-post alerts, member announcements — the messages that keep a community active.

Free to author & testNo credit cardUS & Canada

9:41
Saturday, June 13

Acme: Tonight's meetup starts at 6:30. Join here: yourapp.com/live

Our free message templates are live.
Sending arrives Summer 2026.

The moment

A text can change the outcome.

Members booked a spot at your event months ago and haven't thought about it since. A text that morning puts it back on their radar.

Acme: Tonight's meetup starts at 6:30. Here's the link to join: yourapp.com/live
Almost forgot, thanks
The messages

Community messages, included.

All nine message categories are included — one registration.

Live event reminder

Acme: Cohort Kickoff starts in 30 minutes. Join: yourapp.com/live Reply STOP to opt out.

Event invitation

Acme: new event - Cohort Kickoff on in 30 minutes. RSVP: yourapp.com/rsvp Reply STOP to opt out.

Moderation update

Acme: an important update for the community. Details here: yourapp.com/update Reply STOP to opt out.

Member milestone

Acme: you've reached 1 year in the community. Thanks for being here. Reply STOP to opt out.

Community announcement

Acme: there's something new in the community. Take a look: yourapp.com/news Reply STOP to opt out.

Welcome

Acme: you're in. Welcome to the community - glad to have you here. Reply STOP to opt out.

The variables

Make the messages yours, without breaking them.

Preview every message, edit the wording, or add your own fields. The parts that keep you compliant stay locked.

Preview with your data

Enter a value once and it shows in every message.

6:30
ConfirmationEdit
Acme: Tonight's meetup starts at 6:30. Join here: yourapp.com/live
Insert variable
CancelSave

Customize any message

Open the variable list and drop one in.

ConfirmationEdit
Acme: Tonight's meetup starts at 6:30. Join here: yourapp.com/live
Insert variable
workspace_nameAcme
member_nameJordan Lee
event_time6:30
event_linkyourapp.com/live
CancelSave
The details

Q&A: Community messages

How often should I text community members?

Less than you think. One or two texts a week is the ceiling for most communities before opt-outs start climbing. SMS earns its place for the moments that need attention right now — a live event starting, an urgent update. Everything else reads better in email or in-app.

Should the texts come from our business name or the community name?

Use whichever name members actually recognize. If your community has its own name — The Founder Circle, Dev Collective, whatever it is — use that. If your community goes by your business name, they're the same thing. The community_name variable is where that goes; it sits at the front of every message.

What's the difference between a community announcement and a marketing message?

Whether it's selling something. A community announcement tells members about something new inside the community itself — a new channel, a new track, a format change. The moment it includes an offer or a discount it becomes marketing, which runs as a separate $10/month add-on with its own consent requirements.

Should I send the full onboarding sequence to every new member?

Start with Welcome and see how members respond. The full sequence — Welcome, First action, Resource pointer, Week 1 check-in — is four texts in seven days. That works when the community is active and gives new members something real to do. If it's early days, start with Welcome only and add the rest when there's something worth pointing people toward.

The paperwork

You build the feature. We handle the bureaucracy.

Every text message carries a stack of carrier rules. We've read all of it, so you don't have to.

Registration handled

Getting approved on your own can take weeks.

Most registrations clear in about three days. We handle the filing, so you can keep building your app.

Messages compliant

Send the wrong kind of message and carriers block it — silently.

Every message is checked against carrier rules before it sends, not just passed through.

Opt-ins & opt-outs covered

Miss a single STOP and the fines add up fast.

We stop instantly. Consent is tracked and enforced at delivery, not wired up by you.

The build

Give your AI tool a build spec, not a pile of docs.

RelayKit generates implementation instructions for your AI tool. Messages, variables, event triggers, testing steps, and integration guidance arrive for smooth integration.

Claude CodeCursorWindsurfGitHub CopilotClineCodex

Slots into ShipFast, Supastarter, MakerKit, and Vercel + Supabase.

import { RelayKit } from 'relaykit';

const relaykit = new RelayKit();

await relaykit.appointments.sendConfirmation(customer.phone, {
  date: 'Fri, Jun 6',
  time: '2:00 PM',
});

That's the send.

The test

Preview list

Your safe audience for sending test messages, before and after launch.

  • JoelVerified
    (555) 867-8842
  • SarahVerified
    (555) 412-5519
  • MikeInvited
    (555) 290-3301
+ Invite someone

Run test messages through real phones.

Add yourself, your team, your beta testers. Each person verifies once. After that, your app's messages work for them exactly the way they'll work for customers.

Trigger your real flows — a booking, a code, a reminder — and see the whole loop land: sent, delivered, your database updated.

The process

What it takes to go live.

No telecom expertise required. We handle the carrier side.

01 · PLAN

Choose your messages

Pick the messages your app needs from templates that already know the rules.

Browse the messages →
02 · BUILD

Build and test

Hand the spec to your AI tool, then test the full flow on real phones before launch.

03 · LAUNCH

Go live

RelayKit handles registration and delivery. A few days to approval.

The price

Simple pricing.

Stage 1

Build for free

Set up your messages. Add the code to your app. Test with real phones. No credit card.

Stage 2

Go live for $49 + $19/mo

We file your registration with carriers. Approval takes a few days. 500 messages included per month, then $8 per additional 500. Full refund if you're not approved.

What $19/mo includes.

500 messages a month
Your own sending number
Delivery, opt-outs & quiet hours
A hosted compliance site
Carrier rule-change tracking

Marketing messages add $10/mo. Volume pricing above 5,000 messages. US and Canada at launch. We don't handle HIPAA, healthcare-regulated workflows, or enterprise procurement.

The numbers

When a message can't wait, send a text.

Messages from an app only work when someone sees them. Here's how text and email compare.

Gets opened
Text message98%
Email~20%
Time to first open
Text message~90 sec
Email~90 min
Gets a reply
Text message~45%
Email~6%
Gets through
Text message~98%
Email~84%

Industry SMS-vs-email benchmarks, 2025–26 — open and response from SMS-marketing aggregates; email inbox placement from Validity's 2025 deliverability report. SMS open is inferred from delivery, not pixel-tracked; reported email open rates are distorted by tracking-pixel prefetch and blocking.

The problem

The rules show up after you start building.

US carriers require these from every business that sends texts. Getting approved can take weeks if not done right.

Registration

Before anything sends, your business gets registered in a central registry that every US carrier checks — legal name, tax ID, website, and what you plan to send. Details have to match your IRS records exactly, or the application bounces.

RelayKit collects this during setup and files the registration for you.

Carrier review

Reviewers check your registration and your messages against carrier rules before you're allowed to send. Other providers typically take two to three weeks — and every rejection restarts the clock, with no guarantee the next round clears.

RelayKit submissions are prepared to pass the first time; approval typically takes a few days.

Consent requirements

You have to collect and keep proof that every recipient agreed to get texts from you — how they opted in, when, and which kinds of messages they agreed to. Someone who signed up for appointment reminders hasn't agreed to marketing.

RelayKit provides the opt-in language and keeps the consent records automatically.

Build a compliance website

Reviewers visit your website looking for a privacy policy with specific mobile-data language, posted terms, and a visible description of your texting program. A missing or half-finished site is the single most common reason registrations get rejected.

RelayKit generates and hosts a compliance site for you — privacy policy, terms, and opt-in page included.

STOP and HELP handling

A reply of STOP has to halt messages to that person immediately, and HELP has to get a real answer — automatically, every time. Getting it wrong is a fast way to get a number shut down.

RelayKit handles both at the delivery layer; when someone replies STOP, we stop.

Message restrictions

Carriers limit what businesses can say over text: entire content categories are banned, links get scrutinized, and messages outside your registered use case can get your number flagged. The rules live across multiple carrier policies, and they change.

RelayKit's templates already follow them, and custom messages are checked before they send — not just passed through.

The start

The messages are ready now. Sending arrives Summer 2026.

You can start with the messages today. When sending launches, your AI tool wires up the integration, you test on real phones, and registration and opt-outs stay handled behind the scenes.

Keep exploring