📱 SMS Integration Guide

Enable SMS Follow-Ups
with Twilio

Connect Twilio to FollowFire and start texting new leads within 60 seconds of their inquiry — automatically. Setup takes under 5 minutes.

45%

higher open rate vs email

90 sec

avg SMS response time

~$1/mo

Twilio cost for 500 texts

Before you start

✅

FollowFire account

You need an active FollowFire subscription and access to your Vercel project (or wherever you're hosting the app).
💳

Twilio account (free trial OK)

A free Twilio trial gives you ~$15 in credits — enough for hundreds of test texts. You can upgrade to production later.

Step-by-step setup

1

Create a Twilio account

Go to twilio.com/try-twilio and sign up for a free account. You'll verify your email and phone number.

💡

Free trial tip

During trial, Twilio can only send SMS to verified phone numbers. Upgrade to a paid account before going live with real customers.
2

Get a Twilio phone number

In the Twilio Console, navigate to Phone Numbers → Manage → Buy a number.

Choose a local number in your area code. Local numbers are usually $1/month and have better deliverability than toll-free for local businesses.

Number type guide

  • 📍 Local number — best for local home services (~$1/mo)
  • 📞 Toll-free — good for multi-state businesses (~$2/mo)
  • 🚀 Short code — high volume only, takes weeks to provision
3

Copy your Account SID and Auth Token

In the Twilio Console, click your account name in the top-left and go to the Account dashboard. You'll see:

Account SID:  ACxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Auth Token:   xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Click the 👁 eye icon to reveal the Auth Token. Copy both values — you'll need them in the next step.

🔒

Keep these secret

Never commit these to Git or share them publicly. They grant full access to your Twilio account including billing.
4

Add credentials to FollowFire

Go to your Vercel project settings → Environment Variables and add these three values:

TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID=ACxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
TWILIO_FROM_NUMBER=+15551234567

Replace the values with your actual credentials and the phone number you purchased (in E.164 format: +1XXXXXXXXXX).

After adding, click Redeploy on your latest deployment so the new environment variables take effect.

🏠

Self-hosting?

If you're running FollowFire locally or on another host, add these to your.env.localfile instead. Never commit .env.local to Git.
5

Test your SMS integration

In your FollowFire dashboard, go to Settings and click Send test lead. This fires a synthetic lead through your webhook — if Twilio is connected, you'll receive a confirmation SMS within a few seconds.

You can also check the Twilio SMS logs to see all outbound messages and delivery status.

✅ Success looks like this

A text message arrives on the lead's phone number saying something like:
"Hi! We received your inquiry and will follow up shortly. — [Your Business Name]"

How SMS works in FollowFire

0 sec
📋

Lead submits form

Your website form fires the FollowFire webhook

~5 sec
📱

SMS sent instantly

FollowFire texts the lead from your Twilio number

Day 2
📧

Follow-up email

Branded email follow-up via Resend if no reply yet

Day 7
📱

SMS nudge

Second SMS check-in for leads still in 'new' status

Day 14
📧

Final email

Last-chance re-engagement email before lead goes cold

Troubleshooting

❓ SMS not sending — no errors in logs

Check that TWILIO_FROM_NUMBER is in E.164 format (+15551234567). Dashes or spaces will cause silent failures.

❓ Error: 'Authenticate' — 401 Unauthorized

Your Account SID or Auth Token is incorrect. Double-check you copied from the correct project in Twilio Console (not a subaccount).

❓ Free trial: 'unverified number' error

Twilio free trials can only text verified numbers. Add the lead's phone number to your Twilio verified caller IDs, or upgrade to a paid account.

❓ Texts delivered but lead's number isn't receiving

Some carriers filter business SMS. Consider registering your number for A2P 10DLC (Twilio provides this in their console) to improve deliverability.

❓ Environment variables set but not working after deploy

Vercel requires a new deployment to pick up new env vars. Go to Vercel → Deployments → Redeploy your latest deployment.

📋

A2P 10DLC Registration (Recommended)

For business SMS in the US, carriers require A2P 10DLC registration — a one-time process that registers your business as a legitimate SMS sender. It dramatically improves deliverability and reduces spam filtering.

  • • Takes 1–3 business days to approve
  • • One-time fee: ~$4 (brand) + ~$10/mo (campaign)
  • • Required for most US local numbers at scale
  • • Register in Twilio Console → Messaging → Regulatory compliance

Ready to text your leads?

SMS follow-ups get 5–10× more replies than email alone. Set up Twilio once and FollowFire handles the rest automatically.

Go to Settings →Start Free Trial