GatewayAPI vs Sendmachine for WordPress

Send SMS notifications for WooCommerce orders, create SMS campaigns, manage contacts, and add two-factor authentication – powered by GatewayAPI.com. 📝 Description GatewayAPI for WordPress is a powerful SMS plugin that combines WooCommerce transactional SMS notifications with a high-performance campaign and contact management system. The plugin allows you to automatically send SMS messages when WooCommerce orders change status, as well as create and send personalized SMS campaigns to large contact lists. You can also add an extra layer of security to your WordPress site with SMS-based two-factor authentication, helping protect your login process with verification codes sent directly to your mobile device. Version 2 is a complete rewrite of the plugin, with a strong focus on performance, reliability, and modern WordPress standards. All SMS messages are delivered via GatewayAPI.com, one of Europe’s leading SMS gateways. ⭐ Main Features 🛒 WooCommerce SMS Notifications Send automatic SMS messages based on WooCommerce order status changes Separate message templates for customer and internal recipients Fully configurable per order status Supports all standard WooCommerce order statuses 🔐 Two-Factor Authentication Add an extra layer of security to your WordPress login SMS-based verification codes sent automatically during login Can be limited to specific roles and phone countries Works with standard WordPress authentication Uses GatewayAPI’s reliable SMS delivery 📢 SMS Campaigns & Broadcasts Send SMS campaigns to large contact lists High throughput and stable delivery using Action Scheduler Designed to work reliably even on shared web hosting Background processing 📇 Contact & List Management Manage contacts directly in WordPress Import and export contacts using CSV files Store custom fields per contact Reusable contact lists for campaigns Use contact fields for mail-merged SMS content ✉️ Personalized Message Templates Mail-merge support for campaigns and WooCommerce messages Use dynamic placeholders such as customer data, order data, and custom fields Supports both GSM and Unicode SMS Configurable sender ID per message 🧩 Frontend Shortcodes Signup: Allow users to subscribe to your SMS lists directly from your website. Update Profile: Enable users to update their contact details and group subscriptions. Unsubscribe: Provide a simple way for users to opt-out of SMS communications. Send SMS: Enable SMS sending from the frontend (e.g. for internal tools). 🚀 Built for Reliability & Scale Uses Action Scheduler (the same job system used by WooCommerce) Non-blocking background processing Suitable for very large campaigns (100,000+ recipients) No PHP timeouts or long-running requests ⚠️ Coming from v1.x? Some features are gone The following features are not part of this plugin anymore: Receiving or processing incoming SMS messages Contact Form 7-integration These features had very low usage and were removed to simplify the plugin. If you need this, consider the legacy version of the plugin (any version before 2.0). 🌍 About GatewayAPI.com Founded in 1999 One of Europe’s leading SMS providers Offices in Copenhagen, Odense, and Aalborg, Denmark Hundreds of millions of SMS messages delivered yearly No subscriptions – pay only for what you send Fast and reliable SMS delivery worldwide 🔧 Installation Create a free account at https://gatewayapi.com/ Install and activate the plugin Go to GatewayAPI → Settings Add your API Token from your GatewayAPI.com account Play around! Send a test campaign or setup a WooCommerce Order hook 🚀 Getting Started 🛍️ WooCommerce Notifications After installation, you can enable SMS notifications per WooCommerce order status. Each status can send messages to customers, internal recipients, or both. Place a test order to confirm everything is working as expected. 📨 Campaign Messaging You can create SMS campaigns without WooCommerce: Import contacts via CSV or add them manually Organize contacts into lists Create a personalized SMS campaign 🔐 Two-Factor Authentication To add SMS-based two-factor authentication to your WordPress site: Go to GatewayAPI → Settings → Two-Factor Enable two-factor authentication Configure which user roles should use two-factor authentication Optionally limit to specific phone countries for security Set a grace period if needed 🧩 Shortcodes The plugin provides shortcodes to integrate SMS features into your frontend. 📝 Common Attributes action: (required) One of signup, update, unsubscribe, send_sms. recaptcha: Set to 1 to enable Google reCAPTCHA (must be configured in settings). embed_css: Set to 1 to embed basic styling for the form. groups: Comma-separated list of group/tag IDs to target. allowed_countries: Comma-separated list of country codes (e.g., 45,44). ➕ Signup Form [gatewayapi action=”signup” groups=”1,2,3″] 🔄 Update Profile [gatewayapi action=”update”] ❌ Unsubscribe [gatewayapi action=”unsubscribe”] ✉️ Send SMS [gatewayapi action=”send_sms” groups=”1″] Security Warning: The send_sms action allows sending SMS messages from your frontend. This can be dangerous if left open to the public as it could be abused to send spam or drain your GatewayAPI credits. We strongly recommend combining this with a security system, such as: * Placing the shortcode on a password-protected page. * Restricting access to specific user roles using a membership plugin. * Always enabling recaptcha=”1″ to prevent automated abuse. ❓ Frequently Asked Questions Can this plugin handle very large SMS campaigns? Yes. Campaigns are processed using Action Scheduler, ensuring stable delivery, high throughput, and retries — even on shared hosting environments. Does this plugin support personalized SMS messages? Yes. You can use dynamic placeholders from contacts and WooCommerce orders to send fully personalized, mail-merged SMS messages. Is WooCommerce required? WooCommerce is only required for order-based SMS notifications. Campaign messaging and contact management work without WooCommerce. 🔗 External services This plugin connects to the GatewayAPI.com service to send SMS messages. This external service is required for the plugin’s primary functionality, which is delivering transactional and campaign SMS messages. When sending an SMS, the plugin transmits the recipient phone number, message content, and related metadata (such as sender ID) to GatewayAPI.com. For WooCommerce notifications, order-related data may be used to generate the message content before it is sent. No data is sent to GatewayAPI.com unless an SMS is actively being sent by the site administrator or triggered by configured WooCommerce events. This service is provided by GatewayAPI ApS. Privacy policy, terms and conditions, data processing agreement, and security certifications (including ISAE 3000 and ISAE 3402) are available at: https://gatewayapi.com/security-and-compliance/ 📋 Changelog 2.1.4 Improved UI for tag dropdowns when there are many items. 2.1.3 New bulk actions for all contacts matching current filters: Delete/deactivate/activate contact + add/remove tag. Contacts list UI update, more sleek import/export buttons. 2.1.2 Improved contact import: Papa Parse CSV parser with auto-delimiter detection and auto-created meta fields from unknown columns. Fallback support: Support for our previous (<v2.0) CSV format support. 2.1.1 Bugfix: The recipient tags were not properly sent to the campaign creation UI. 2.1.0 New feature: Shortcodes for signup, updating contact details, and unsubscription. New feature: Shortcode for sending SMS from the frontend (use with caution and combine with security-system). Bugfix: Contacts filtering by tag didn’t work. 2.0.8 The migration tool should now be available to all users of the 1.x-versions, as some were missing it. 2.0.7 Tool for easy and automatic migration of old contacts, contact fields and contact groups included. Automatically migrates and uses old OAuth key. 2.0.5 Bugfix: For users upgrading from 1.x, a missing capability upgrade made the plugin unavailable until deactivate + reactivate. 2.0.4 Two-factor authentication has been re-added to the plugin. 2.0.2-2.0.3 No changes. These versions exist because we have been working on automating release processes. 2.0.1 Minor modifications to ensure best-practices as per WordPress guidelines. 2.0.0 Complete rewrite of the plugin! 1.8.3 Compability up to WordPress 6.3.1. 1.8.2 Bugfix: Built in shortcode defaulted to the posts title as the name of the new recipient. Now defaults to ”, as expected. 1.8.1 Bugfix: Built in shortcode for signup did not work properly, when allowing the user to select groups. 1.8.0 Support for using our GatewayAPI.eu-setup! Bugfix: 2FA login security could fail on PHP 7.4+. 1.7.6 Bugfix: Fixing that GatewayAPI Shortcode for signup had stopped saving some meta-fields since 1.7.2. 1.7.5 Bugfix: Default country code did not apply correctly in the country drop downs. 1.7.4 Compability with Contact Form 7. Bugfix: Signup via Contact Form 7 works again (upgraded to being compatible with CF7’s newer window.fetch based approach of AJAX). Bugfix: Notices in CF7-integration (PHP) and a typo, causing an exception in frontend JS on CF7-forms. 1.7.3 Bugfix release. Bugfix: Saving recipient details using the UI and via Excel-importer, works properly again. Bugfix: SMS Reply-feature works again. 1.7.2 This release strengthens the overall security, thanks to input from an external security audit. We highly recommend upgrading to this version, as it hardens the security of our plugin, especially on WordPress-installation with multiple users which may have users of lower roles than editor. Consistent use of nonce’s in AJAX requests, to prevent CSRF and prevent privilege escalation. Enforce correct roles for various actions, preventing potential privilege escalation. Improved sanitizing, validation and escaping of input and output. All PHP-files are now secured from direct access. Refactored function prefixes from gwapi_, _gwapi_ and _gatewayapi_ to gatewayapi_ only. 1.7.1 Bugfix: Notifications were not sent. 1.7.0 New: Notification module: Receive SMS-notifications when various actions occur in WordPress BETA: Please get in touch if you have ideas/suggestions for improving this feature. New: Default country code field setting (previously all country selectors defaulted to +45/Denmark). New: Programmer actions gwapi_form_subscribe and gwapi_form_unsubscribe added. The first is triggered when new recipients complete signup via our shortcode-forms and the latter on unsubscription via the shortcode-forms. Optimization: Removed various unneeded dependencies. Danish translation updated, including the notification-module. Readme updated to inform about notification-module and other text improvements. 1.6.9 New! Create Notifications to automatically notify recipients by SMS when a WP action is executed. 1.6.8 Bugfix: Prefix wasn’t specified for all instances of db_table usages. 1.6.7 Bugfix: Previously imported recipients was prevented from being re-imported if they had been deleted. 1.6.6 Bugfix: While using recipients import, group recipients was not counted correctly after the import was completed. 1.6.5 Improved: Import of recipients optimized. 1.6.4 Compatible with WordPress 5.5 Improved: Integration with Contact Form 7 now supports shortcode for mandatory fields Tweak: Updated UI and descriptions. 1.6.3 Compatible with WordPress 5.4 New! Recipient groups can now default to unchecked when using short-code Tweak: Minor updates to UI. 1.6.2 Tweak: The frontend forms now use regular SMS instead of Display SMS for two-factor, as requested by multiple users. Bugfix: When using tags, the list of tags sent to GatewayAPI could end in a situation, with the same tag-data repeated. 1.6.1 Removed URL in two-factor SMS as it was unnecessary and caused SMS’es to be blocked by GatewayAPI’s new link-scanner. 1.6.0 New! Custom encoding for SMS’es, allowing SMS’es with emojis and other special characters. UI which detects what encoding should be used, always recommending the cheapest option (ie. most characters per SMS). API-method gwapi_send_sms has new argument for setting encoding. Fully backwards-compatible, defaulting to standard-encoding. Compatible with WordPress 5.1 1.5.2 Compable with WordPress 5.0.3. Fix: Excel-export of recipients did not work unless “SMS Inbox” was enabled. Fix: Notices in Excel-export. 1.5.1 Updated Danish translations (primarily the two-factor settings and frontend). Fix: Our shortcode had unintentionally been renamed. We now support both [gwapi] and [gatewayapi]. Fix: Two-factor-module caused fatal error on PHP 5. Also fixed general notices in two-factor module. Fix: Two-factor module caused fatal error when creating new WordPress-users. 1.5.0 New! Two-factor security upgrade to your WordPress! (optional) New! Blacklisting of phone numbers. Improved: Searching recipients by phone number works. Improved: Better support for 10.000+ recipients + a progress bar for showing progress. 1.4.2 Recipients: Added option to blacklist phone numbers. Added support for searching recipients list by phone number (previously only by name). Added drop down on recipients list, for filtering by group. Fix: Improved handling of huge lists of recipients (ie. 1.000+ recipients in one SMS) 1.4.1 Fix: List of countries is now always correctly parsed, even when the JSON-file (which is fetched via AJAX) does not have right mime-type. 1.4.0 Note: v1.4.0 may break your Countact Form 7-forms containing GatewayAPI-fields, as the shortode-syntax has slightly changed for most of our fields. We needed to do this change to fix multiple bugs and inconsistencies. Please re-add the GatewayAPI-fields to your Contact Form 7-forms when updating the plugin. Contact Form 7: Ability to send SMS’es from the frontend. Updating a subscriber: Forms now only updates groups specifically selected for the form. Bugfixes and code cleanup, improved shortcode syntax. Complete user guide for the system (available online). Export of recipients to Excel and CSV-formats. 1.3.3 Contact Form 7: Added support for forms which also contained a reCaptcha-field. Code cleanup 1.3.2 Bugfix: A menu item had gone missing in the backend. 1.3.1 New UI for creating automated actions. Currently supports “autoreply” based on keyword. 1.3.0 Support for receiving SMS’es added, including setup-wizard and inbox. 1.2.3 Bugfix: The new verification SMS for Contact Form 7 had a typo, breaking verification SMS’es. Missing translations: The popup-messages related to verification were not translated to danish. 1.2.2 Better international phone numbers support: Prefixed 0’s in the phone number itself (between country prefix and phone number) is now correctly working. 1.2.1 User synchronization: No longer requires a country code meta field, instead allowing a default country code when this value is missing. Now possible to trigger a “one time” synchronization. Contact Form 7: Now possible to send an SMS-reply on form success automatically. SMS-validation for signup, before allowing the form to submit successfully. Bugfix: Validation now works for all GatewayAPI-fields. 1.2.0 Contact Form 7: Integration supporting signup, update and unsubscribe forms for frontend. Two-factor flow possible for update-flow. 1.1.6 Bugfix: Safari-specific issue with SMS-counter. Bugfix: Hidden required fields …

Sendmachine’s official plugin will enable you to: Set up signup forms You can set up a signup form in a few easy steps: connect using the provided API credentials, select a contact list where your visitors will subscribe and you’re basically good to go. The signup form is available as a widget (in your widget area) or as a shortlink by pasting [sm_subscribe_form] in a post or page. Add subscribe checkboxes Allow users to subscribe to your contact list only by checking a checkbox in certain website areas like comment form or register form. Sync your wordpress users with a specific contact list You want to send emails to all your users but don’t know how? Well, don’t worry, we can help you with that. After you’ve successfully selected a contact list, you can use the “Sync users” button, to subscribe all your users to that contact list. Send emails through our services No need for nasty, geeky configurations. Just set a from email, an optional from name and you are good to go. Also, make sure that “enable email sending” is set to on. If you set a from email that doesn’t already exist in your sendmachine account as a sender address, a confirmation email will be generated and sent to that address. Not quite sure if you’ve done everything right? You can test if everything is ok by sending a test email. If you got the mail, you can sit back and relax: you’ve done it, otherwise something went wrong. Send transactional emails No more “dog ate my email” excuses. Using our services you can now monitor an email’s activity (opens, clicks, geolocations, user agents). In order to enable this option, after you install our plugin, go to “email settings” tab and check that “Register” and/or “Comment” checkboxes. Basically, if you tick that checkboxes on each email sent, that coresponds with that action, we add a custom tracking header: X-Sendmachine-Campaign: campaign_name, where campaign_name is the name of the transactional campaign that will be created, or updated if already exists. Campaign’s name can be found/modified next to every action’s checkbox. Send news feed You can send a newsletter directly from the admin panel with the latest posts. You can choose to build your newsletter with the latest 5, 10, 15 or 20 posts, set newsletter’s width, color and content. External Services This plugin connects to the following Sendmachine services: 1. Sendmachine REST API Used for list, campaign management and statistics. Specifically: Authenticates your account using your API credentials (username and password). Retrieves your contact lists, sender addresses, and SMTP connection settings. Subscribes visitors to your chosen contact list, including their email address and any additional form fields they complete. Creates, and sends email campaigns containing your latest blog posts. Retrieves your account’s email credit usage for the dashboard. This service is contacted whenever you perform any of the above actions from the WordPress admin or from a front-end subscribe form. 2. Sendmachine SMTP When the email sending service is enabled and configured, all outgoing emails from your WordPress site are routed through Sendmachine’s SMTP servers. This includes core WordPress emails such as password resets, new user registrations, and comment notifications, as well as any emails sent by other plugins or themes. Service: https://www.sendmachine.com Privacy Policy: https://www.sendmachine.com/confidentialitate.html Terms of Service: https://www.sendmachine.com/termeni-si-conditii.html