Free SMS for WooCommerce is a WooCommerce plugin that sends SMS notifications directly from your phone, using dedicated Android app.
Free SMS for WooCommerce is a plugin that sends SMS notifications (when, for example, you change the order status to completed) directly from your phone, using dedicated open-source Android app.
features:
* 30 messages/month for free
* $2 monthly for unlimited messages, or you can spin up your own service and have it for free (see the plugins website for more details).
* No contracts and additional fees
* Send different messages to different countries
* Or just send messages to your country only
* Send messages when order is placed, completed, cancelled, delayed and more
Screenshots
Settings page
Mobile app
Slowly, how it works?
Simply put, your Free SMS for WooCommerce plugin asks your Android app to send SMS when order status has changed.
How to use it?
Please see install instructions or go to plugins website.
Is it really free?
The plugin is free. The Android app is free and open-source too. And you get 30 messages / month for free. If you need more, you can purchase the permium plan for $2/month or spin up your own service that handles requests from the plugin and forward them to Android app using Google’s GCM (check the plugin code for description).
I’m afraid of installing the app on my phone. Is it secure?
Android app is free and open source. The only thing it does is <technical mumbo-jumbo> waiting for the google cloud message notification and send sms. It keeps your QR as a token to communicate with the messaging server </technical mumbo-jumbo> It asks for camera and SMS permissions at startup. Camera is required to scan QR code. You can download the source code here and compile it on your own if you want.
“There was a problem parsing a package.”
Make sure you’re using Android 8 (Oreo) or higher.
Is there an iOS app for Apple?
No, only Android is supported.
Why the app is not in Google Play app store?
Due to new Google Play permissions policy the app that wants to send SMS must be a “Default SMS handler”. This policy prevents malicious apps from accessing SMS functionality, but also prevents Free SMS for WooCommerce from being listed in Google Play store.
I don’t want to pay $2. Can I create my own service?
Yes. You need to create an http server that does 2 things:
Wait for the POST message from the Android app (when you scan the QR code) and store it somewhere.
params: { qrToken, firebaseToken }
Wait for the POST message from WordPress plugin (when order status changes) and send the Firebase Cloud Message to your phone.
params: { qrToken, phone, message }
Then you just need to replace the SEND_MESSAGE_URL variable in Plugin code, and also replace the service url in Android app source code.
