How to Send SMS from PHP

Sending an SMS from PHP against a REST SMS API takes a single authenticated POST request. The example below uses cURL and needs no dependencies.

<?php

$ch = curl_init('https://your-domain.example/api/v1/messages');

curl_setopt_array($ch, [
    CURLOPT_POST => true,
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
    CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => [
        'Authorization: Bearer swl_live_YOUR_API_KEY',
        'Content-Type: application/json',
    ],
    CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => json_encode([
        'recipient' => '255700000000',
        'sender_id' => 'YOURBRAND',
        'body' => 'Your order has shipped.',
    ]),
]);

$response = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

echo $response;

The API key is a Bearer token created from your account. Recipients are E.164-formatted phone numbers, and sender_id is either your registered sender ID or your account's default sender.

See the full SMS API Tanzania page and the interactive API reference for every field the endpoint accepts.