Getting started

Onboarding has three steps. Most organizations are live within the time it takes carriers to approve their number registration.

1. Set up your organization

We create your organization and provision its dedicated phone number. Before messaging can go out, US carriers require every business texting number to be registered for compliance (10DLC) — you complete that registration yourself, guided step by step through the ShipThanks platform, which walks you through the required business details and submits them for you. Approval typically takes a few business days; until it completes, ShipThanks holds off on messaging — orders during this window appear in the dashboard queue rather than triggering prompts.

2. Connect your order events

ShipThanks is API-first. When something worth thanking happens — an order, a renewal, a subscription — your order management system, back office, or storefront makes one call:

POST /api/v1/conversations
{
  "externalRef": "ORD-1001",
  "seller": { "externalId": "rep-1001", "phone": "+15551234567" },
  "customer": { "firstName": "Casey", "phone": "+15557654321" },
  "event": { "type": "ORDER", "description": "Monthly protein powder" }
}

That one call is all it takes. Both parties are created automatically from the phone numbers you send: customers if ShipThanks hasn't seen them before, and sellers provisioned on the fly — no roster upload, no seller sign-up, no separate setup step. You can start with this single call and enrich later. See the API reference for the full contract and authentication.

Consent is your responsibility. ShipThanks sends SMS on your behalf, so before you pass a phone number you must have that person's permission to text them — from your customers, who receive the video thank-you and can reply, and from your sellers, who receive record prompts. Capture customer opt-in at the point of purchase and pass it in the customer.consent block; make sure each seller has agreed to receive prompts before you enroll their number. Anyone who replies STOP is opted out automatically and skipped on future sends.

3. Configure your message template

Set your organization's default message template — the text that wraps each video, with variables for the customer's name, the seller's name, and the tracking number. A sensible system default applies until you do, so a recorded video is never blocked on configuration.

You're live

From here the loop runs itself: orders come in, sellers get prompted, videos go out, conversations start, and the analytics accumulate.