Quick Start
Get up and running with the SendAPI platform in under 5 minutes.
By the end of this guide, you will have created a SendAPI acccount, obtained an API key, and successfully dispatched your first message.
1. Create your account
First, sign up for a free SendAPI account. The Developer plan is completely free and includes 1,000 requests per month, which offers full access to the WhatsApp, SMS, and Email endpoints without requiring a credit card.
2. Obtain your API Key
Once logged in to the dashboard:
- Navigate to Platform > API Keys in the sidebar.
- Click Create New Key.
- Name your key (e.g.,
Development Key) and select Test Mode. - Copy the generated
sk_test_...key.
Secure your key
For security reasons, you will only be able to see the secret key once. If you lose it, you will need to revoke it and generate a new one. Store it securely in your .env file.
3. Make your first request
You can interact with the SendAPI using our official SDKs or via any standard HTTP client. For this quick start, we will use cURL to send a test SMS message.
Open your terminal and run the following command, replacing YOUR_API_KEY with the key you just generated, and YOUR_PHONE_NUMBER with your mobile device number (in E.164 format, e.g., +1234567890).
curl -X POST https://api.sendapi.co/v1/sms/send \
-H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"to": "YOUR_PHONE_NUMBER",
"message": "Hello from my first SendAPI request! 🚀"
}'Inspecting the response
If the request was successful, SendAPI will return an HTTP 200 OK generic response containing the unique message_id:
{
"id": "msg_01H8BKF...Z2T",
"status": "queued",
"to": "+1234567890",
"created_at": "2026-03-09T14:30:00Z"
}Congratulations! You have successfully integrated SendAPI.
Next Steps
Now that you understand the basics of authentication and request structure, you can explore the specific channel APIs: