canonical: https://jentic.com/apis/bulkgate.com/bulkgate

# BulkGate SMS API

Jentic publishes the only available OpenAPI specification for BulkGate SMS API, keeping it validated and agent-ready. BulkGate is a multichannel messaging platform focused on transactional and promotional SMS at scale, with both a simple sending mode and an advanced mode that supports per-recipient personalization. The API exposes 7 endpoints covering simple SMS, advanced SMS in two versions, and an account credit check. Use it for two-factor codes, order updates, marketing pushes, and any workflow that needs to drop a text message into the customer's phone with delivery tracking.

## For AI agents

Send transactional or promotional SMS through BulkGate and check the account credit balance across 7 endpoints.

## Scope

Does not handle voice calls, email, contact list management, or inbound SMS reply routing - use for outbound transactional and promotional SMS and credit checks only.

## Capabilities

- Send a single transactional SMS to a recipient with the simple endpoint
- Send a single promotional SMS with sender ID and unicode handling
- Send a personalised batch of transactional SMS with per-recipient variables
- Send a personalised batch of promotional SMS using the advanced v2 surface
- Check the current credit balance on the BulkGate account
- Specify a sender ID, country, and unicode setting per send
- Choose between v1 and v2 of the advanced send endpoints

## Use cases

### OTP and Two-Factor Delivery

Send one-time passwords for login, password reset, and high-risk action confirmation. The agent posts a generated code to /api/1.0/simple/transactional with the customer phone number and sender ID. Transactional routing prioritises delivery latency, so codes typically arrive within seconds - call /api/2.0/advanced/info ahead of campaigns to confirm the account has enough credit.

Example prompt: Send the SMS Your verification code is 482910 to phone +420601234567 from sender CompanyApp via the transactional endpoint.

### Order and Shipping Notifications

Drive customer order updates from a commerce backend. When an order ships, the agent calls the simple transactional endpoint with the carrier and tracking number. The advanced endpoints support per-recipient variables, so a single batch payload can deliver tailored updates to thousands of customers without iterating one request per recipient.

Example prompt: Send a personalised batch via /api/2.0/advanced/transactional containing 500 order updates, each with the customer's name and tracking number substituted.

### Promotional Campaigns

Run promotional SMS campaigns with the advanced v2 endpoint, which accepts batch recipients and per-recipient personalization. Combine it with a credit balance check via /api/2.0/advanced/info so the orchestrating script aborts cleanly if the balance is too low to fulfil the entire send rather than silently truncating.

Example prompt: Check the BulkGate credit balance, and if above 5000 credits send a promotional batch of 1500 messages with a per-recipient first-name variable.

### AI Agent Notification Service via Jentic

An agent connected via Jentic can be told send Lisa a reminder about her appointment by SMS and translate that into a single transactional send. The agent searches Jentic for send sms, loads the POST /api/1.0/simple/transactional schema, and executes against the operator's vault-stored BulkGate application_id and application_token without exposing them to the model.

Example prompt: Search Jentic for send a transactional SMS via BulkGate, load the schema, and send the user-provided message to the user-provided phone number.

## Key endpoints

| Method | Path | Description |
| --- | --- | --- |
| POST | /api/1.0/simple/transactional | Send a single transactional SMS |
| POST | /api/1.0/simple/promotional | Send a single promotional SMS |
| POST | /api/2.0/advanced/transactional | Send personalised transactional SMS batch (v2) |
| POST | /api/2.0/advanced/promotional | Send personalised promotional SMS batch (v2) |
| POST | /api/2.0/advanced/info | Check account credit balance |

## Key resources

- **Simple Transactional SMS** — Send a single transactional SMS
- **Simple Promotional SMS** — Send a single promotional SMS
- **Advanced Transactional SMS** — Send personalised transactional batches with v1 or v2 endpoints
- **Advanced Promotional SMS** — Send personalised promotional batches with v1 or v2 endpoints
- **Account Info** — Check the current BulkGate credit balance

## Why Jentic

- **Setup:** Wiring BulkGate by hand means merging your application_id and application_token into every request body against portal.bulkgate.com and choosing between the 1.0 simple and 2.0 advanced message paths yourself. Through Jentic you install once, import BulkGate from the API Directory, store the credentials once, and your agent calls it.
- **Permission scoping:** BulkGate carries the recipient numbers in the request body rather than the URL path, so scope the agent by the operations it needs, such as sending a transactional SMS or checking credit. Because you choose the allowed operations, it can send transactional messages without being able to send promotional campaigns unless you add that.
- **Credential handling:** Your BulkGate application_id and application_token pair is stored once, encrypted, by your own Jentic One instance and merged into the request body at execution time. Neither value ever enters the agent's prompt, logs, or context.
- **Discovery method:** Agents search Jentic by intent such as 'send a transactional SMS' or 'check SMS credit', and Jentic returns the matching BulkGate operation with its input schema so the agent calls the right endpoint without browsing the reference docs.

## Related APIs

- **BulkSMS API** — BulkSMS is a long-running SMS gateway with similar transactional and promotional capabilities and stronger UK and ZA presence.
- **Bugfender API** — Bugfender captures runtime logs from mobile apps that may use BulkGate to send transactional SMS.
- **Buildium API** — Buildium triggers tenant rent and maintenance events that BulkGate can fan out as SMS notifications.

## FAQ

### Why is there no official OpenAPI spec for BulkGate SMS API?

BulkGate documents its API in human-readable form but does not publish an OpenAPI specification. Jentic generates and maintains this spec so that AI agents and developers can call BulkGate SMS API via structured tooling. It is validated against the live API and kept up to date. Get started with Jentic One, the self-hosted execution layer.

### What authentication does the BulkGate SMS API use?

BulkGate authenticates using an application_id and application_token pair sent in the JSON request body, both obtained from the BulkGate Portal under API administration. Through Jentic, both values are stored encrypted in the vault and merged into the request body at execution time.

### What is the difference between simple and advanced SMS endpoints in BulkGate?

Simple endpoints (/api/1.0/simple/transactional and /promotional) send a single message to one or more numbers with shared content. Advanced endpoints (/api/1.0/advanced/* and /api/2.0/advanced/*) accept per-recipient variables for personalisation in a single request, useful for batch campaigns.

### Can I check the BulkGate credit balance through the API?

Yes. POST /api/2.0/advanced/info returns the current credit balance for the authenticated account. Call it before sending a large campaign to confirm there is enough credit to cover the full send rather than partially failing mid-batch.

### What are the rate limits for the BulkGate SMS API?

BulkGate enforces per-account throughput limits that are not encoded in the OpenAPI spec. Add retry-with-backoff for HTTP 429 responses and prefer the advanced batch endpoints over many simple sends to stay within fair-use thresholds.

### How do I send an SMS from an AI agent through Jentic?

Run pip install jentic and authenticate with your ak_* key. Search Jentic with send a transactional SMS via BulkGate, load the POST /api/1.0/simple/transactional operation, and execute it with the recipient phone, sender ID, and message text. Jentic injects application_id and application_token from your stored credentials.

### Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the BulkGate SMS API?

Yes. Because Jentic One is self-hosted, you control which BulkGate operations your agent may call and which credentials it may use. You can allow only the operations you trust, such as sending a transactional SMS via /api/1.0/simple/transactional or checking the account credit balance via /api/2.0/advanced/info, while withholding the promotional send endpoints. Since the recipient numbers travel in the request body rather than the URL, you scope the agent by the operations you grant, so it can send transactional messages without being able to run promotional campaigns unless you add that permission.