How do I send uptime alerts by SMS?

In UpDog, create an alert for your monitor. In the alert modal, choose SMS as the destination, add the phone number(s), save, and send a test alert to confirm delivery.

Which monitors should send SMS uptime alerts?

Only the monitors that truly require immediate action—production checkout, auth, core APIs, and other high-severity endpoints. Keep everything else in email or chat.

Why am I not receiving SMS uptime alerts?

Confirm the phone number is correct, SMS notifications are enabled, and the monitor is routed to SMS. Also check carrier filtering and blocked/unknown sender settings.

How do I reduce noise from SMS uptime alerts?

Route fewer monitors to SMS, tune check retries and intervals, and avoid paging for non-production environments.

Should I use SMS or PagerDuty for uptime alerts?

SMS is simple and urgent. PagerDuty is better when you need schedules, escalation, and acknowledgements. Many teams use PagerDuty for on-call and SMS as an additional escalation path.

SMS alerts for uptime monitoring

Send uptime alerts by SMS for the incidents that can’t wait. Texts are blunt, fast, and hard to ignore—use them for high-severity downtime and keep noise low.

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How UpDog + SMS works

SMS is for the incidents that can’t wait. UpDog sends a short text when a monitor changes state so responders see the essentials immediately and can click through for context.

Keep it high signal

Route only production-critical monitors
Use retries/intervals to avoid flapping texts
Send recovery messages so incidents can be closed

Typical escalation stack

SMS for urgent delivery
Slack/Teams for coordination and investigation
PagerDuty if you need schedules and acknowledgements

What you can do with UpDog + SMS

Send SMS uptime alerts for critical downtime and recovery updates.
Escalate quickly when chat notifications aren’t enough.
Keep the payload short: what broke, when it changed, and one link to investigate.

How to set it up (step-by-step)

Create a production-critical monitor in UpDog.
Create an alert for that monitor.
In the alert modal, choose SMS as the destination.
Add the phone number(s) that should receive alerts.
Save and send a test alert to verify delivery on each device.

Best practices

Reserve SMS for a small set of monitors

If everything pages, nothing pages. Keep SMS limited to the endpoints that directly impact revenue or core functionality.

Tune checks to prevent flapping texts

Use retries and sane intervals so a single transient blip doesn’t wake people up.

Define escalation

SMS is urgent, but it’s not a full on-call system. If you need schedules and acknowledgements, pair with an on-call tool.

Troubleshooting

No SMS received: verify number formatting, that SMS is enabled, and that the monitor is routed to SMS.
Carrier filtering: some carriers filter automated messages; check blocked senders and spam settings.
Too many texts: route fewer monitors to SMS and tune intervals/retries.
Wrong recipients: confirm which numbers are attached to each notification group.

FAQ

Create an alert in UpDog, choose SMS in the alert modal, add recipients, save, and send a test alert.

Only production-critical monitors that require immediate action.

Check number formatting, routing, and carrier filtering/spam settings.

Route fewer monitors to SMS and tune retries/intervals to prevent flapping.

PagerDuty is better for on-call escalation workflows. SMS is great as a simple urgent channel or additional escalation path.

Related features

Other integrations

Build your alert stack:

Slack – Team coordination and visibility
PagerDuty – On-call schedules and escalation
Email – Reliable inbox delivery
Microsoft Teams – Enterprise team chat

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Set up one critical monitor and get your first SMS alert when it matters.

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