ChatGPT over SMS

Why SMS instead of an app

Apps need a modern phone, a data connection, storage space, and an account you stay signed into. SMS needs a signal. That difference matters more often than it sounds: dead zones, prepaid phones, work phones locked down by IT, a kid’s first phone, a parent who is never going to install anything, or a battery at three percent where opening an app is not worth it.

Because SMS rides the cellular control channel rather than a data connection, it reaches places data does not. If you can receive a text from your carrier, you can reach TextGPT.

What it can answer

TextGPT runs on GPT-5.6 with web search enabled, so it handles both general knowledge and questions about things happening now. Long answers are split automatically across multiple messages so nothing gets truncated.

It also generates images on request. Prefix a message with 🖌️ or 🖼️ and the result comes back as a picture message. You can send it a photo too, either to ask about it or to have it edited.

Privacy on a shared channel

Message history is opt-in. With memory disabled — the default — your messages are not stored in our database, and you can delete stored messages at any time if you have turned memory on.

Worth knowing regardless: SMS is not an encrypted channel. Your carrier can see message contents in transit, the same as any other text you send. For genuinely sensitive material, use an encrypted tool instead.

Common questions

• Does this work on a flip phone or a non-smartphone?

  Yes, as long as the phone can send and receive SMS. Text answers arrive as ordinary messages. Generated images arrive as MMS, so a phone without MMS support will receive the text replies but not the pictures.

• Do I need mobile data or Wi-Fi?

  No. SMS runs on the cellular control channel, so TextGPT works in places where data is too weak to load an app — basements, rural highways, older networks, or a phone with data turned off.

• Does OpenAI offer an official SMS number?

  OpenAI does not offer ChatGPT over plain SMS. TextGPT is an independent service that connects OpenAI’s API to a phone number, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by OpenAI.

• Do standard message rates apply?

  Your carrier bills incoming and outgoing texts according to your own plan, which for most US and Canadian plans means unlimited messaging at no extra cost. TextGPT’s own cost is the prepaid token balance.