ChatGPT itself has no phone number, so texting a GPT model means using a service that bridges OpenAI’s API to SMS. Here is the whole process, start to finish.
Create an accountCreate an account with the number you want to text from. Your phone number is the account — it is how the assistant knows which conversation and balance are yours.
$12 is the minimum and buys 240,000 credits, enough for around 120 exchanges; $24 buys twice that. There is no subscription and no recurring charge unless you turn on auto-refill.
Text your question to the TextGPT number the same way you would text a person. Plain English, no commands or special formatting needed.
The answer comes back as a normal text, usually within a few seconds. Longer answers are split across several messages in order.
OpenAI does not offer ChatGPT over plain SMS, so there is no official number to text. Reaching a GPT model from your messages app means going through a service that holds a phone number on one end and an OpenAI API key on the other.
That is what TextGPT is: it receives your text, forwards it to OpenAI’s API, and texts the response back. It is an independent service, not affiliated with or endorsed by OpenAI. The account exists because the API usage has to be billed to someone.
Most of the time you just write normally. Starting a message with 🖌️ or 🖼️ generates an image instead, with everything after the emoji treated as the image prompt. Attaching a photo also changes what happens: TextGPT works out whether you are asking about the picture or asking for it to be changed.
Web search is always on, so you can ask about current events and get an answer grounded in something more recent than the model’s training data.
No reply at all usually means your token balance hit zero — check for a message with a top-up link. A reply that stops mid-sentence usually means the rest is still arriving as a second message.
If the assistant seems to have forgotten the thread, memory is probably off, which is the default. Turn it on in your account settings if you want conversations to carry across messages.
OpenAI does not offer ChatGPT as a plain SMS service. Texting a GPT model means using a service like TextGPT that connects OpenAI’s API to a phone number and bills the usage to your account.
Start your message with 🖌️ or 🖼️ and describe what you want. For example: 🖌️ surrealist image of a dog park carnival. The image comes back as a picture message. It costs 1,422, 4,242 or 13,722 credits depending on the quality set on your account page. You can also text in a photo — ask a question about it and you get an answer, or ask for a change and you get an edited version back.
Only if you turn memory on. It is off by default, which means each message is answered on its own and nothing is stored. Enabling memory lets the assistant follow a conversation across messages.
A single SMS holds a limited number of characters, so long answers are split into chunks of about 1,400 characters and sent in sequence. Read them in the order they arrive.
You get a text with a payment link to top up. If you have turned on auto-refill, your saved card is charged $12 for another 240,000 credits automatically, before you run out, so there is no interruption. Auto-refill is off unless you switch it on, capped at three charges a day, receipted every time, and you can stop it by replying STOP REFILL.
US and Canadian mobile numbers. Other countries are not supported yet.
$12 gets you 240,000 credits — around 120 questions. No app, no subscription, no commitment.
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