I need to send SMS messages from my app to users with status updates, but I don't like the "send an email to their phone numbers" route because the messages typically includes lots of cruft (like "FRM" and "MSG" and other random things).
I know I could get my own short code and use a service like Twilio or Clickatell, but short codes are out of my price range right now.
So are there any SMS gateways that let me use some sort of generic, random short code for only sending messages? I don't need any ability for users to reply to the text.
Here are a few options for you, all with varying APIs:
Probably also depends on where your users are, pretty sure Twilio only service US & Canada.