SMS Order Notifications for WooCommerce: setup guide

SMS Order Notifications for WooCommerce sends your customer a text message every time their order status changes: when it is confirmed, shipped, put on hold or cancelled. This guide takes you through installing it, connecting it to the Masters SMS gateway, writing your messages and checking that they arrive.

Why send order updates by SMS

• Customers know where their order is without asking, so "Where is my order?" messages drop.
• The Masters SMS gateway is built in. Add your account details and it works.
• Local numbers like 01001234567 are converted to the international format automatically.
• If a message fails because of a network problem, the plugin retries it up to 3 times in the background.

Before you start

• WordPress 6.0 or higher
• WooCommerce 7.0 or higher, installed and active
• PHP 8.2 or higher
• A Masters SMS account with an approved sender name

Step 1: Install the plugin

The plugin is free on WordPress.org at wordpress.org/plugins/sms-order-notifications. Installing it takes about two minutes.

From the WordPress dashboard (recommended)

1. Log in to your dashboard (/wp-admin).
2. Go to Plugins → Add New Plugin.
3. Click Upload Plugin and choose the woo-sms-notifications.zip file.
4. Click Install Now, then Activate Plugin.

By FTP

1. Unzip woo-sms-notifications.zip on your computer.
2. Upload the woo-sms-notifications folder to /wp-content/plugins/ with an FTP or SFTP client.
3. In the dashboard, open Plugins → Installed Plugins and click Activate under SMS Order Notifications.

Step 2: Configure it

Open WooCommerce → Settings → SMS Notifications. The settings are split into four tabs.

General settings

• Enable Plugin: the main switch for automatic messages on status changes.
• Enable Dispatch Logging: keeps every attempt, the gateway's response and any error.
• Default Country Code: 20 for Egypt. It is added to customer numbers that start with 0.
• Phone Check: skips sending when the customer left the phone number empty at checkout.

SMS provider

Enter your Masters SMS username, password and approved sender name (for example YourBrand), then use Send Test SMS with your own mobile number. A green message confirms the SMS was delivered.

Make sure your sender name is registered and approved. Mobile networks can block messages from sender names that aren't.

Step 3: Write your messages

Under Templates, each order status has its own message: Processing (payment received), Completed (shipped or fulfilled), On Hold (waiting for an offline payment) and Cancelled, Refunded or Failed. Open a status, tick Enable and write the text.

Watch the character counter. One SMS holds 160 Latin characters, or 70 characters in Arabic, and longer messages are sent as several parts. Preview with Sample Order shows the message as it will look on a phone.

Placeholders you can use

• Customer: {customer_name}, {customer_first_name}, {customer_last_name}, {customer_phone}, {customer_email}
• Order: {order_id}, {order_status}, {order_total}, {order_date}, {payment_method}, {shipping_method}
• Products and tracking: {products}, {product_names}, {tracking_number}, {tracking_url}
• Store: {site_name}, {site_url}

Two examples

Order confirmed: "Hi {customer_first_name}, thank you for your order #{order_id} at {site_name}! We are preparing your items now. Total: {order_total}."

Order shipped: "Great news {customer_first_name}! Your order #{order_id} has been shipped. Track your delivery here: {tracking_url}. Thank you for shopping with {site_name}!"

Step 4: Check logs and delivery

Logs & Reports lists every attempt. Search by customer, order ID or phone number, filter by Sent or Failed, export to CSV for accounting, or delete old entries in bulk.

Troubleshooting

Messages are not sending

Check that Enable Plugin is ticked, that your username, password and sender name are correct, then send a test SMS. The Logs & Reports tab shows the exact error returned by the gateway.

How are phone numbers formatted?

With the country code set to 20, both 01001234567 and +201001234567 become 201001234567.

What if a message fails?

It goes into a retry queue and is sent again up to 3 times: 5 minutes, 30 minutes and 2 hours after the first failure.

Need a Masters SMS account or help with your sender name? Message us on WhatsApp and we'll set it up with you.