What do SMS delivery statuses actually mean?
SUBMITTED, DELIVERED, FAILED, EXPIRED — the statuses you see are a standardisation of operator DLRs.
Each operator reports delivery in their own format. SMSLocal normalises them into a common vocabulary so a dashboard filter means the same thing whether the carrier was Jio or Airtel.
The statuses
- SUBMITTED — we accepted the message and forwarded it to the operator's SMSC.
- DELIVERED — the operator confirmed delivery to the handset.
- FAILED — the operator reported a permanent failure (number invalid, DND-blocked, template mismatch).
- EXPIRED — the message sat on the SMSC longer than its validity period (usually 24h) and was dropped.
- UNKNOWN — no DLR received in 48 hours. You're not charged for these.
Webhook events fire the moment the status changes, so your system always has the freshest data. You can also pull the full DLR trail via the /v2/sms/dlr endpoint for any message in the last 90 days.
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