No, unfortunately, you would not be able to automate SMS in Airtable without using a 3rd-party app like Make.

You mentioned Zapier above, but I do not recommend using Zapier, because Make is INFINITELY more powerful & customizable than Zapier, yet it is SIGNIFICANTLY CHEAPER than Zapier. I wrote an entire post here comparing Make vs. Zapier. 

I actually give a demonstration on Airtable and Twilio here on this Airtable podcast episode, but there are much better, much easier, much simpler, and much cheaper SMS providers than Twilio — and which can all be automated from Airtable using Make’s automations and integrations. 

(Twilio is EXTREMELY overpriced, it is EXTREMELY complicated to setup, and their tech support is terrible.)

Instead of Twilio, there is MessageBird, TextMagic, SimpleTexting, and much more.

SimpleTexting is my current favorite, and I give a demonstration on Airtable and SimpleTexting on this Airtable podcast episode.

If you’ve never used Make before, I’ve assembled a bunch of Make training resources in this thread. For example, here is one of the ways that you could instantly trigger a Make automation from Airtable. 

I also give live demonstrations of how to use Make in many of my Airtable podcast appearances. For example, in this video, I show how to work with Airtable arrays in Make.

Hope this helps! If you’d like to hire the best Airtable consultant to help you with anything Airtable-related, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consultant — ScottWorld

hello everyone!
I was trying to find an answer to this question myself and I came across your post.

@Dental_Tour & @ScottWorld, this can be done directly from Airtable with TextMagic

You can create an automation within Airtable where the SMS can be sent based on conditions you specify.
You can connect your gmail account to TextMagic and create a very simple formula where your contact phone numbers get formatted to this string: phonenumber@textmagic.com

Let’s say you create a column with drop down menu with these 2 options:
READY TO SEND
SENT

you can than specify condition, that when the status of this column changes to READY TO SEND, airtable will initiate the automation and can send a text with dynamic fields of your choice.

I have it setup to send notifications to my clients based on status field and other conditions in the screenshot and it works great.
Cost: $4.00/month for a static number (fully featured 2-way text communication) + $0.04 per message (outbound). Inbound messages are free. Mobile app and web interface included.

Thanks! I’ve never heard of TextMagic before. Looks like Make supports TextMagic as well! :)

- ScottWorld, Expert Airtable Consultant

Thanks! I’ve never heard of TextMagic before. Looks like Make supports TextMagic as well! :)

- ScottWorld, Expert Airtable Consultant

@ScottWorld in my case I didn’t care about receiving replies into Airtable.
TextMagic has a webapp for more advanced scenarios as well as API key to integrate it into your proprietary solution.

When someone replies to my text, I get notified by email and by notifications inside TextMagic mobile app.

One click and I can respond to the message and interact with the sender right where we left off. TextMagic lets you customize your workflow by using automations, templates, forms and other features that I didn’t even try.
I’ve been using Textedly for last 2 years for bulk text messages and notifications, but TextMagic has way more features that I find more useful than Textedly.

I was looking for a solution that will not depend on Zapier, Integromat, Pabbly etc.
I wanted to be able to create a workflow where triggers inside Airtable would send customized messages using dynamic data inside Airtable.

I’m not sure why would you need replies to text messages inside your Airtable, but I realize that you may have a specific workflow and a reason for this option.

Another option is Twilio, but I realize that there is some learning curve when you setup it for the first time - something I didn’t want to spend time on.

My workflow is very similar to this one:
send text messages from airtable

I hope that helps.