SMS Terms

1. The short version

PingStuff can text you when one of your monitored websites goes down or recovers, and you can text us back short commands to check on your sites. These are operational service messages only — we never send marketing texts of any kind. You opt in when you verify your phone number, and you can opt out at any time by replying STOP, which takes effect immediately.

2. Who provides this program, and its current status

The PingStuff SMS program is provided by PingStuff (operated by 9950931 Canada Inc., carrying on business as PingStuff.com, 2240 University Ave E., Waterloo, Ontario N2K 0A9, Canada) as part of the PingStuff monitoring service. These SMS Terms supplement our Terms of Service; where the two conflict about text messaging, these SMS Terms apply.

SMS alerts are live for Canadian mobile numbers; two-way SMS commands are not available yet. We send from a Canadian number and have not completed United States carrier registration, so text messaging is currently supported for Canadian mobile numbers only. If we cannot text your number, you still receive every alert by email — no alert is lost, it simply arrives by a different channel. Replying STOP works at all times and unsubscribes that number from every PingStuff text, not just one monitor or one website. Features described below may depend on your plan.

3. The messages we send — and what we never send

PingStuff sends only these kinds of text messages:

• Outage alerts — a monitored website of yours appears to be down.
• Recovery alerts — a monitored website of yours appears to be back up.
• Certificate-expiry warnings — an SSL/TLS certificate on a monitored site is approaching its expiry date.
• Verification codes — one-time codes used to verify that a phone number belongs to the person adding it.
• Replies to messages you send us — responses to the commands described in section 4.

We never send marketing or promotional text messages — no offers, no upsells, no newsletters by text. Nothing in the PingStuff product sends marketing messages of any kind. Consent to operational alerts is never treated as consent to marketing.

4. Two-way text commands

Two-way text commands are not available today. We may later support short commands from a verified number — for example STATUS, REPORT or ACK — and this section will be updated if we do.

The only texts we currently answer are STOP, START and HELP, which always work as described in section 6. Any other message you text to our number receives no reply. If you need help, use pingstuff.com/contact.

5. How consent works

Outage, recovery and certificate alerts are only sent to numbers that have been verified and opted in. The only other texts we send are the one-time verification code itself — sent when you ask us to verify a phone number, which necessarily happens before a consent record exists — and replies to texts you send us, including the STOP, HELP and START responses described in section 6.

Consent is collected when a phone number is verified: entering the one-time code we text you confirms both that the number is yours and that you agree to receive the operational messages described above. At the moment verification completes we record the time, the IP address the verification came from, and the version of the consent language you saw, as proof of consent.

Consent is not a condition of purchase. You can use PingStuff, including paid plans, without ever adding a phone number — outage and recovery alerts are also delivered by email.

6. Stopping texts: STOP, START and HELP

• STOP — reply STOP to any PingStuff text and all texts from PingStuff to that number stop immediately and globally — every message type, across the whole service. We keep a suppression record so we never text that number again. The opt-out is permanent unless you later text START.
• START — reply START to opt back in after a STOP.
• HELP — reply HELP at any time to get a short message explaining what the service is and how to contact us.

We keep records of consent and of STOP requests as proof of compliance, because we are legally required to be able to show that consent was given and that opt-outs were honoured. These records are keyed to the phone number, so if you delete your PingStuff account they are kept — unlinked from your deleted organization — along with the global STOP suppression list that guarantees we never text an opted-out number again. See our Privacy Policy.

7. Message frequency

Message frequency varies. It depends on how many sites you monitor and how often they have incidents — a quiet month may mean no texts at all, while an unstable site may generate several alerts in a day. Command replies are sent only when you text us first.

8. Message and data rates

Message and data rates may apply, depending on your mobile plan and carrier. PingStuff does not itself charge per text; any per-message or data charges come from your carrier.

9. Carriers and delivery

Text message delivery depends on mobile networks we don’t control. Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages. PingStuff cannot guarantee that any given text is delivered or delivered on time — do not rely on SMS as your only way of learning about an outage. Alerts are also delivered by email, and your dashboard always shows current status.

10. Supported regions

The SMS program is designed for phone numbers in the United States and Canada. We do not support numbers from other countries: delivery to them is not supported or guaranteed, and we may refuse to verify them.

11. Your privacy

Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle your data. Specific to texting: verification codes are stored only as cryptographic hashes, never in plain text, and the codes we send are never written to message logs; verification attempts are capped. You enter codes in the app — we never ask you to text a code back, and any text you do send us is logged like any other inbound message. We keep message logs for texts in both directions — the texts we send you (recipient, delivery status and message body) and the texts you send us (commands and any other texts, including the message body). These logs are automatically deleted after 13 months. We also keep the consent records described in section 5, including the IP address at the moment of consent, as compliance proof.

12. Changes to these terms

We may update these SMS Terms — for example when SMS features move from rolling-out to live, or when supported regions change. The “last updated” date at the top of this page will change when we do, and material changes will be communicated to account holders. These terms are governed by the law of Ontario, Canada, as set out in the Terms of Service.

13. Contact us

Questions about texting, consent or opting out: email support@pingstuff.com or — the most reliable channel while our mailboxes are being set up — use the contact form at pingstuff.com/contact.