In workflow email actions, we can send to a contact property that stores an email address (e.g., “Guardian 1 Email”). The SMS action has no equivalent; we can only send to the Enrolled Contact or Associated Contacts.
Please add a “Send SMS to a phone number property” option so SMS actions work the same way email actions already do.
The current limitation:
For the Send internal marketing email action, I can choose:
- Enter one or more email addresses, or
- Use a contact property that stores an email address (e.g., Guardian 1 Email, Guardian 2 Email)
For the Send SMS message action, my only options are:
- Enrolled contact
- Associated contacts (all or by label).
There is no “Use a contact property that stores a phone number” option.
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Why this matters, a real use case:
We’re an education business communicating with both students (enrolled contact) and their guardians. Our homegrown database syncs guardian info to HubSpot via API into custom properties (Guardian 1 Email, Guardian 1 Phone, Guardian 2 Email, Guardian 2 Phone, etc.).
For email, this works perfectly; the API keeps guardian contact info live and refreshed as parents update their information or new inquiries come in. Workflows just read the property and send emails based on the student’s contact property data populated.
On the flip side, SMS doesn’t support sending to a property. The only way to reach a guardian by SMS today is to create them as a separate contact record and associate them to the student.
That forces us into a process that is:
- Manual | Someone has to export, clean, and upload associated contacts on a recurring basis.
- Not live | A new inquiry can’t receive SMS until the next manual upload, which defeats the whole point of timely, automated nurture.
- Prone to data mixing | As students progress through our pipeline and connected forms/apps fire, associated contact records can get crossed, duplicated, or overwritten.
- Inflates contact count | We’re forced to create contacts we wouldn’t otherwise need in the CRM, which can push us into higher subscription tiers.
What I’m requesting
Add a third option to the Send SMS message workflow action:
- Enrolled contact
- Associated contacts
- Use a contact property that stores a phone number ← new
This would allow us to pick “Guardian 1 Phone,” “Guardian 2 Phone,” or any other custom phone property and have SMS behave exactly like the existing email action.
Why it’s worth building
- Parity | Email already works this way; SMS should match.
- Minimal dev lift | The UI pattern and property picker already exist in the email action.
- Unlocks Live Time SMS nurture | Critical for any business using a custom database or external system of record as the source of truth.
- Reduces contact bloat | Fewer duplicate/associated records means a cleaner CRM and fewer risks.
If you’ve hit this same wall; whether in education, real estate (buyer + co-buyer), healthcare (patient + guardian), home services (homeowner + spouse), or any B2C with multiple decision-makers per household; please upvote this idea!