Homing Pigeon vs. AI Text-a-roo

Both let a coding agent text your own phone, and both are set up the same way: you read back a six-digit code and the agent does the rest.

AI Text-a-roo is two-way. Your agent gets its own number, it can text you, and you can text it back. It signs up Canadian mobile numbers only for now.

Homing Pigeon is one-way alerts to a US mobile number: a job finished, a trade filled, a server went down.

On a US phone today, use Homing Pigeon. In Canada, or to text your agent back, use AI Text-a-roo.

	Homing Pigeon	AI Text-a-roo
Phones	US mobile numbers	Canadian mobile numbers for now. US is listed as coming soon.
Direction	Alerts to you. Replies are STOP, START and HELP only.	Two-way: your agent texts you, and you can text it
Who it texts	Only your own verified number	Only you, from your agent's own number
Free	50 texts a month	10 messages a day
Paid	$19 a month for 1,000 texts	US$5 a month for 200 messages a day
Setup	Your agent submits your number, you read back a six-digit code	You get a six-digit code by text and hand it to your agent
Agent tools	Remote MCP server for Claude and ChatGPT, local MCP server for Claude Code, Codex and Cursor, plugins for Claude Code, Codex and Gemini CLI, an Agent Skill, and hooks that text you when a long run finishes	Remote MCP server, plugins for Claude Code, Codex and Gemini CLI, an Agent Skill, and a bridge that turns your texts into agent prompts

AI Text-a-roo details are from aitextaroo.com and its docs, updated November 3, 2026, and checked November 4, 2026.

• Your phone number is Canadian.
• You want to text your agent from your phone and have it answer.
• You want your agent to ask you a question by text and wait for the reply.

• Your phone number is in the US.
• You want alerts from a bot, script, server or cron job, not a conversation.
• You want a text when Claude Code, Codex or Cursor finishes a long run or needs you.
• Your code is Python and you want pip install homingpigeondev.

Why can't AI Text-a-roo text US numbers yet?

Its terms say US carriers require a registration it hasn't done yet.

What else is out there?

Textbelt, SelfPing, Claw Messenger and more are compared in ways to get text alerts from your code.

Homing Pigeon (homingpigeon.dev) sends text-message alerts from your code or your coding agent to one phone: yours. No carrier registration, no app, no browser signup. Free to start.

Add it to Claude Code, then ask for what you want:

claude mcp add homingpigeondev -- npx -y homingpigeondev mcp

Codex, Cursor, Python, the command line and the API are in the README. See what people use it for.