---
id: telesign
version: "4.1.0"
license: MIT
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# telesign — TeleSign SDK

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 804.5K/mo

## What it is and what it does

TeleSign SDK is a Python client library for the TeleSign communications platform, a service that handles SMS messaging, voice calls, and identity verification at scale. It wraps TeleSign's REST API, letting you send messages, verify phone numbers, and perform authentication checks from Python code. The library depends only on requests and installs as a pure wheel, making it lightweight to add to existing projects.

The SDK is production-stable (Development Status 5) and has been maintained since 2012. It supports Python 2.7 and Python 3.3 through 3.12, though Python 2 is now end-of-life. Recent releases and active commits indicate ongoing maintenance. Use it when you need to integrate SMS or voice-based authentication, send transactional messages to phone numbers, or verify user identities as part of a larger application.

Use it for:

- Send one-time passwords or verification codes via SMS for two-factor authentication flows.
- Deliver transactional notifications (appointment reminders, delivery updates) to phone numbers.
- Verify phone number ownership during user registration or account recovery.
- Implement voice-based authentication or notification delivery for accessibility.
- Build fraud prevention workflows that check phone number reputation or risk scores.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

TeleSign SDK provides Python bindings to send SMS and voice messages, verify phone numbers, and perform identity checks via the TeleSign communications platform API.

Yes, if you need SMS or voice messaging from a production-grade platform. The SDK is actively maintained, has no known vulnerabilities, installs cleanly with minimal dependencies, and carries a permissive MIT license. The main requirement is a TeleSign account and API credentials; without them, the SDK alone is not useful. Suitable for production use in applications requiring reliable phone-based communication.

## Install

pip install telesign
uv add telesign
poetry add telesign

## Installing telesign

Before you install: Low friction: pure Python wheel with only requests as a runtime dependency. Active maintenance with a recent release (29 days old) and ongoing repository commits.

License in practice: MIT license permits commercial and private use with minimal restrictions; you may use, modify, and distribute the code provided you include the license notice.

Quickstart:

pip install telesign

from telesign.messaging import MessagingClient

customer_id = "your-customer-id"
api_key = "your-api-key"
messaging_client = MessagingClient(customer_id, api_key)
response = messaging_client.message("+1234567890", "Your code: 1234", "ARN")

Requires a TeleSign account with Customer ID and API Key from the TeleSign Portal to authenticate API calls.

Verify before relying:

- Whether the SDK supports modern async/await patterns or is callback/blocking only.
- Rate limiting and quota behavior for high-volume messaging scenarios.
- Exact error handling and retry logic for failed message delivery.

## Package facts

- License: MIT (permissive)
- Python support: unspecified
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 804.5K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

sms messaging api python, phone verification sdk, voice messaging service, telesign api client, identity verification platform, two-factor authentication sms, mobile communication api, sms-messaging, phone-verification, identity-verification

[View on SkillFed](https://skillfed.io/packages/telesign) · [View on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/telesign/)