# What do SMS message statuses mean?

> An SMS message moves through statuses on its way to a handset — typically queued or accepted (received by the platform), sent (handed to the operator), delivered (confirmed on the handset), and failed, expired, or rejected when something goes wrong. These states come back as delivery receipts (DLRs), and reading them by status and error code is how you know what actually happened to each message.

- Canonical URL: https://www.broadnet.me/answers/what-is-message-status
- Language: en
- Last reviewed: 2026-07-22
- Publisher: BroadNet (https://www.broadnet.me)

## The common states

Queued/accepted means the platform took the message; sent means it reached the operator; delivered means the handset confirmed receipt; failed/expired/rejected mean it did not arrive, usually with an operator error code explaining why. See /answers/what-is-dlr.

## Sent is not delivered

A 'sent' status only means the operator accepted the message, not that it reached the phone. Only 'delivered' — with an operator-level receipt — confirms arrival, which is why transparent DLRs matter. See /answers/how-to-improve-sms-delivery-rates.

## Act on the status

Read statuses in real time via a webhook so your application can retry failures, trigger fallback, or update the user. See /answers/what-is-a-messaging-webhook and /tools/dlr-decoder.

## Related

- [All answers](https://www.broadnet.me/answers)
- [Glossary](https://www.broadnet.me/answers)
- [What is a DLR (Delivery Receipt)?](https://www.broadnet.me/answers/what-is-dlr)
- [What is a messaging webhook?](https://www.broadnet.me/answers/what-is-a-messaging-webhook)
- [How do I improve SMS delivery rates?](https://www.broadnet.me/answers/how-to-improve-sms-delivery-rates)
- [MO vs MT — what's the difference?](https://www.broadnet.me/answers/what-is-mo-vs-mt)
- [DLR decoder](https://www.broadnet.me/tools/dlr-decoder)
- [Webhook setup](https://www.broadnet.me/developers/webhooks)
- [SMS API](https://www.broadnet.me/products/sms-api)