Quickstart

In this guide you send a verification code to your own phone and check it. It takes about five minutes.

Prerequisites

An OTPBay account. Sign up — new accounts get $1.00 of free credit.
A phone number with Telegram installed, or any phone that receives SMS.

Verify a phone number

Create an API key

In the dashboard, open your project and go to API Keys. Click New API key, give it a name and copy the key.Keys start with otp_live_. OTPBay shows a key only once, so store it somewhere safe, such as an environment variable:

export OTPBAY_API_KEY="otp_live_..."

Start a verification

Send the phone number in international format. OTPBay generates a code and sends it over Telegram, falling back to SMS if Telegram can’t deliver.

curl -X POST https://api.otpbay.com/v1/verifications \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OTPBAY_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "to": "+14155552671" }'

const res = await fetch("https://api.otpbay.com/v1/verifications", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.OTPBAY_API_KEY}`,
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({ to: "+14155552671" }),
});

const verification = await res.json();
console.log(verification.sid);

import os
import requests

res = requests.post(
    "https://api.otpbay.com/v1/verifications",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['OTPBAY_API_KEY']}"},
    json={"to": "+14155552671"},
)

verification = res.json()
print(verification["sid"])

The response includes a sid. Save it — you need it to check the code.

{
  "sid": "VE6650c3a1b2c3d4e5f6a7b8c9",
  "status": "pending",
  "to": "+14155552671",
  "channel": "telegram",
  "checks_left": 5,
  "expires_at": "2026-09-26T10:25:01.873Z",
  ...
}

Check the code

Enter the code you received, using the sid from the previous step:

curl -X POST https://api.otpbay.com/v1/verifications/VE6650c3a1b2c3d4e5f6a7b8c9/check \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OTPBAY_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "code": "482913" }'

const res = await fetch(
  `https://api.otpbay.com/v1/verifications/${sid}/check`,
  {
    method: "POST",
    headers: {
      Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.OTPBAY_API_KEY}`,
      "Content-Type": "application/json",
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({ code: "482913" }),
  }
);

const { valid, status } = await res.json();

res = requests.post(
    f"https://api.otpbay.com/v1/verifications/{sid}/check",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['OTPBAY_API_KEY']}"},
    json={"code": "482913"},
)

result = res.json()
print(result["valid"], result["status"])

A correct code returns "valid": true and "status": "approved". The phone number is verified.

A wrong code also returns HTTP 200, with "valid": false. Always read valid rather than relying on the status code.

Get started

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