Questions developers ask

Apian Labs Relay is an SMS-first reliability layer for transactional notifications and incident updates. It applies deterministic routing policies across providers and generates trace timelines + receipts for every message.

Relay is not an SMS provider - it orchestrates routing and proof on top of your provider contracts.

Failover triggers on retryable provider failures (timeouts, 5xx, and rate limiting) according to your routing policy. Relay retries by default with jittered backoff, then routes to the next provider in a fixed order. You can tune retry counts and backoff in policy rules.

You can start with one provider, but failover requires at least two. Most teams connect Twilio + Telnyx so Relay can route around provider incidents without changing their application code.

A segment is a label that groups traffic with the same reliability rules (for example: transactional vs incident). You select a policy by segment so routing behavior is consistent for that class of messages.

Relay starts in test mode with destination allowlisting and conservative limits to prevent abuse. You complete go-live checks before enabling production traffic.

Relay uses test-mode allowlisting, rate limits, and spend controls so accounts can't immediately send high-volume traffic. Production enablement requires go-live checks and a funded wallet.

Relay shows a trace timeline with each attempt, normalized error categories, and recommended next steps. If your policy allows, it deterministically fails over and emits signed webhook events you can ingest.

Relay is US-focused at launch (SMS-first). Additional regions and channels can be added later without breaking changes.

Apian Labs Relay charges per relay (one message accepted by the Relay API). Provider and carrier fees are billed by your providers. Apian bills only the Relay fee.