What is the difference between a phone number and an email sender?

Unlike other popular messaging apps, such as WhatsApp, iMessage supports sending and receiving messages via email address.

If you open Settings -> Apps -> Messages -> Send & Receive on your iPhone, you'll see that you can also choose what you use to send and receive messages.

LoopMessage offers the same option: you can use email, phone number, or both.

Is there any difference when used in production?

Email

Cons:

• In our experience, Apple is more strict with email-only senders. This means you'll need more time to warm it up (up to a 1-2 months) before it can handle many daily conversations.
• Whenever Apple makes any pereodic updates to its message delivery algorithms, it always impacts email-only senders first.
• For some users, it is not obvious that they can send an iMessage to an email address.

Pros:

• You can use your personal brand in the name. You can even use a corporate domain (requires additional preparation).
• If you need to isolate a conversation only to iMessage users, this is a perfect option, as Android users can't send iMessage/RCS to email.

Phone number

Cons:

• Requires additional costs, as it requires issuing and maintaining a phone number that will be connected to iMessage.

Pros:

• Phone numbers can be used much faster in production. A number only needs to be 1-2 weeks old before you can have good deliverability.
• Phone numbers are almost never affected by issues related to Apple's periodic delivery algorithm updates.
• You can add SMS fallback and call forwarding options so your number supports all the necessary cell features.
• You can register this number in other messengers or services where your users can also interact with it.
• Easy to ask a user to initiate a conversation. You can simply share your phone number with them or post it on your website.

If my sender name has an email address + phone number, can I ignore the email?

Yes, you don't have to use email at all. It's the same as on your iPhone—you can be reached via email, but your contacts likely interact with you via phone number and don't even know you have an email there.

Updated on: 11/11/2025