A sender can create and send an instant voice message that can be delivered to recipients with SMS-enabled wireless stations regardless of the other communication capabilities of the wireless stations and the network or network service providers of the recipients. The sender creates an instant voice message and sends the message to a message server, which stores the message in an interactive voice response (IVR) system. If the instant voice message is a Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) message and the intended recipient's device does not support the MMS protocol, the voice content is extracted from the message and stored in the IVR system. An SMS notification is sent to the recipient and includes instructions for accessing the instant voice message from the IVR system. The SMS notification enables the recipient to access the instant voice message. The recipient can also create and reply to the voice message.