It seems like just yesterday that email was the hottest new marketing channel. Now, SMS marketing is quickly becoming a must-have for businesses of all sizes. With high open rates, it’s no wonder that more and more businesses are turning to SMS to reach their customers. But with so many different SMS marketing software and apps available, it can be tough to know which one is right for your business.
This in-depth report examines the top SMS marketing software and apps available, comparing their features, pricing, and reviews to help you make the best decision for your business.
Benefits of SMS Marketing
SMS marketing offers several benefits for businesses looking to connect with their customers:
- High open rates: SMS messages have significantly higher open rates compared to email, ensuring your message is seen.
- Direct and immediate communication: Deliver time-sensitive information, such as promotions or alerts, directly to your customers’ mobile devices.
- Personalized engagement: Use customer data to personalize messages and create targeted campaigns.
- Improved customer service: Provide quick and efficient customer support through two-way SMS conversations.
- Increased customer engagement: Encourage interaction and feedback through polls, surveys, and contests.
Top SMS Marketing Software and Apps
After a thorough evaluation, here are some of the top SMS marketing software and apps available:
- SimpleTexting: Best for easy-to-run SMS marketing campaigns
- TextMagic: Best for quickly sending texts
- SlickText: Best for collecting phone numbers and advanced marketing
- Sakari: Best for outgoing SMS marketing
- Salesmsg: Best for small, local businesses using SMS
- EZ Texting: Best for non-technical people who want guidance on SMS marketing
- Twilio: Best for customizing your SMS marketing
- GoHighLevel: Best for all-in-one marketing and business management with SMS capabilities
- Omnisend: Best for combining SMS and email marketing in a single platform
- Mobile Text Alerts: Best for affordable SMS marketing with extensive integrations
- Attentive: Best for personalized SMS marketing
GoHighLevel
GoHighLevel is an all-in-one marketing and business management platform that offers a variety of features, including SMS marketing capabilities. It’s designed to help businesses streamline their operations and improve customer engagement. Some of its key features include:
- CRM and Pipeline Management: Manage your contacts, track interactions, and automate follow-ups to nurture leads and improve customer relationships.
- Marketing Automation: Automate your marketing tasks, such as sending emails, text messages, and voicemails, to save time and improve efficiency.
- Website and Funnel Builder: Create landing pages, websites, and sales funnels to capture leads and drive conversions.
- Two-Way Communication: Connect with your leads and customers through various channels, including SMS, email, phone calls, and Facebook Messenger.
Start your GoHighLevel free trial today!
Reviews: GoHighLevel is praised for its comprehensive features and affordability. Users appreciate its ability to streamline marketing and business operations. However, some users find the platform to have a steep learning curve due to its extensive functionality.
Pricing:
GoHighLevel offers three main pricing plans:
| Plan | Price per Month | Features |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $97 | Up to three sub-accounts, CRM, email marketing, website builder, etc. |
| Unlimited | $297 | Unlimited sub-accounts, API access, branded desktop app |
| Pro | $497 | White label mobile app, custom Zapier integrations |
They also offer annual plans with a 16.6% discount.
SimpleTexting
SimpleTexting is a popular SMS marketing platform with a strong focus on small businesses. It offers a wide range of features, including:
- Two-way messaging: Have one-on-one conversations with customers.
- MMS marketing: Send pictures and videos to your subscribers.
- Keywords: Let people opt-in to your list by texting a keyword to your number.
- Data collection: Gather information from your subscribers with surveys and polls.
- Integrations: Connect SimpleTexting with your other marketing tools, including a pre-built Mailchimp integration.
SimpleTexting offers a 14-day free trial with 50 credits and unlimited keywords.
Reviews: SimpleTexting is known for its ease of use and comprehensive features. Users appreciate the platform’s user-friendly interface and helpful customer support.
Pricing:
SimpleTexting offers a variety of pricing plans to suit different needs and budgets:
| Messages per Month | Price per Month | Additional Credits |
|---|---|---|
| 500 | $29 | 5.5 cents |
| 1,000 | $49 | 5.0 cents |
| 2,000 | $79 | 4.0 cents |
| 3,000 | $109 | 4.0 cents |
| 7,500 | $229 | 3.5 cents |
| 15,000 | $399 | 3.0 cents |
| 25,000 | $549 | 2.5 cents |
| 50,000 | $899 | 2.0 cents |
| 50,000+ | Contact SimpleTexting |
They also offer annual plans with a 20% discount.
Case Study: Toroe Eyewear, an online retailer, generated an extra $7,000 in 30 days using SimpleTexting’s mobile sign-up widget to offer a 10% discount to customers. This resulted in a 156x return on their investment in SMS marketing.
TextMagic
TextMagic is another popular SMS marketing platform with a flexible pay-as-you-go pricing structure. It offers a variety of features, including:
- Two-way SMS chat: Have conversations with your customers.
- Email to SMS: Send text messages from your email account.
- SMS surveys: Collect feedback from your customers.
- Mass texting: Send bulk SMS messages to your subscribers.
- Automation: Automate your SMS marketing campaigns.
- Omnichannel platform: Manage SMS, email, voice, WhatsApp, and live chat from one unified platform.
- AI-powered responses: Utilize AI to suggest responses or create automated workflows.
TextMagic offers a 30-day free trial with $0.40 in messaging credits.
Reviews: TextMagic is known for its user-friendly interface and comprehensive features. Users appreciate the platform’s flexibility and ease of use.
Pricing:
Textmagic doesn’t charge any sign-up or account fees. Instead, users follow a flexible, tiered, pay-as-you-go structure where they purchase.
Case Study: Nestlé, a multinational food and beverage company, used TextMagic to quickly and easily set up a business location for SMS communication in under 20 minutes.
SlickText
SlickText is a powerful SMS marketing platform with a strong focus on customer engagement. It offers a variety of features, including:
- Mobile keywords: Create keywords that customers can text to join your list.
- MMS messaging: Send pictures and videos to your subscribers.
- Autoresponders: Send automated messages to new subscribers.
- Drip campaigns: Create automated sequences of text messages.
- Contests and promotions: Run text-to-win contests and other promotions.
- Workflows: Access to workflow features for higher-tier plans, allowing for more advanced automation and campaign management.
SlickText offers a 14-day free trial with 50 credits.
Reviews: SlickText is known for its user-friendly interface and powerful features. Users appreciate the platform’s ability to help them grow their business.
Pricing:
SlickText offers a variety of pricing plans based on the number of messages you plan to send each month:
| Messages | Textwords | Price per Month |
|---|---|---|
| 500 | 2 | $29 |
| 1,000 | 4 | $49 |
| 2,000 | 6 | $79 |
| 3,600 | 8 | $139 |
| 5,000 | 14 | $189 |
| 10,000 | 16 | $350 |
| 25,000 | 20 | $750 |
| 50,000 | 30 | $1,250 |
| 100,000 | 40 | $1,999 |
| 100,000+ | Custom pricing |
All plans include unlimited incoming texts and contacts, rollover messages, and live chat support.
Testimonial: Onyx & Oak, a home décor and furniture retailer, saw a 45% increase in monthly sales by implementing SlickText’s SMS marketing solutions.
Sakari
Sakari is an SMS marketing platform that focuses on outgoing SMS marketing and offers affordable pricing. It offers a variety of features, including:
- Scheduled messages: Schedule text messages to be sent at a later time.
- Autoresponders: Send automated responses to incoming messages.
- Email to SMS: Send text messages from your email account.
- International messaging: Send text messages to over 100 countries.
- Integrations: Connect Sakari with your other marketing tools.
- Landline texting: Send and receive text messages using your existing landline number.
- MMS messaging: Send multimedia messages, including pictures and GIFs, to provide more engaging content.
Sakari offers a 14-day free trial.
Reviews: Sakari is known for its ease of use and affordability. Users appreciate the platform’s transparent pricing and helpful customer support.
Pricing:
Sakari offers variable pricing plans starting at $25 USD per month. All plans include a corresponding amount of usage credit. All messaging plans to 1 month free if paying annually!) Any unused credits in a billing period will roll over for 90 days. At any point, additional top-up credits can be purchased should you need additional credits, without changing your renewal commitment!
Case Study: Octopus HACCP, a food safety management software company, used Sakari SMS to reduce their no-show rate for meetings by sending automated reminders to clients.
Salesmsg
Salesmsg is an SMS marketing platform designed for small, local businesses with a focus on CRM integrations. It offers a variety of features, including:
- Two-way messaging: Have conversations with your customers.
- MMS messaging: Send pictures and videos to your subscribers.
- Integrations: Connect Salesmsg with your CRM and other marketing tools.
- Local phone numbers: Get a local phone number for your business.
- Call forwarding: Forward calls from your Salesmsg number to your personal phone.
- Advanced calling features: Utilize call forwarding, recording, and analytics for efficient communication.
- HubSpot integration updates: Enhanced integration with HubSpot CRM to streamline workflows and improve SMS communication.
Salesmsg offers a 14-day free trial.
Reviews: Salesmsg is known for its ease of use and affordability. Users appreciate the platform’s ability to help them connect with their customers.
Pricing:
Salesmsg offers several pricing plans with varying features and message limits:
| Plan | Price per Month | Text Messages | Features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $25 | 500 | 1 number, shared inbox, basic integrations |
| Pro | $100 | 2,500 | 3 numbers, private inbox, advanced integrations |
| Premium | $300 | 7,500 | 5 numbers, shortcode mass texting, comprehensive onboarding, premier support |
| Custom | Varies | Dedicated shortcodes, 1-on-1 phone support, managed account setup |
If you want to send more texts than your monthly plan allows, you can purchase additional SMS for $0.025 each, or MMS for $0.05. Each plan comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Salesmsg offers services for North American numbers only, so American and Canadian numbers are both eligible.
Case Study: Allegiate Fitness, a fitness company, used Salesmsg integrated with HubSpot to auto-generate over 100 customer reviews, improve lead closure rates, and expand to new locations.
EZ Texting
EZ Texting is an SMS marketing platform that is designed for businesses of all sizes and offers a wide range of advanced features. It offers a variety of features, including:
- Keywords: Let people opt-in to your list by texting a keyword to your number.
- Drip campaigns: Create automated sequences of text messages.
- Text-to-landline: Send text messages to landline phones.
- Two-way conversations: Have one-on-one conversations with customers.
- MMS messaging: Send pictures and videos to your subscribers.
- Shutterstock integration: Access Shutterstock’s image library directly within the platform to enhance your messages with visuals.
- Web sign-up forms: Easily collect phone numbers and grow your subscriber list through customizable web forms.
EZ Texting offers a 14-day free trial with 120 credits.
Reviews: EZ Texting is known for its ease of use and comprehensive features. Users appreciate the platform’s wide range of features and helpful customer support.
Pricing:
EZ Texting offers four main pricing plans:
| Plan | Price per Month | Recommended For | Daily Messages at Max Speed | Free Messages per Month | Phone Number |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Launch | $20 (paying annually) $25 (paying monthly) | Up to 500 contacts | 500 | 500 | Local EZ Textable phone number |
| Boost | $60 (paying annually) $75 (paying monthly) | Up to 2,000 contacts | 2,000 50,000+ contacts | 1 million | 200,000 |
Case Study: Brian’s Place, a seafood restaurant, tripled their sales in some cases by using EZ Texting’s SMS and MMS solutions to promote their “Catches of the Week” and offer coupon incentives to customers.
Twilio
Twilio is a cloud communications platform that provides developers with the flexibility to build custom communication solutions. It offers a variety of features, including:
- Programmable SMS: Send and receive text messages programmatically.
- Programmable Voice: Make and receive phone calls programmatically.
- Programmable Video: Add video chat to your applications.
- Two-factor authentication: Add two-factor authentication to your applications.
- Programmable Messaging API: Send notifications across various channels, including SMS, MMS, WhatsApp, and push notifications, with reliable global delivery and real-time route optimization.
- Voice API: Reach consumers with programmatic voice notifications, including text-to-speech capabilities with hundreds of dialects and languages.
Twilio offers a pay-as-you-go pricing model.
Reviews: Twilio is known for its flexibility and customization options. Users appreciate the platform’s ability to help them build custom communication solutions.
Pricing:
Twilio uses a “pay-as-you-go” structure. SMS pricing is based on the destination and type of message email messages.
- Omnichannel campaigns: Design and execute marketing campaigns across multiple channels, including SMS, email, and push notifications.
- Segmentation and personalization: Target specific customer segments with personalized messages based on their behavior and preferences.
Omnisend offers SMS marketing packages starting at $16 per month.
Mobile Text Alerts
Mobile Text Alerts is an affordable SMS marketing platform that offers extensive integrations with other platforms. It offers a variety of features, including:
- Bulk SMS messaging: Send mass text messages to large groups of subscribers.
- Two-way texting: Engage in conversations with customers and provide personalized support.
- Mobile coupons: Create and distribute mobile coupons to incentivize purchases and drive sales.
Mobile Text Alerts offers pricing plans starting at $25 per month.
Attentive
Attentive is an SMS marketing platform that focuses on personalized text messaging. It offers a variety of features, including:
- AI-powered personalization: Utilize AI to personalize messages and optimize campaign performance.
- Two-way conversations: Engage in real-time conversations with customers and provide personalized support.
- Advanced segmentation: Target specific customer segments based on their behavior, demographics, and preferences.
Attentive offers custom pricing based on your specific needs and requirements.
SMS Marketing Examples
Here are a few examples of how businesses use SMS marketing:
- Promotions: Send exclusive discounts and promotions to subscribers to drive sales and encourage repeat business.
- Customer service: Provide quick and efficient customer support through two-way SMS conversations, answering questions and resolving issues in real-time.
- Reminders: Send appointment reminders, payment reminders, and shipping notifications to keep customers informed and improve efficiency.
Comparison of SMS Marketing Software and Apps
| Feature | SimpleTexting | TextMagic | SlickText | Sakari | Salesmsg | EZ Texting | Twilio | GoHighLevel |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Starts at $29/month | Pay-as-you-go | Starts at $29/month | Starts at $25/month | Starts at $25/month | Starts at $20/month (billed annually) | Pay-as-you-go | Starts at $97/month |
| Free Trial | 14 days | 30 days | 14 days | 14 days | 14 days | 14 days | Not available | 14 days |
| Two-Way Messaging | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| MMS Messaging | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Keywords | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Integrations | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Automation | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Ease of Use | High | High | High | High | High | High | Moderate | Moderate |
| Customer Support | High | Moderate | High | High | High | Moderate | Moderate | High |
| Best For | Easy-to-run SMS marketing campaigns | Quickly sending texts | Collecting phone numbers and advanced marketing | Outgoing SMS marketing | Small, local businesses | Non-technical people | Customizing your SMS marketing | All-in-one marketing and business management |
Choosing the best SMS marketing software or app depends on your specific needs and budget. Key factors to consider include pricing, features, ease of use, and integrations with other platforms.
- For businesses looking for an easy-to-use platform with comprehensive features and excellent customer support, SimpleTexting is a great option.
- If you need a platform with a flexible pay-as-you-go pricing structure and the ability to manage multiple communication channels, TextMagic is a good choice.
- Businesses that prioritize customer engagement and require advanced marketing features should consider SlickText.
- For those focused on affordability and international messaging capabilities, Sakari is a strong contender.
- Small businesses that need a local phone number and seamless CRM integrations will find Salesmsg to be a valuable tool.
- If you’re looking for a platform with a wide range of features and are not as tech-savvy, EZ Texting is a good option.
- Developers who require a highly customizable platform with extensive APIs for various communication channels should consider Twilio.
- Businesses seeking an all-in-one solution for marketing, sales, and business management with integrated SMS capabilities should explore GoHighLevel.
Ultimately, the best SMS marketing platform is the one that best aligns with your business goals and budget. We encourage you to explore the free trials offered by these platforms to experience their features and determine the best fit for your needs.
This report was compiled after reviewing leading technology blogs, analyzing user reviews on various platforms, and comparing pricing information from vendor websites.
