What is SMS Marketing?
By Yousef Fatehpour |
This ultimate guide to SMS marketing software will help you learn the basics of SMS marketing, the benefits for your business and customers...Read More >
Best SMS Marketing Software 2021
SMS marketing software is built to support various types of businesses in leveraging text messaging for communications. There are general software solutions designed for a range of businesses, as well as specialized services dedicated to specific industries. The SMS marketing space includes all-in-one solutions as well as solutions best for specific use cases, such as mass texting.
These solutions typically offer features like subscriber list building, segmenting, text campaigns, and automated messages. SMS Marketing software provides value for a wide range of user types, from churches to ecommerce businesses. SMS marketing tools are often used in combination with email marketing software, social media management software, and SEO software by marketers at larger organizations. Read our full introduction to SMS marketing software.
Research Led By:
Junior Research Analyst
SMS Marketing Software Prices
SMS marketing software prices range from free to thousands of dollars per month. Most small businesses pay around $25 to $100 per month for SMS marketing software. Here's details that will help you compare prices for the most popular SMS marketing software platforms.
| Software Vendor | Starting Monthly Price | Per Message Fee | Free Trial | Subscription Add-Ons |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SlickText | $29 | Included in Subscription | Yes |
|
| SMSBump | $0 | $0.0149 | No |
|
| SimpleTexting | $25 | $0.045 | Yes |
|
| Emotive | $200 | $0.02 | Yes |
|
| Postscript | $25 | $0.01 | Yes |
|
| Avochato | $92 | $0.03 | Yes |
|
| ZipWhip | $30 | Included in Subscription | Yes |
|
| EZ Texting | $24 | $0.04 | Yes |
|
| Textedly | $24 | Included in Subscription | Yes |
|
| TextMagic | $0 | $0.04 | Yes |
|
SMS Marketing Software FAQs
SMS marketing software allows small and medium sized businesses to promote their services with new and existing customers through text messages. Common features include customer list building, customer segmentation, and campaign building.
There are numerous benefits that SMS marketing software offers. This includes:
- Building a unique and efficient line of communication with your customers
- Generating leads and new customers
- Sending text blasts, such as appointment reminders or alerts
- Retaining customers efficiently by automating engaging campaigns
The cost of SMS marketing software usually depends on how many messages you send per month. However, some companies charge additionally for features. If this is the case, platform fees usually range from $20 to $350 dollars.
For companies that charge solely on messages sent per month, businesses that send anything from 500 to 25,000 messages per month should expect to pay $20 to $600 dollars per month.
The best SMS marketing software for you depends on what your business needs. The best software for companies that want a powerful solution is SlickText. Companies who have more simple use cases, such as text blasts or appointment reminders, will find SimpleTexting ideal. Finally, SMSBump is the best text marketing software for ecommerce businesses.
EZTexting and TextMagic are two of the most popular SMS marketing tools in the market today. Both have served over 100,000 customers.
The most common SMS marketing software features are:
- Subscriber list building
- Segmentation
- Campaign building
- Automations
- Two-way messaging
- Analytics
SMS Marketing Software Research & Advice
SMS Marketing Software Comparison
By Yousef Fatehpour |
With several high-quality options to choose from, it can be hard to find the best SMS marketing software for you. We've spent over 100...Read More >
ZipWhip Competitors & Alternatives
By Yousef Fatehpour |
Are you considering purchasing ZipWhip to manage your SMS marketing needs? Before making the purchase, it’s best to learn about ZipWhip’s...Read More >
SMSBump Competitors & Alternatives
By Yousef Fatehpour |
Are you considering purchasing SMSBump to manage your SMS marketing needs? Before making the purchase, it’s best to learn about SMSBump’s...Read More >
SimpleTexting Competitors & Alternatives
By Yousef Fatehpour |
Are you considering purchasing SimpleTexting to manage your SMS marketing needs? Before making the purchase, it’s best to learn about...Read More >
SlickText Competitors & Alternatives
By Yousef Fatehpour |
Are you considering purchasing SlickText to manage your SMS marketing needs? Before making the purchase, it’s best to learn about SlickText...Read More >
SlickText vs. EZ Texting
By Yousef Fatehpour |
Is SlickText or EZ Texting the better solution for you? This in-depth, feature-by-feature breakdown will help you decide which SMS...Read More >
SlickText vs. Avochato
By Yousef Fatehpour |
Is SlickText or Avochato the better solution for you? This in-depth, feature-by-feature breakdown will help you decide which SMS marketing...Read More >
Textedly vs. SimpleTexting
By Yousef Fatehpour |
Is Textedly or SimpleTexting the better solution for you? This in-depth, feature-by-feature breakdown will help you decide which SMS...Read More >
Why You Should Trust Our Recommendations
The team at SoftwarePundit has been testing software since 2017. We’ve hand-tested over 250 software products in that time, including four in the SMS marketing category. We applied the same rigorous process to each piece of SMS marketing software that we analyzed. The specifics of our SMS marketing category research process are outlined below.
Yousef led our analysis of SMS marketing software. He has spent more than 250 hours evaluating leading SMS marketing software solutions.
In addition, all research and content was overseen by Bruce Hogan, SoftwarePundit’s Co-founder & CEO. Bruce has more than a decade of experience researching, building, and reviewing the world’s best software products. His technology advice has been featured on a wide range of media sites such as AngelList, CMSWire, Dental Economics, iPhone Life, Reader’s Digest, Thrive Global, U.S. News, and the Zapier Blog.
How We Selected the Best SMS Marketing Software
We selected the best SMS marketing software based upon a number of criteria. The most important criteria were each software tool’s features, usability, price, and customer support. The details of our analyses are captured in the in-depth reviews we publish about each software tool.
There are a handful of critical features that you should look for in SMS marketing software. We prioritized the following features in our analysis:
- Custom List Building: SMS marketing tools let you build subscriber lists to later segment and build campaigns for. Keywords are the primary list building method. However, tools that offer multiple list building options help your business generate more subscribers.
- Segmentation: Once you build your list, you’ll want to segment your subscribers based on various conditions, such as total amount spent or opt-in date. It’s important that a tool offers enough segment conditions so you can target subscribers as specifically as possible.
- Campaign Building: Building campaigns is the primary way your business will communicate with subscribers. If a tool has multiple campaign building options, your business gains unique ways to engage with and retain subscribers.
- Automations: Automations are fundamental to keeping your subscriber communication efficient. It’s very important that a tool has flexible automation that can be utilized in both list and campaign building. This makes subscriber growth and engagement for your business highly efficient.
How We Evaluated SMS Marketing Software
We used the same rigorous process to evaluate SMS marketing software as all other software categories. For the SMS marketing category, Yousef invested several weeks researching the market, testing out key SMS marketing features, and publishing his insights about the tools.
We interviewed most of the teams at the software companies listed above. Our conversations with the companies included questions about each company's product, the size of business each product works best for, pricing, customer support, and business strength. After a general interview, Yousef spent additional time participating in a product demo led by each company. This provided Yousef with the opportunity to ask detailed questions about the features and functionality of the SMS marketing software.
Yousef signed up for free trials of each solution listed above to gain a deeper understanding of each SMS marketing tool. This allowed him to authenticate the features offered by each solution. He used several numbers and spent hours testing each tools’ subscriber list building, segmentation, campaign creation, automation, two-way messaging and analytics capabilities. He also downloaded the mobile app version of SMS marketing solutions to understand the mobile experience for text marketers.
In addition to conducting conversations with the software companies and hand-testing every piece of software, Yousef also spent dozens of hours interviewing real customers of the software tools listed above. SMS marketing software customers that provided insights that were included in our analysis and reviews were:
- Alex Jasso: Alex Jasso is a marketer at Herrman & Herrman PLLC. His company currently uses SimpleTexting.
- Jason Hill: Jason Hill is a founder at Sound Advice Careers. His company currently uses SMS-Magic.
- Tracie Pang: Tracie Pang is an email marketing manager at Emazing Group. Her company currently uses Attentive.