How Much Does SMS Marketing Cost? (Comparison to Push & Email)

SMS marketing (aka text message marketing) is an effective way for brands to reach their customers with direct, time-sensitive messages.

SMS also has a reputation for being somewhat expensive. But just how true is this? And how does the cost of SMS marketing compare to other channels, such as email and push notifications?

This article will answer all of these questions for you, and help you understand whether SMS marketing is a good fit for your business.

MobiLoud helps brands launch mobile apps, which lets you unlock the power of push notifications for direct, mobile-first communications. Click here to learn more about how MobiLoud helps your business boost engagement, retention and revenue.

How SMS Marketing Pricing Works

SMS is typically charged per text message sent.

This differs from email and push, both of which you usually pay for a subscription to a marketing platform (e.g. MailChimp, Drip, Klaviyo), and you can essentially send as many emails/push notifications as you want without any extra costs.

In most cases, with SMS marketing you’ll sign up for a subscription to a marketing platform as well. However, unlike these other channels, the cost of your SMS messages is calculated on top of the monthly subscription cost.

Take note of this pricing structure, as it will make a big difference in how you decide what to use text messages for in your marketing strategy.

The Cost of SMS Marketing

So how much does SMS marketing actually cost?

The exact cost depends on your choice of provider. Here are a few popular tools:

• Klaviyo
• Omnisend
• Twilio
• Sender
• SimpleTexting

Let’s see how much it costs to send text messages with each of these platforms.

• ‍Klaviyo - $0.0090 - $0.0120 per SMS‍
• Omnisend - $0.015 per SMS‍
• Twilio - $0.0079 per SMS (cost decreases for bulk sends, starting after the first 150,000 monthly messages)‍
• Sender - $0.015 per SMS‍
• SimpleTexting - starting from $0.078 per SMS for 500 monthly texts, with the cost per SMS decreasing as volume increases.

Some tools (Klaviyo and Sender from the list above) require an additional monthly subscription to their email marketing platform in order to access SMS marketing.

In general, you’re looking at a baseline of 1-2c per SMS. (Twilio is cheaper, but is just a backend provider, and means you need to build the integration with your website or your app separately).

*Note that sending messages with images or videos (MMS) or messages to non-US numbers may cost more.

Comparing the Cost of SMS vs Push Notifications and Email

So we now have a rough idea of how much SMS marketing costs. Does this make it cheaper, more expensive, or the same as email and push notifications?

SMS marketing is roughly the same as email and push if you send a low quantity of messages, but scaling is a lot more expensive for SMS.

Let’s look at an example.

First, imagine you have 1,000 subscribers, who you want to message once per month.

With SMS, assuming a cost of $0.015 per text, this would cost $15.

For email and push notifications, most tools will charge you somewhere between $15-$40 per month for 1,000 subscribers, unless you have more complex automation needs.

So at this volume, the cost of SMS works out to be similar or slightly less than email/SMS.

There’s an important piece of information to note, however – if you want to send more messages, let’s say messaging your customers every two weeks, or even every week, it will cost 2x/4x as much with SMS, but no additional cost for email and push.

You could even send multiple messages per week with email and push for no extra cost, while this would get expensive fast with SMS.

Learn more about The Cost of Push Notifications, and why this channel is one of the most cost-effective ways to communicate with your customers.

Is SMS Marketing Worth It?

SMS marketing can be extremely effective in some situations.

Text messages have high deliverability, extremely high visibility, with open rates averaging a massive 98%.

They’re a great way to get in front of your customers, wherever they are (most people have their phones on them at all times), with messages that are almost certain to be seen.

It can be expensive at scale, though. Our best advice is to pick and choose when to use SMS marketing.

In a lot of situations, you can substitute SMS for push notifications (assuming your customers are also subscribed to push), and unlock greater flexibility with your messaging, and a better ROI when messaging at a higher scale.

Best Use Cases for SMS Marketing

SMS is typically best for important, time-sensitive messages, such as alerts or urgent updates.

Some examples include:

• Appointment reminders or confirmations of scheduled appointments.
• Login/activity alerts.
• Small-scale promotional messages.

You could use SMS for a wider variety of promotional use cases, such as:

• Product launches, sales and discount offers.
• Abandoned cart notifications.
• Order notifications and shipping updates.
• Post-purchase cross-sells and up-sells.
• Personalized promotions (e.g. birthdays, re-engagement offers).

However, be aware that the cost of sending these messages in bulk will add up. If you can get customers to download your mobile app, you’ll be able to use push notifications instead, and send more messages for a lot less cost.

How to Integrate SMS, Email and Mobile Push in Your Marketing Strategy

Smart brands make use of multiple messaging channels in their marketing strategy, taking advantage of the benefits of each.

Many marketing automation tools, such as Klaviyo, allow you to build flows with email, SMS and push together. This way, you can send out multiple touchpoints on multiple channels, and have a greater chance of getting your customer’s attention and making them take action.

For example, you could send an abandoned cart sequence that starts with a push notification, then sends a text message if the customer hasn’t completed their purchase, and then an email after that.

Omnichannel workflows are also great for promotions – the urgency of SMS fits well with opening/closing messages of your sequence, while the flexibility and affordability for email and push

Blending multiple channels is particularly important today, with many consumers going mobile-first, increasing the potential of mobile-optimized channels like SMS and push.

MobiLoud's abandoned cart notifications have helped some brands recover as much as $200,000 in would-be lost revenue in just 30 days. Learn more about how to recover abandoned carts, or get a free consultation call to discuss it with one of our app experts.

How MobiLoud Brings It All Together

If you don’t have a mobile app, you won’t be able to utilize the incredible benefits of native push notifications.

MobiLoud makes it easy to launch your app. We help you turn your website into native mobile apps, with push notification functionality built in from the start.

“The power of push notifications is so strong. SMS which is crazy expensive, and people are starting to tune these out. Being able to do push notifications is the reason you do an app.”
- David Cost, Rainbow Shops

Our full-service approach leaves minimal lift for your team, and your apps fully reflect your website, with all the features and integrations from your website working within the apps.

That means any SMS or email marketing providers you use will continue to gather customer data from within your apps, and you can build powerful omnichannel flows that boost revenue on autopilot.

It’s easy and affordable to launch your own app, with no risk and minimal overhead. Start the process by getting a free preview of your app now, and let our experts show you what’s possible.