How Much Do Push Notifications Cost?
- The cost of push notifications varies by subscriber numbers and the provider you use, with the average cost in the range of $10-20 per 1000 subscribers.
- Setting up and handling push notifications manually can be cheaper, but requires a much larger degree of technical ability.
- Push notifications' cost is similar to email, and much cheaper at scale than SMS.
Push notifications are emerging as one of the most effective ways for brands to communicate with customers today.
Nearly 60% of all internet traffic worldwide comes on mobile devices. The mobile commerce industry is worth more than $500 billion in the US, over $2 trillion worldwide, and 57% of all eCommerce sales happen on mobile.
These statistics paint a picture of how mobile has become a dominant factor in the commercial landscape – and push notifications are tailor-made for connecting with mobile consumers.
An often-touted benefit of push notifications is their affordability, making it easy for brands to generate sales and engagement for very little cost. But just how cheap are they, and how do they compare to other channels, like email and SMS?
That’s what we’ll explore in this article. Keep reading to learn all you need to know about the cost of push notifications.
In most cases when we talk about push notifications in this article we’re referring to mobile push notifications, sent from an app. Push notifications can also be sent from a website, however, using the browser. For a detailed look at the difference between web and mobile push notifications, check out this article.
How Pricing Works for Push Notifications
To begin with, let’s get an idea of how pricing works when you use push notifications.
You’ll typically send push notifications in one of two ways; either by using a third-party push notification service (most common) or manually coding push notification functionality in your app.
Let’s look at the difference between these two methods below.
Third-Party Push Notification Services
The most common way for brands to set up push notifications is with a push notification service.
If you’re familiar with email marketing, push notifications work in much the same way as an email marketing provider, like MailChimp or Drip.
By adding a little bit of code to your app (or website), you let this service handle all the technical aspects of push notifications, such as storing user information and retrieving data from a server.
To set up and send push notification campaigns, you just compose your message content and set up audience segments, triggers and more within the service’s web dashboard.
When you use a push notification service, you generally don’t pay a cost per message – you’ll pay a monthly subscription fee for access to the service, giving you the ability to send push notifications.
Fees often scale by the number of users you wish to contact, and may also scale by the number of notifications you can send, and the range of features available (more powerful features, such as intelligent segmentation and delivery triggers, may cost more).
Some popular push notification services include OneSignal and Klaviyo (both of which MobiLoud integrates with), PushEngage, Airship and many more.
Setting Up Push Notifications Manually
The alternative is manually coding push notifications in your app.
To send push notifications, your app needs to communicate with a server to retrieve the data necessary to serve messages to your users’ devices.
You can set up this server yourself, which could come with costs, depending on how many users you have and how many messages you send.
To actually serve the notifications, you’ll typically use the Apple Push Notification Service (APNs) and Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM), for iOS and Android respectively.
These services are free, but require a higher degree of technical knowledge to set up and implement, compared to third-party services.
Amazon’s Simple Notification Service (SNS) is another option, which provides up to 1 million notifications for free, and a cost per million notifications after that.
How Much Does It Cost to Use a Push Notification Service?
Let’s assume you’re using a push notification provider like OneSignal or Klaviyo to send push notifications.
As mentioned, the only cost involved is the cost of your plan. So how much are you likely to pay?
With OneSignal, you could send push notifications for nothing. Their free plan provides unlimited mobile push notifications, along with basic automation features (with a maximum of 10,000 subscribers).
If you need more powerful features, their first paid subscription tier charges $9 plus $0.012 per monthly active user per month.
That means if you have 1,000 users, you’ll pay $21 per month. If you have 10,000 users, you’ll pay $129 per month – with unlimited push notifications to these users.
With Klaviyo, their free tier doesn’t include push notifications – you’ll need to pay for a plan, starting at $20 per month, and rising depending on the number of subscribers in your account.
$20 supports up to 500 active users (as well as their standard email features).
You’ll pay $30 per month for up to 1,000 users, and $150 per month for up to 10,000 users (with several additional tiers in between).
These plans give you unlimited mobile push notifications, as with OneSignal.
Summary: with a push notification service like OneSignal or Klaviyo, push notifications will cost you between $21-$30 for 1,000 active users, or $129-$150 per month for 10,000 active users (scaling further you have more/less subscribers).
Can You Send Push Notifications for Free?
It is possible to send push notifications for zero cost.
You could use OneSignal, who have a generous free plan that includes unlimited mobile push notifications (albeit limited ability to set up customized flows and triggers).
A number of other services, such as PushEngage, also have a free tier that enables limited use of mobile push notifications.
Alternatively, you could manually code push notification functionality in your app, setting up your own server and using APNs, FCM or SNS to send push notifications for free (although this will take a good deal of technical ability to set up).
Push Notification Cost vs Email & SMS
Let’s now take a look at the cost of push notifications vs email and vs SMS, in case you’re considering push notifications as an alternative to email or SMS, or just trying to put the cost of push notifications in perspective.
The cost of email typically works similarly to push notifications; you’ll sign up for an email marketing provider, for which you pay a monthly cost depending on the number of subscribers or users you have.
There are hundreds of email marketing providers available today – here are a few examples, and their cost for the same usage as our earlier examples (1,000 users and 10,000 users).
- If you have 1,000 subscribers: $39/month (up to 2,500 subscribers, unlimited emails).
- If you have 10,000 users: $159/month (9,000-10,0000 subscribers, unlimited emails).
- 1,000 subscribers: starts from $45/month (up to 1,500 subscribers, up to 18,000 emails per month).
- 10,000 subscribers: $135/month (up to 10,000 subscribers, up to 120,000 emails per month).
- 1,000 subscribers: starts from $15/month (up to 1,000 subscribers, up to 10,000 emails per month).
- 10,000 subscribers: starts from $149/month (up to 10,000 subscribers, up to 100,000 emails per month).
You can also get both email and push notifications on the same plan with OneSignal and Klaviyo, though each has a limit to the number of emails you can send.
Email cost vs push notifications
Depending on the provider, email can be slightly more or less expensive than push notifications.
The difference is negligible (just around $10 per month, which is nothing if you’re driving thousands of dollars of sales through these channels).
Push notifications could be considered to be slightly more affordable, simply because you can send unlimited notifications without being cut off by any limits on your plan.
SMS
SMS (text messaging) is usually charged per message, unlike email and push notifications.
This may or may not be combined with a monthly fee, depending on the provider. Many email marketing tools now also offer SMS, though usually as an add-on to the regular subscription.
Here are a few services and their pricing for SMS:
- Twilio: $0.0079 per message.
- Textmagic: $0.049 per message.
- SimpleTexting: starting from $39/month for 500 messages ($0.078 per message) - cheaper rates for higher message limits.
- Klaviyo: $0.012 per message (plus subscription fee, minimum $35/month, which includes email and push).
Note that we’ve taken the cost for SMS (plain text) messages to US numbers. Sending to other countries, or sending MMS (messages with images or videos) generally costs more.
SMS cost vs push notifications
For small-scale use, SMS can cost around the same as push notifications, but as the number of messages increases, SMS becomes a lot more expensive.
For example, if you had 10,000 subscribers, who you messaged twice a month, you would spend between $129-$150 per month with OneSignal or Klaviyo.
To do the same with SMS (20,000 messages), you would be looking at a cost of $158-$980 per month.
And if you wanted to send twice as many, you’d pay twice as much with SMS – with push, your cost stays the same, no matter how often you message your subscribers.
Are Push Notifications Worth It?
With all that we now know about the cost of push notifications, the different options available to you, and how they compare against similar channels such as email and SMS, let’s answer the key question – is it worth it for brands to use push notifications?
Our answer is an unequivocal yes.
We’ve established that push notifications are an affordable way for brands to communicate with their customers.
Push notifications cost around the same amount as email, and are much cheaper at scale than SMS.
Push notifications are also extremely effective, with studies showing clickthrough rates as much as 44% in some cases, plus an average conversion rate of 4.4%.
The biggest obstacle for brands to start making money with mobile push notifications is the cost and time investment in building a mobile app. However, there’s a simple solution to that, as we’ll explain next.
Learn more: our Ultimate Guide to Push Notifications for eCommerce has everything you need to know about why push is the best marketing channel for modern eCommerce brands, and how to use push notifications effectively.
Start Using Push Notifications Now
If you want to start using push notifications for your brand, you need an app, and MobiLoud is the best way to build one.
MobiLoud turns your existing website into Android and iOS apps – no rebuilding, no need to manage developers, or manage separate codebases once you launch.
The apps retain all the functionality of your website, all the elements that make your website great, with the added benefits that come with mobile apps.
This includes push notifications, built in and ready to use.
High-revenue brands such as John Varvatos, Jack & Jones and Rainbow Shops are just a few examples of businesses we’ve helped to build apps and harness the power of push notifications.
To see what’s possible and learn more about what mobile apps and native push notifications can do for your brand, get in touch with us and schedule a free demo now.
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