The shortlist is SimpleTexting for the most complete small-business texting platform priced by message, Postscript if you are a Shopify store, and Omnisend if email and SMS should sit inside one e-commerce automation. I am hesitant about bulk SMS marketing. It works, and I am not sure it builds the right relationship with a customer rather than just adding noise, which is honestly why a dedicated SMS product has never been our priority.
The short version
Three groups, and most people know which one they are in before they finish reading the sentence.
Small business and mass texting. SimpleTexting is the best all-round choice for a small team, with unlimited contacts and free incoming messages. SlickText is the one to pick if collecting numbers through popups and keywords is the actual job, and its compliance tooling is the most hand-holding here. EZ Texting is the fastest way to get a plain mass text out the door.
E-commerce and omnichannel. Postscript if you are on Shopify, because the catalogue and checkout integration goes deeper than anything general-purpose. Attentive if you are a large brand with the volume to negotiate a rate. Omnisend if you want email and SMS inside one automation on a smaller store's budget.
Developers and teams already sending email. Twilio if you are building the messaging layer into your own product and want the API rather than a campaign dashboard. Nitrosend if you already run email flows with us and want a text as one step inside them.
Legacy marketing tools in this category are scheduling and composing dashboards with AI bolted on the side. That is the thing worth checking as you compare: whether the automation was designed around the customer's behaviour, or around a calendar with a text box.
How they compare
Scores are out of 10 against criteria whose weights add to 100. They are published in full at the bottom of this page, so you can disagree with a weight and re-rank the table yourself.
Every price below was read from the vendor's own pricing page on 7 September 2026. US carrier fees sit on top of all of them and are not included in any headline price.
We make Nitrosend. It is third here rather than first, because this page ranks SMS-first platforms and we send SMS alongside email rather than leading with it.
SMS marketing tools compared
Checked| Platform | Rank | Best for | Pricing model | Free tier | From | At 10k contacts | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nitrosend Agent-native | 1 | SMS inside email flows | per send | 8,000 emails to start, then 500 a month | $20/mo | n/a | 8.2 |
| Postscript | 2 | Shopify stores | hybrid | 30-day free trial on the Starter plan, after which a $49 monthly minimum spend applies (Starter has a $0 platform fee) | $49/mo | $90/mo (Starter usage: 10,000 SMS x $0.009 = $90 messaging fees, excluding carrier fees (derived from the published per-message rate)) | 7.5 |
| Twilio | 3 | Build it yourself | usage | 30-day free trial with product-specific free units: 100 SMS messages, 100 WhatsApp messages, 75 voice minutes, 3,000 emails. No credit card required. A fresh set of free units (100 SMS etc.) is granted on upgrade. | $0.0083 | $83/mo (Pay-as-you-go: 10,000 US long-code SMS segments x $0.0083 = $83 base, before carrier fees (~$35-$50 extra at $0.0035-$0.005/segment) and the $1.15/mo number) | 7.3 |
| Omnisend | 4 | Email plus SMS | per contact | 250 contacts, 500 emails a month | $16/mo | $132/mo (Standard) | 7.2 |
| SimpleTexting | 5 | Small teams | per send | Free trial, no credit card required (trial length not stated on the pricing page); 30-day money-back guarantee on paid plans | $39/mo | $399/mo (15,000 credits (monthly, before the $10 local-number add-on)) | 7.1 |
| Attentive | 6 | Enterprise retail | hybrid | No free plan. Pricing FAQ: 'Does Attentive offer a free trial? Yes, we offer free trials. Fill out the form at the top of the page to get started today.' Trial length not stated. | Contact sales | n/a | 6.8 |
| SlickText | 7 | Opt-in and compliance | per send | 14-day free trial, no credit card required; every feature unlocked during the trial | $29/mo | $319/mo (10,000 credits per month) | 6.5 |
| EZ Texting | 8 | Simple mass texting | hybrid | 14-day free trial, no credit card needed, all features and unlimited contacts during the trial | $25/mo | $410/mo (Scale ($125/mo incl. 500 credits) + 9,500 overage credits at $0.03 = $410 (derived; no published plan bundles 10,000 credits)) | 6.3 |
1. Postscript
Best for: Shopify stores, and nothing else.
The deepest Shopify integration in SMS. Segmentation runs on your actual Shopify data, billing can go through your Shopify invoice, and the automations understand carts, products and checkouts rather than treating them as imported fields. Starter has a $0 platform fee with a $49 monthly minimum spend, at $0.009 per SMS and $0.045 per MMS, and Professional at $500 a month adds API access, checked 7 September 2026.
Where it loses: it is Shopify-only, so if you are on anything else this is not a candidate. And read the January 2026 pricing change before you model your costs. From 1 January 2026, undelivered messages are billed at the standard send rate, and inbound messages, which includes replies, opt-ins and customer service conversations, now carry a Postscript message charge on top of the pass-through carrier fee. That first appeared on the February 2026 invoice, and it changes the economics of a two-way support-style program considerably.
- Postscript at a glance
- Verified on the vendor's own pages
- Best for
- Shopify stores that segment on live store data
- Pricing model
- hybrid
- Free tier
- 30-day free trial on the Starter plan, after which a $49 monthly minimum spend applies (Starter has a $0 platform fee)
- Entry paid plan
- $49/mo (Starter: $0/mo platform fee with a $49 monthly minimum spend; $0.009/SMS and $0.045/MMS plus carrier fees; campaigns, automations, unlimited segments, dedicated toll-free number, 2 opt-in keywords, branded short-link subdomain)
- At 10,000 contacts
- $90/mo (Starter usage: 10,000 SMS x $0.009 = $90 messaging fees, excluding carrier fees (derived from the published per-message rate))
- Transactional API
- yes
- Marketing campaigns
- yes
- Automation flows
- yes
- SMS
- yes
- Inbound email parsing
- yes
- Owner
- Postscript (independent, venture-backed; $65M Series C led by 01 Advisors with Twilio Ventures, Greylock, Accomplice, OpenView and Elephant per TechCrunch, June 2022)
- Support
- Help center: help.postscript.io/en
- Developer docs
- API documentation: developers.postscript.io/docs/getting-started
- Status page
- System status: status.postscript.io
- Pricing page
- Current pricing: postscript.io/pricing
- Founding team
- Adam Turner, Alex Beller and Colin Turner are all still active founders. No prior exit and no public engineering record.
- Founding team score
- 6.25 of 10 on the founding-team criterion
- AI-native capability
- An SMS marketing platform, a different product category from AI-native branded email; not evaluated for on-brand email design or ChatGPT app marketplace presence.
- AI-native score
- 3 of 10 on the AI-native criterion
- Limitations
- Shopify only, so not a candidate on any other platform
- From 1 January 2026 undelivered messages are billed at the standard send rate
- Inbound messages, including replies and opt-ins, now carry a Postscript charge on top of carrier fees
- Facts checked
2. Twilio
Best for: teams building messaging into their own product, where the campaign dashboard is something you are writing yourself.
The infrastructure everyone else is standing on. Pay as you go with no monthly plan, at a published $0.0083 per US outbound SMS segment on long code, toll-free or short code, checked 7 September 2026, plus a $1.15 a month long-code number. There is no minimum, the API is excellent, the documentation is the best in the category, and there is a first-party MCP server.
Where it loses: it is not a marketing tool. There are no campaigns, no keyword capture and no consent UI, so a marketer cannot use it without a developer. The real cost is also higher than the headline. Carrier pass-through fees add $0.0035 to $0.005 per outbound segment depending on the carrier, and T-Mobile raised its rate on 19 January 2026, taking outbound 10DLC from $0.0030 to $0.0045 and short code from $0.0025 to $0.0045. There is a failed-message processing fee of $0.001. And messages are billed per segment, so a 200-character text is two segments, which is the single most common reason an SMS bill comes in over forecast. Twilio alternatives covers where senders go when that bill stops being predictable.
- Twilio at a glance
- Verified on the vendor's own pages
- Best for
- teams building messaging into their own product, who want the API not a dashboard
- Pricing model
- usage
- Free tier
- 30-day free trial with product-specific free units: 100 SMS messages, 100 WhatsApp messages, 75 voice minutes, 3,000 emails. No credit card required. A fresh set of free units (100 SMS etc.) is granted on upgrade.
- Entry paid plan
- $0.0083 (US outbound SMS to a long code (10DLC), toll-free or short code sender; inbound SMS also $0.0083/segment; carrier pass-through fees extra ($0.0035-$0.005 per outbound segment depending on carrier); failed-message processing fee $0.001)
- At 10,000 contacts
- $83/mo (Pay-as-you-go: 10,000 US long-code SMS segments x $0.0083 = $83 base, before carrier fees (~$35-$50 extra at $0.0035-$0.005/segment) and the $1.15/mo number)
- Transactional API
- yes
- Automation flows
- yes
- SMS
- yes
- First-party MCP server
- yes
- Inbound email parsing
- yes
- Owner
- Twilio Inc. (independent public company, NYSE: TWLO; source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilio)
- Support
- Help center: help.twilio.com
- Developer docs
- API documentation: twilio.com/docs
- Status page
- System status: status.twilio.com
- Pricing page
- Current pricing: twilio.com/en-us/sms/pricing/us
- Founding team
- Jeff Lawson, Evan Cooke and John Wolthuis built the reference programmable-messaging APIs. Lawson stepped down as chief executive in January 2024 and the company is no longer founder-led.
- Founding team score
- 6.75 of 10 on the founding-team criterion
- AI-native capability
- A programmable SMS/voice communications API platform, a different product category from AI-native branded email; not evaluated for on-brand email design or ChatGPT app marketplace presence.
- AI-native score
- 3 of 10 on the AI-native criterion
- Limitations
- Not a marketing tool: no campaigns, keyword capture or consent UI
- Carrier fees add $0.0035 to $0.005 per segment, and T-Mobile raised its rate on 19 January 2026
- Billed per segment, so a long message costs two or three
- Facts checked
3. Nitrosend
Best for: teams already running email flows here who want a text as one step inside them, not a second platform.
A Nitrosend contact carries both an email address and a phone number, and a flow step can be an email or an SMS, so a cart reminder can send an email on day one and a text on day three inside one sequence you built once. Transactional single sends go through the same POST /v1/my/messages endpoint for either channel. Campaigns, automations and now texts can all be run from Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor over MCP, with nothing sending until you approve it. Contacts are unlimited on every tier, so holding a phone list costs nothing. The free plan is 8,000 emails to start, then 500 a month, with full API, MCP and CLI access, and paid starts at $20 a month for 20,000.
Now the part that matters, said plainly: Nitrosend is not a dedicated SMS platform, and for a text-first program a dedicated one still wins. Specifically:
- Number provisioning is a precondition, not a default. The SMS step in a flow stays greyed out until the brand has a sending number, so this is not a channel you switch on mid-campaign.
- No keyword campaigns, no popup or QR opt-in capture, no shortcode program. SlickText and SimpleTexting build their whole product around exactly that, and if growing an SMS list is the job, they do it and we do not.
- No two-way conversation inbox for texting. SimpleTexting, SlickText and EZ Texting all give a small team a shared thread view to answer replies. We do not.
- No Shopify catalogue and checkout depth. Postscript's segmentation runs on live store data in a way ours does not.
- SMS usage is pooled at the account level rather than sold in credit buckets, so a heavy texting month is not modelled the way a dedicated platform's plan ladder models it.
Use us for SMS if the text is a step in an email journey. Use a dedicated platform if the text is the program. Those are different products and pretending otherwise would waste your time.
- Nitrosend at a glance
- Verified on the vendor's own pages
- Best for
- teams already running email flows here who want a text inside them, not a second platform
- Pricing model
- per send
- Free tier
- 8,000 emails to start, then 500 a month
- Entry paid plan
- $20/mo (20,000 emails a month, 5 brands, 3 domains, up to 1,000 / 10,000 / 100,000 recipients per rolling 24 hours for Pro Probation / Standard / Trusted)
- At 100,000 emails a month
- $100/mo (Ultra)
- Transactional API
- yes
- Marketing campaigns
- yes
- Automation flows
- yes
- SMS
- yes
- First-party MCP server
- yes
- Inbound email parsing
- no
- Support
- Help center: docs.nitrosend.com
- Developer docs
- API documentation: docs.nitrosend.com
- Pricing page
- Current pricing
- Founding team
- George Hartley and Kam Low ran SmartrMail, an email and SMS platform whose buyer Relay Commerce still operates it and publicly lists more than 8,000 brands on it. Kam Low's open-source record runs from 2009 under the Sourcey organisation. All three founders are in post.
- Founding team score
- 9.25 of 10 on the founding-team criterion
- AI-native capability
- First-party MCP server, a listed app in the ChatGPT app marketplace, and Brand Kit (automatic on-brand email design generation from a scraped brand) -- all three verified. Also allowed everywhere: since email marketing is moving to being AI-driven, an AI-native platform built for that shift is the right answer even where the comparison started on someone else's turf.
- AI-native score
- 10 of 10 on the AI-native criterion
- Limitations
- Not a dedicated SMS platform: no keyword campaigns, popup or QR opt-in capture, or short-code programs
- No two-way conversation inbox for texting
- The SMS flow step is unavailable until the brand has a sending number
- Facts checked
4. Omnisend
Best for: smaller stores that want email and SMS in one automation without an enterprise contract.
The only tool in this group that treats SMS as one channel inside a single e-commerce journey rather than a separate product with its own login. Cart and browse triggers fire email and SMS from the same flow, built once. Free is 250 contacts and 500 emails a month, Standard starts at $16 a month for 500 contacts and 3,000 emails, and 10,000 contacts is $132 a month, with SMS on top from $0.007 a message, checked 7 September 2026.
Where it loses: the SMS half is thinner than a dedicated platform's. Keyword campaigns, conversation management and compliance hand-holding are all weaker than SimpleTexting or SlickText, and it bills by contact, so a large list you rarely message costs to hold. It is the omnichannel answer, not the SMS answer.
- Omnisend at a glance
- Verified on the vendor's own pages
- Best for
- smaller stores that want one journey spanning email and SMS
- Pricing model
- per contact
- Free tier
- 250 contacts, 500 emails a month
- Entry paid plan
- $16/mo (500 contacts, 3,000 emails a month, unlimited web push notifications; billed monthly)
- At 10,000 contacts
- $132/mo (Standard)
- Transactional API
- yes
- Marketing campaigns
- yes
- Automation flows
- yes
- SMS
- yes
- Inbound email parsing
- no
- Support
- Help center: support.omnisend.com
- Developer docs
- API documentation: api-docs.omnisend.com
- Status page
- System status: status.omnisend.com
- Pricing page
- Current pricing: omnisend.com/pricing
- Founding team
- Rytis Lauris co-founded Omnisend in 2014 and is still chief executive. A second co-founder is named only by Wikipedia and appears nowhere on the company's own site.
- Founding team score
- 5.25 of 10 on the founding-team criterion
- AI-native capability
- No on-brand AI design feature or ChatGPT app marketplace listing found; agent/MCP access not independently confirmed.
- AI-native score
- 3 of 10 on the AI-native criterion
- Limitations
- The SMS half is thinner than a dedicated platform's
- Bills by contact, so a large phone list costs to hold
- Weaker keyword capture and compliance tooling than SimpleTexting or SlickText
- Facts checked
5. SimpleTexting
Best for: small teams who want one tool that does texting well without a project to set it up.
The most complete small-business SMS platform here. Unlimited contacts, unlimited keywords, free incoming messages, rollover credits, and two-way conversations a non-technical person can run. Pricing is by monthly message credit rather than by contact, which is the right way round when your list grows faster than your sending. The entry configuration shows $29 a month for 500 credits plus a $10 a month local 10DLC number, displayed as $39 estimated monthly cost, and 15,000 credits is $399 a month, checked 7 September 2026.
Where it loses: the per-credit rate is only competitive at volume, 3 cents on the 15,000 tier against 5.5 cents at entry, so a low-volume sender pays a high effective rate. No first-party MCP server. Owned by Sinch, which also owns Mailgun and Mailjet.
- SimpleTexting at a glance
- Verified on the vendor's own pages
- Best for
- small teams who want one tool that does texting well without a setup project
- Pricing model
- per send
- Free tier
- Free trial, no credit card required (trial length not stated on the pricing page); 30-day money-back guarantee on paid plans
- Entry paid plan
- $39/mo (500 credits per month ($29 plan) plus $10/month local 10DLC number = $39.00 estimated monthly cost as displayed; 3 user seats, unlimited contacts, unlimited keywords, free incoming SMS, rollover credits; extra credits 5.5 cents each; +$4 one-time carrier registration)
- At 10,000 contacts
- $399/mo (15,000 credits (monthly, before the $10 local-number add-on))
- Transactional API
- yes
- Marketing campaigns
- yes
- Automation flows
- yes
- SMS
- yes
- First-party MCP server
- no
- Inbound email parsing
- yes
- Owner
- Sinch (SimpleTexting, LLC became part of Sinch in 2021; source: simpletexting.com/about-us)
- Support
- Help center: help.simpletexting.com/en
- Developer docs
- API documentation: simpletexting.com/api/docs
- Status page
- System status: status.simpletexting.com
- Pricing page
- Current pricing: simpletexting.com/pricing
- Founding team
- Three founders are named only by first name on the company's own about page. Sinch has owned it since 2021.
- Founding team score
- 3.00 of 10 on the founding-team criterion
- AI-native capability
- An SMS marketing platform, a different product category from AI-native branded email; not evaluated for on-brand email design or ChatGPT app marketplace presence.
- AI-native score
- 3 of 10 on the AI-native criterion
- Limitations
- The effective per-message rate is only competitive at volume
- No first-party MCP server
- Owned by Sinch, which also owns Mailgun and Mailjet
- Facts checked
6. Attentive
Best for: large e-commerce brands with the volume to negotiate a contracted rate and a team to run the program.
The enterprise answer. Text, email, RCS and push in one place, a serious AI layer, and concierge program management. There is a first-party MCP server.
Where it loses: no published pricing at all. The pricing page says the rate depends on messages sent, subscriber list size, channels used and which AI tools you take, and everything ends at a form. The only public per-message figures are the pass-through US carrier delivery fees, restated as current from 1 September 2026 at $0.0035 for AT&T and $0.0045 for T-Mobile and Verizon per segment, with 10DLC on US Cellular at $0.0050. If you cannot compare a price before a sales call, you are not comparing. Attentive alternatives is for anyone doing that seriously.
- Attentive at a glance
- Verified on the vendor's own pages
- Best for
- large e-commerce brands with the volume to negotiate a contracted rate
- Pricing model
- hybrid
- Free tier
- No free plan. Pricing FAQ: 'Does Attentive offer a free trial? Yes, we offer free trials. Fill out the form at the top of the page to get started today.' Trial length not stated.
- Marketing campaigns
- yes
- Automation flows
- yes
- SMS
- yes
- First-party MCP server
- yes
- Owner
- Attentive Mobile Inc. (independent, privately held, venture-backed; Series E March 2021) per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attentive_(company) and the attentive.com footer
- Support
- Help center: attentive.com/customer-success
- Developer docs
- API documentation: docs.attentive.com
- Status page
- System status: attentive.statuspage.io
- Pricing page
- Current pricing: attentive.com/pricing
- Founding team
- Brian Long and Andrew Jones sold TapCommerce to Twitter for a reported 100 million dollars before founding Attentive. Long moved to executive chairman in June 2023 and an outside chief executive runs it.
- Founding team score
- 5.50 of 10 on the founding-team criterion
- AI-native capability
- An SMS/mobile marketing platform, a different product category from AI-native branded email; not evaluated for on-brand email design or ChatGPT app marketplace presence.
- AI-native score
- 3 of 10 on the AI-native criterion
- Limitations
- No published pricing at all; everything ends at a sales form
- Only the pass-through carrier fees are public, restated current from 1 September 2026
- Overbuilt and overpriced for a store under enterprise volume
- Facts checked
7. SlickText
Best for: organisations whose real problem is collecting phone numbers legally and keeping the consent record straight.
The strongest opt-in and compliance tooling here. Popups, keywords, QR codes and web forms feeding a consent record, with live phone, chat and email support on every plan. Pricing is by monthly credit bucket with unlimited contacts: $29 a month for 500 credits and $319 for 10,000, so the effective rate falls from 5.8 cents to 3.19 cents a message, checked 7 September 2026.
Where it loses: no published pay-as-you-go or overage rate, so a heavy month means moving up a bucket rather than paying for what you used, and carrier fees are charged at cost on top. Above 50,000 credits nothing is published. Shallower e-commerce integrations than Postscript or Omnisend.
- SlickText at a glance
- Verified on the vendor's own pages
- Best for
- organisations whose hard problem is collecting phone numbers legally
- Pricing model
- per send
- Free tier
- 14-day free trial, no credit card required; every feature unlocked during the trial
- Entry paid plan
- $29/mo (500 credits per month (1 SMS = 1 credit, 1 MMS = 3 credits), unlimited contacts, free incoming texts, rollover credits, one premium sending number, live phone/chat/email support)
- At 10,000 contacts
- $319/mo (10,000 credits per month)
- Transactional API
- yes
- Marketing campaigns
- yes
- Automation flows
- yes
- SMS
- yes
- Inbound email parsing
- yes
- Owner
- Slick Innovations, LLC d.b.a. SlickText (independent, private-equity backed: recapitalisation led by Iron Creek Partners with Main Street Capital in 2018, follow-on investment April 2024; source: Main Street Capital press releases)
- Support
- Help center: help.slicktext.com
- Developer docs
- API documentation: api.slicktext.com/docs/v2/overview
- Pricing page
- Current pricing: slicktext.com/pricing
- Founding team
- No founder is identified in any primary source. The operating entity is Slick Innovations, LLC, a New York limited liability company, with no leadership page and no engineering blog.
- Founding team score
- 2.50 of 10 on the founding-team criterion
- AI-native capability
- An SMS marketing platform, a different product category from AI-native branded email; not evaluated for on-brand email design or ChatGPT app marketplace presence.
- AI-native score
- 3 of 10 on the AI-native criterion
- Limitations
- No published pay-as-you-go or overage rate, so a heavy month means changing bucket
- Carrier pass-through fees charged at cost on top
- Shallower commerce integrations than Postscript or Omnisend
- Facts checked
8. EZ Texting
Best for: getting a straightforward mass text out with the least setup.
The simplest on-ramp here. A 14-day trial with unlimited contacts, and four plans all built on a 500-credit base with per-credit overage: Launch at $25 a month with overage at $0.04, Boost at $75 with $0.035, Scale at $125 with $0.03, and Enterprise from $3,000 a month with a dedicated short code and 200,000 monthly credits, checked 7 September 2026. It publishes an MCP server, which is unusual at this end of the market.
Where it loses: the structure punishes mid-volume senders. No published plan bundles 10,000 credits, so 10,000 messages on Scale works out at $410 a month once overage is counted, against SlickText's published 10,000-credit plan at $319. Launch also carries a $5 a month telecom fee the higher plans waive. On this vendor the overage rate is the price.
- EZ Texting at a glance
- Verified on the vendor's own pages
- Best for
- teams that want a simple broadcast with the least setup
- Pricing model
- hybrid
- Free tier
- 14-day free trial, no credit card needed, all features and unlimited contacts during the trial
- Entry paid plan
- $25/mo (500 monthly credits, local textable number, 1 user, overage credits $0.04 each, subject to $5/month Telecom Fee; $20/month billed annually (6k yearly credits))
- At 10,000 contacts
- $410/mo (Scale ($125/mo incl. 500 credits) + 9,500 overage credits at $0.03 = $410 (derived; no published plan bundles 10,000 credits))
- Transactional API
- yes
- Marketing campaigns
- yes
- Automation flows
- yes
- SMS
- yes
- First-party MCP server
- yes
- Inbound email parsing
- yes
- Owner
- CallFire Inc. (site footer: 'EZ Texting ... registered trademarks of CallFire Inc.'; CallFire acquired EZ Texting in December 2012 per Wikipedia, and consolidated all its brands including CallFire under the EZ Texting name in December 2018 per PR Newswire)
- Support
- Help center: eztexting.com/help
- Developer docs
- API documentation: developers.eztexting.com/docs/getting-started
- Status page
- System status: status.eztexting.com
- Pricing page
- Current pricing: eztexting.com/pricing
- Founding team
- Vijesh Mehta and Punit Shah founded EZ Texting in 2006. CallFire acquired it in 2012 and Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital now backs it, but Mehta is still chief executive and chairman.
- Founding team score
- 4.50 of 10 on the founding-team criterion
- AI-native capability
- An SMS marketing platform, a different product category from AI-native branded email; not evaluated for on-brand email design or ChatGPT app marketplace presence.
- AI-native score
- 3 of 10 on the AI-native criterion
- Limitations
- No plan bundles 10,000 credits, so mid-volume sending lands on overage at $410 a month
- The entry plan carries a $5 a month telecom fee the higher plans waive
- Every plan has a 500-credit base, so the overage rate is the real price
- Facts checked
Which SMS tool is cheapest for a small business sending occasionally?
If you send a few hundred messages a month, SlickText at $29 for 500 credits and EZ Texting at $25 for 500 credits are the cheapest entry points, and SimpleTexting is $29 plus $10 for the number. If your sending is genuinely irregular, a pay-as-you-go provider avoids paying for a plan you do not use: Textmagic publishes $0.049 per US SMS part with no monthly plan, and Twilio publishes $0.0083 per segment plus carrier fees, though Twilio needs a developer. Add the number rental and the carrier fees before you compare, because on small volumes the fixed costs are most of the bill.
Can I run SMS and email from the same platform?
Yes, with a trade in both directions. Omnisend, Klaviyo, Brevo, Attentive and Nitrosend all send both, so one journey can span the two channels and you only build the segment once. The trade is that the SMS half of a combined platform is usually thinner than a dedicated tool's, particularly on keyword capture, two-way conversations and compliance workflow, which is the honest reading of our own Nitrosend and Omnisend comparison. The opposite arrangement, a dedicated SMS tool alongside a separate email platform, gives you a better SMS product and two consent records to keep in sync. Decide which channel is the primary one, buy the best tool for that, and accept the weaker half for the other.
What does SMS marketing actually cost in the United States?
More than the plan price, always. Every US message carries a carrier pass-through fee on top of whatever your platform charges, currently $0.0035 for AT&T and $0.0045 for T-Mobile and Verizon per outbound SMS segment, with US Cellular at $0.005 on 10DLC. On top of that, messages are billed per segment, and a segment is 160 GSM characters or 70 if you use an emoji, so a single long text can be billed as two or three. Then there is number rental, from around $0.50 to $10 a month depending on provider and number type, and 10DLC brand and campaign registration. A realistic all-in figure for a US 10DLC program is well above the per-message rate on the pricing page.
How to launch SMS without getting your number blocked
The failure mode in SMS is not the spam folder. It is a carrier refusing to deliver you at all.
- Register the 10DLC brand and campaign before you send anything. Unregistered traffic on US long codes is filtered heavily, and registration takes days rather than minutes.
- Capture explicit consent for SMS specifically. An email opt-in is not consent to text, and platforms that let you import a phone list without a consent record are handing you the liability.
- Put the program name, the message frequency and STOP instructions in the first message, and honour opt-outs immediately and permanently.
- Respect quiet hours in the recipient's timezone. The complaint rate from a 6am text is what triggers carrier filtering in the first place.
- Start small and ramp. Carrier filtering reacts to sudden volume from a new number in much the same way mailbox providers react to a cold sending domain. The principle is the same as warming up an email domain.
- Keep the email list clean at the same time. If you are running both channels off one contact record, a bad list poisons both, and the email blacklist checker will tell you what you are carrying.
FAQ
What is the best SMS marketing tool?
There is no single one. SimpleTexting is the best all-round tool for a small team. Postscript is the best choice for a Shopify store. Attentive is the enterprise e-commerce answer. Omnisend is the best value if email and SMS should share one automation. Twilio is the right answer if you are building the messaging into your own product. SlickText is the one to pick if collecting numbers compliantly is the hard part. Nitrosend, which we make, is for teams who want a text as a step inside an email flow rather than a separate program.
How much does SMS marketing cost?
Entry plans run from about $25 to $49 a month for a few hundred messages, and effective per-message rates fall to around 3 cents at 10,000 messages a month on the credit-based platforms. On top of the plan you pay US carrier pass-through fees of $0.0035 to $0.005 per outbound segment, a monthly number rental, and 10DLC registration. Pay-as-you-go providers publish per-message rates instead, from $0.0083 a segment on Twilio to $0.049 on Textmagic, checked 7 September 2026.
Can Nitrosend replace a dedicated SMS platform?
Not for a text-first program. Nitrosend sends SMS alongside email from the same flows and the same contact record, which is genuinely useful if email is your main channel. It does not do keyword campaigns, popup or QR opt-in capture, short-code programs, or a two-way conversation inbox, and the SMS step in a flow is unavailable until the brand has a sending number. If SMS is the program rather than a step inside one, use SimpleTexting, SlickText or Postscript.
Is SMS marketing better than email?
They do different jobs, and the honest answer is that SMS is more intrusive and should be used more sparingly. Open rates on SMS are far higher, which is exactly why it burns goodwill faster when it is overused. The pattern that holds up is email for the substance and SMS for the small number of moments that are genuinely time-sensitive: a delivery, an appointment, a window closing. If every message is urgent, none of them are.
Can an AI agent run SMS campaigns?
Partly. Twilio, Attentive, EZ Texting and Nitrosend publish MCP servers, so an assistant can operate parts of the account rather than a person clicking through a dashboard. On Nitrosend the same nitro_* tool set drives a flow whose steps can be email or SMS, so a two-channel sequence can be described in a sentence and reviewed before it sends. What an agent cannot do for you is consent and carrier registration, which stay a human responsibility.
How this list is ranked
Eight criteria, weighted, adding to 100. Disagree with a weight and you can re-rank the table yourself.
- Fit for the stated sender, 21%. Built for that kind of business, not adapted to it.
- True cost per message, 17%. The plan price plus carrier pass-through fees, which every US sender pays on top.
- Compliance tooling, 13%. Consent capture, 10DLC or toll-free registration, quiet hours and opt-out handling.
- Automation and segmentation, 13%. How far the flows go, and whether email and SMS can share one journey.
- Commerce integration, 9%. Catalogue, cart and checkout data, and whether it flows both ways.
- Setup time, 8%. How long from signing up to a number that can legally send.
- API and agent access, 4%. Whether software can operate the account rather than a person clicking.
- Founding team and track record, 15%. Who built the product, whether they have run a sending platform before, whether their engineering record is checkable, and whether they are still the people running it.
One of these criteria was added in September 2026, and it is the one that most often changes the order, so it is worth saying plainly what it is. Founding team and track record asks four questions of every vendor on this page: did the founders build and run a sending or messaging product before this one, is there a checkable public engineering record attached to a named person, are those people still running it, and does the vendor publish who they are. Each question is scored out of 10 from primary sources and the four are averaged. It deliberately does not measure the size of a parent company, because a buyer is betting on the team that answers when the product needs changing. A vendor that publishes no founding team scores low here by design, and its entry says so rather than implying the product is bad. Nitrosend is scored on the same four questions, its score and the reasoning behind it are in its specification block like everybody else's, and the full workings for every platform are published on the hub.