The Best Text Message Marketing Services of 2024

In decades past, newspaper advertisements and television commercials may have been the best way to get your products in front of customers, but modern marketing requires businesses to think beyond traditional methods. Companies today need to meet consumers where they are: on their phones. With text message marketing services, you can interact with potential customers and existing clients through their mobile device, sending promotional SMS and MMS messages, answering customer service questions and even accepting payments.

Whether you want to have segmented subscriber lists or one-on-one conversations, the best text message marketing services — like Textline and EZ Texting — provide the technology needed, along with insightful analytics, email marketing software integrations and more valuable features. We tested a range of solutions from leading vendors and lesser-known providers and determined the top text messaging platforms for a variety of business needs.

Textedly and its competitors feature message composers that simplify creating text messages to send to potential and existing customers. Source: Textedly

The cost of your text message marketing service will depend on whether you only want basic texting abilities or also access to other features, like SlickText’s survey tools. (Source: SlickText)

Prices for text message marketing services vary by provider. Some charge per text, but most charge by the month, with the latter fee covering a certain number of texts and keywords for campaigns depending on the plan you select. For example, for $29 per month, SlickText will allow you to send up to 500 messages. In contrast, Textline’s base rate is $59.97 per month with no text credits included; instead, there are varying rates for sending and receiving SMS and MMS messages.

Adding more users, keywords, numbers and features may incur additional one-time or monthly charges. We recommend making a list of exactly what you want to do with text message marketing and asking providers to quote you for a package that includes those tools and functions. Note that free plans are available with some vendors, but they are extremely limited in what you can do with them.

The best contact management tools, like those from Textline, let you tag and segment subscribers based on different groups and characteristics. (Source: Textline)

High-quality text message marketing services do much more than send texts. They can help you find your target audiences, engage with them and track how they interact with your messages.

Consider the features below, deciding which ones will be of most value to your business. As your buying journey continues, look for vendors with the tools you want at a cost your business can afford.

• Message templates: Templates for your most common message types can save you a lot of time. Choose a provider with templates you can use as inspiration for your campaigns. The platform should also allow you to create your own templates and keep them at your fingertips.
• Multimedia messaging: MMS messages allow you to send pictures, videos and audio clips as well as up to 1,600 characters of text. Not all providers offer MMS messages, so check with each vendor before signing up for their service.
• Scheduling: Many systems allow you to schedule text messages in advance to your target audiences. It’s best practice to plan campaigns weeks ahead, and scheduling allows you to set up these future campaigns and make sure they go out to customers at the optimal times.
• Contact management: If your contact list is full of old numbers, customers won’t receive your messages and your campaigns won’t succeed. The best text message marketing solutions make it easy to add contacts, import existing lists and scrub lists to ensure they only include active numbers.
• Free incoming text messages: It’s important to show customers you’re open to a dialogue and allow them to respond to your messages. Most highly rated services don’t charge you when a customer texts you back.
• Customization: You can make your campaigns more successful by personalizing each text message to its recipient. Look for services that allow you to target your messages based on data like a customer’s full name, birthday and ZIP code.
• Drip campaigns: Drip campaigns are automated customer journeys with actions triggered by conditions you set. For example, a welcome text goes out when a customer subscribes and they receive a thank-you message when they make their first purchase.
• Analytics and reports: You can improve your future campaign performance when your texting platform tracks responses and other metrics, showing you what went well and what didn’t with your current and past campaigns.
• AI: Many text message software solutions now feature generative AI to help you compose marketing campaigns and formulate automatic replies to customer queries. This can save marketing and customer service teams a lot of time.
• Automation: The best text message marketing companies offer automation tools, which are helpful if you want to send the same text message regularly, such as recurring reminders.
• Integrations: Most text message platforms can integrate with other business software, such as the best email marketing services like Mailchimp and Constant Contact, allowing you to sync data and functions seamlessly. [See our Constant Contact review.]
• Mobile keywords: The system should allow you to create multiple keywords to reflect different tastes and preferences among your customers. A new subscriber will choose the keyword that best reflects the products and services they want to receive messages about.
• Surveys: The best services make it easy to gather customer feedback with polls and surveys.
• Text-to-landline: This feature lets you send and receive text messages through your business landline phone number with no changes to your voice service.
• Payment processing: We love platforms that allow businesses to accept payments via SMS messages. You can text customers the link to a secure payment page, a convenient option for both merchants and their clients.

EZ Texting provides detailed statistics on how each text message campaign performs. (Source: EZ Texting)

The prime benefit of text message marketing is, of course, the chance to communicate directly with customers, but using these services comes with other advantages, too.

High Open Rate

SMS marketing has a much higher open rate than email marketing. This means most recipients will see your text messages. If you include a link to your website in your text, this can also lead to conversions.

Cost-Effective Marketing Method

Text messaging is a low-cost way to market your business. The number of texts included in monthly plans is often quite generous and above what most companies need. A few pay-as-you-go options are available, too.

Ability to Be Where the Customer Is

Customers now expect you to be available in-store, online, on social media and messaging apps. Nearly all Americans carry a cell phone that they check multiple times a day. Text message marketing ensures you can reach them whether they’re in front of their computer or not.

Part of a Multichannel Marketing Strategy

Text messaging doesn’t need to be your entire marketing effort ― it works well in conjunction with other types of marketing. For instance, you can include links to your social media profiles in your text messages or offer a discount code for recipients to use on your website.

Textline boasts features that help ensure compliance with HIPAA and other legal regulations. (Source: Textline)

When using a text message marketing service, be sure to follow text message marketing laws and best practices. Pay attention to your provider’s own guidelines and recommended use policies in addition to the applicable regulations like those below.

Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA)

The TCPA is overseen by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. It outlines the laws you must abide by when collecting contacts and sending text messages. Not everything in the TCPA applies to text message marketing, but you should review the regulations specific to texting to ensure you comply.

One TCPA requirement is that you get permission from each contact before you send text messages to them. Another is that you only send texts between the hours of 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. (in the recipient’s time zone, not yours).

Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA) and Mobile Marketing Association (MMA)

The CTIA and MMA guide companies on the appropriate use of text message marketing to consumers. Although these guidelines are not laws, they are considered best practices. Here are some of them:

• Don’t use the term “free” unless what you’re offering is truly free to the end user.
• Advertising materials should include the program name, a description of the products and quantity (if applicable), a link to the terms and conditions, instructions on how the individual can stop receiving messages and a note that message and data rates may apply. Alternatively, you can provide all of this information when the customer texts HELP.
• Get the consumer’s opt-in approval before sending messages to them.
• Provide an easy mechanism to unsubscribe.
• Maintain opt-in and opt-out records for at least six months.
• Avoid advocating the use of tobacco, alcohol or other drugs in your message.
• You may need to require age verification for some marketing campaigns.

Campaign Registry

In recent years, consumers have been plagued by spam text messages. Often, a rogue operator purchases a local number and sends unsolicited and unwanted marketing messages to consumers before disappearing. This can lead to messaging platforms like those we’ve reviewed being shut down temporarily to investigate what happened.

To address this, the Campaign Registry was established by the major cellular network operators, including Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T. Their goal was to stop spam text messages so that, as a channel of communication, it would retain and strengthen the trust of consumers.

Now, before any company can send a text message marketing campaign via a 10-digit-long code (10DLC), they must be on the Campaign Registry. To apply, you must first provide information about your company, including its brand name, type of business, address, website address, company size and contact details. You also need to share why you want to use texting, the type of content you want to send out (including sample messages) and how you’ll manage subscribers opting in and out.

Once registered, you’ll get higher deliverability on your text campaigns and be able to send more messages. There is a fee of $15 a month to stay on the service and all phone numbers from which campaigns are sent out must be on the Registry.

Your text message marketing platform provider will normally assist you in this process.

If our top recommendations above don’t meet your text message marketing needs, there are alternative platforms on the market that may be a better fit. Here’s what stood out to us about these other solutions.

Twilio

Twilio is ideal for businesses seeking a customizable omnichannel communications platform that includes not just text messaging abilities but also voice, email and chat tools. The API and SDK documentation for the Twilio Flex platform will enable your developers to create a solution tailored to your company’s exact needs. At a cost of $150 per user per month, this is an expensive choice; however, you can opt to sign up just for pay-as-you-go text messaging at highly affordable rates. Find out more in our full Twilio Flex review.

SimpleTexting

We love that SimpleTexting bolsters its platform with valuable artificial intelligence and analytics tools, allowing businesses to generate text copy, drill down into campaign performance and more. There are no contracts, and you can pay a small fee to have the vendor’s professional programmers custom-build the integrations you want — an opportunity no other provider we evaluated offers. See our SimpleTexting review for a breakdown of monthly costs based on message count.

Thryv

Service businesses will find Thryv’s Business Center platform valuable in the way it combines text message and email marketing, social media management and a CRM in one solution. Beyond the texting capabilities, we especially like the tools that facilitate appointment setting, payment processing and online local listings. You’ll also get access to the vendor’s Command Center, which provides a centralized inbox for all customer communication. With unlimited 24/7 support and an add-on for HIPAA compliance, this is a multifaceted product blending marketing and sales. Learn more about Thryv.

Podium

If you’re looking to enhance local client relationships, you’ll love that Podium allows unlimited one-on-one text messages. We further appreciate that the platform integrates with leading customer review sites like Google and Facebook so you can ask customers to join your text message marketing list after they leave a review, a great tactic to drive retention and brand loyalty. With the AI tools included on higher-tier plans, you can quickly generate responses to reviews and text context for messaging campaigns. Get all the details in our comprehensive Podium review.

TextMarks

TextMarks specializes in helping transit agencies provide riders with timely updates via text message. Passengers need only text a keyword and the number associated with their bus, rail or streetcar stop to receive real-time, up-to-the-minute information on delays and cancelations. While this service is free for riders and doesn’t require a mobile app, transportation companies are charged a minimum of $199 per month, plus text messaging fees, and may require help from outside developers to set the system up. Find out more about TextMarks.

Traditional text messaging is thriving and has not been eclipsed by private messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. That’s because anyone with a smartphone or feature phone can send and receive text messages without any third-party apps required.

While much attention has been paid to the sales and marketing uses of text message platforms, in 2024, analysts expect the rise in popularity of functional texting like appointment reminders and two-factor authentication to increase thanks to the number of integrations that exist with the best CRM software and enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. Expect CRM and ERP providers, as well as text messaging vendors, to continue building integrations to take advantage of the demand for text messaging alerts and notifications.

AI will play an important role in the future of text message marketing. When linked to a CRM whose AI technology can examine and predict individual purchasing patterns and product preferences, retailers and e-commerce stores will be able to push one-time, highly personalized offers via text for high-value stock and surplus stock.

Marketers are increasingly choosing texting because of its popularity with Gen Z and its higher customer engagement, open rates and clickthrough rates in comparison to other marketing channels. Gen Z will soon be the most important economic demographic, indicating that SMS marketing will continue to grow in the coming years.

Predictions from economic experts back up the optimism in the sector. The market is expected to grow by 10.9 percent per year up until 2032, creating a global market worth in excess of $100 billion per year.