7 Best SMS Marketing Platforms To Drive Sales From Text

Last updated on August 9th, 2023

Looking for an SMS marketing platform to grow your business? This guide compares the 7 best SMS software on the market for all types of businesses.

As a marketer, it’s crucial to reach your audience where they spend most of their time.

For many of us, this means reaching them on their mobile device.

Which is why we’ve researched and reviewed the top SMS platforms on the market today to help you decide which is best for you.

This article will cover:

• What Is SMS Marketing Software?
• What Are The Benefits Of Using An SMS Marketing Platform?
• Features To Look For In An SMS Marketing Platform
• The Best All-In-One SMS Marketing Platform
• The Best SMS Marketing Platforms For Local Businesses

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What Is SMS Marketing Software?

SMS marketing software is a tool that businesses use to communicate with leads and customers.

You can use it to send: 

• Sales promotions
• Content promotions
• Order confirmations
• Surveys
• Alerts
• Reminders 
• Notifications 
• Re-engagement campaigns

And the list goes on…

This software enables you to create, schedule, and automate mass text campaigns instantly and in a more personal fashion than email.

You can use your SMS platform to track KPIs like open and conversion rates to measure your success and optimize future campaigns.

But what makes it so valuable?

The Benefits Of Using An SMS Marketing Platform

SMS marketing is an effective and immediate communication medium that boosts customer loyalty, engagement, and sales.

Why?

Because you’re able to reach your audience instantly where they spend a large portion of their time — on their smartphones — the byproduct is high engagement rates, especially compared to email.

The average SMS open rate is 98% versus 28% for email.

You can do this in a highly personalized 1-to-1 way or you can automate your messages to be sent to a large contact list to gradually move your leads down your sales funnel.

Features To Look For In Your SMS Marketing Platform

While many platforms we’ll review have similar features, you should understand the basic features and their purposes.

• User-friendly interface – The platform should be easy to navigate, so you can create, manage, and track campaigns.
• Automation – Automation is key for efficiency and scaling. SMS marketing platforms allow you to automate and schedule messages.
• Segmentation – You can group your audience by characteristics so you can send relevant messages at scale.
• Integrations – Your SMS software should at least be able to connect to your CRM, but you should also look for a platform that works with the rest of your business software so you can create seamless customer journeys.
• Compliance management – SMS software should help manage opt-ins and opt-outs to ensure your SMS marketing complies with regulations like TCPA and GDPR.
• Analytics – Analytical features are essential for tracking metrics such as open, click, conversion, bounce, opt-out, and delivery rates.
• Good customer support – You don’t want the bottleneck stopping you from succeeding being your software’s customer support. Consider requesting a demo to get a feel for how SMS software companies deal with customers.
• Cost-effective pricing – Your SMS platform should offer competitive pricing and flexible plans that match your business needs and budget. Most platforms charge by credits, so take the amount of messages you need to send into consideration.

Best All-In-One SMS Marketing Platform 

Your SMS marketing should align with your entire customer journey.

SMS will likely be one (effective) of your multiple communication channels.

In other words, your texts to your customers should be working together with the message you send to your customers via email, social media, or even in person.

You should at least be able to integrate your SMS platform with your CRM.

But ideally, your SMS platform will be part of your CRM so you can give a connected customer experience.

1. VipeCloud

We’re humbly placing ourselves first on this list because VipeCloud is an all-in-one CRM that includes every SMS feature you’ll need to meet customers’ expectations. 

Our all-in-one CRM was made for small businesses that want to present themselves like their large competitors — except for a fraction of the price.

This means with VipeCloud, you can create unified customer experiences with SMS, email, social media, and throughout your sales process.

Our customers choose us because our software is easy to use, has very humanized customer support, and it’s competitively priced.

So not only do you get an SMS marketing platform, but you get every marketing and sales tool you need to satisfy your customers.

Pros

• All-in-one solution – Combine sales, marketing automation, and customer relationship management (CRM) into a single platform to simplify your customer experience.
• Ease of use – VipeCloud is intuitive to get started.
• Support – Learn VipeCloud yourself through our content, or talk with our caring support team.
• Free trial – Experience VipeCloud for free for 15 days. 
• Affordability – Our pricing structure was made with small businesses in mind.

• Consistent updates – We’re dedicated to pushing the status quo with new marketing and sales features.
• Scalability – VipeCloud scales with you as you grow without breaking the bank.

Cons

• No ready-made texting templates – Teams will need to create their own custom templates.

Features

• SMS – Send text messages to your customers or leads via 1:1 or 1:many messaging.

• Pipelines – Track your sales and service delivery process using customizable pipelines.

• Reports – Track your most important marketing and sales KPIs using various reports.
• Social media post scheduler – Schedule your social media posts in advance, ensuring consistent and timely content across your social platforms.
• Contact management – Organize and track all of your leads’, prospects’, and customers’ information to nurture more valuable relationships.
• Tasks – Create and assign action items to ensure all necessary activities are completed in a timely manner.
• Estimates – Create and send cost estimates to prospects to communicate pricing information. Then track how your prospects engage with your estimates.

• Scheduler – Schedule meetings with leads and customers easily using a link. 

• Segmentation – Divide your customer base into distinct groups based on various characteristics so you can send more relevant SMS and email messages at scale.
• Integrations – Seamlessly connect your email, social media, Zapier, Zoom, QuickBooks, or other apps using VipeCloud’s API.
• Forms – Create custom input forms (like contact forms or survey forms) that collect information from your customers or leads that can automatically be added to your pipelines or segmented contact lists.

• Email – Send, track, and organize your emails from one platform to simplify communication and follow-up efforts.

Pricing

Regardless of your plan, each text costs 2 cents to send.

Read more about how texts are charged here.

VipeCloud offers 4 affordable pricing tiers based on your needs. 

Here’s how the pricing plans measure up when billed annually:

• Plus – $20 monthly (or $25 per user paid monthly)
• Pro – $40 monthly (or $50 per user paid monthly)
• Enterprise – $60 monthly (or $75 per user paid monthly)
• Agency – $80 monthly (or $100 per user paid monthly)

Visit our pricing page for more details on each plan.

Reviews

VipeCloud mostly receives 4-5 stars across online reviews.

Here’s what John B. has to say about using VipeCloud:

“Overall: Vipecloud enables us to do a multitude of different things with our customer database — everything from contact management to email marketing and even to tracking opportunities. It’s one of the best on the market.

Pros: As a user of a number of the larger and more popular marketing automation / CRM tools, I found VipeCloud to be easier to use and quite robust for its footprint. The system was easy to set-up and use, and the support was out-of-this world. I’d recommend it to any small organization that’s wanting to get the most out of the contemporary marketing software world.

Cons: There is almost nothing we didn’t like about VipeCloud. When we encountered difficulties and even when we needed to unlock new features, VipeCloud was very eager to help!”

Best SMS Marketing Platforms For Local Businesses

The SMS marketing platforms in this section specialize in helping local businesses.

So they have SMS features, but also likely have other features geared towards local businesses.

2. Birdeye

Birdeye is known as a reputation and customer experience platform with an SMS platform built in.

This makes Birdeye ideal for local businesses that want to manage their online presence and easily engage with customers from a single platform.

Many Birdeye customers value that they can manage their reputation across listings, reviews, and communication channels.

Pros

• Complimentary customer experience features
• Communicate through other channels like Google, Webchat, Instagram, FB messenger, and more (not just SMS)
• Easily improve your online reputation with review and listing management tools
• Robust analytics features to capture and drive insights from customer feedback
• Many users have highlighted that the user interface is simple and easy to use

Cons

• Some users have expressed concerns about the platform being costly and having to be locked into a contract.
• While some users find Birdeye’s UI easy to navigate, trouble navigating the software is one of the most common complaints from users.
• Though BirdEye integrates with many systems, if it doesn’t integrate with your CRM, using it can become inefficient.
• Some users have noted that the level of customization for certain features, like surveys or reports, can be limited.

Features

• Listings Management – Maintain consistent business information across all of your online listings to improve your business’s visibility and SEO.
• Review Management – Monitor, respond to, and solicit reviews across various platforms to enhance your online reputation.
• Referral Marketing – Launch easy referral campaigns to harness the power of word-of-mouth marketing to acquire new customers.
• Landing Pages – Build custom landing pages for each of your business’s locations.
• Survey Tools – Send surveys to your contacts to collect and analyze customer feedback.
• Social Listening – Track brand mentions across social media so you can respond swiftly to customer concerns or compliments.
• Customer Messaging – Manage customer interactions and messages from a single platform, including SMS, FB messenger, Google Chat, and more. Communicate one-to-one or one-to-many
• Webchat – Communicate with visitors live on your website, set up auto-responders, and capture contact information.
• Insights and Reporting – Receive actionable business insights into customer sentiment, business trends, competitors, and customer feedback.
• Payments – Offer multiple ways for customers to pay, including card readers or payment portals sent via text.

Pricing

Birdeye has 3 different pricing plans that charge based on the number of locations you have for your business.

You’ll need to contact Birdeye for an accurate quote.

Reviews

Birdeye mostly has 4-5 star reviews across the internet. Here’s what Lydia K. has to say about using Birdeye:

“What do you like best about Birdeye?

We have had a tremendous increase in patient reviews, more than I had anticipated. I love the automated response. The support team has always resolved our issues in an efficient and timely manner. The payment processing option is fantastic! Implementation team has amazing trainers. I recently dealt with Harshit Munjal and Piyush Sinha. Both were such a pleasure to work with. Very professional yet friendly and personable. Excellent team!

What do you dislike about Birdeye?

I wish it could bridge to my practice management software. We use Periovision

What problems is Birdeye solving and how is that benefiting you?

Excellent return on our investment. Streamlined review process for our patients. The reviews have had a tremendous impact on our patients. Most of our new patients come from referrals from other patients or from google searches and almost every one of them credits our reviews as the main reason they selected our practice.”

3. Klayvio

Klaviyo is a marketing automation platform that helps businesses automate their SMS and email marketing. 

Its texting feature comes in its highest tier with email marketing. 

Klayvio positions itself as a solution made for ecommerce companies.

Pros

• Can provide email and text features
• Clear reporting to audit SMS campaigns 

• Comes with various integrations, including Shopify, Zapier, Aftership, Triple Whale, and more
• Has robust segmentation tools that allow you to group your customers based on their behavior, location, purchase history, and more
• Integrates with many common ecommerce platforms
• Provides detailed analytics so you can easily track the performance of your campaigns
• Comes with customizable templates to get your SMS campaigns started faster.
• Made with e-commerce in mind.

Cons

• Can be hard to navigate initially

• Pricing can vary widely based on the number of contacts you have (costs can be high when importing lots of contacts)
• While Klaviyo offers A/B testing, some users find it less comprehensive or easy to use than other platforms.
• Customers have mentioned that live support has been hard to reach at times.

Features

• SMS – Send and receive text messages.
• Email – Easily integrate your email with your SMS.
• Segmentation – Group your contacts based on shared characteristics for more relevant marketing.
• Mobile push notifications – Send push notifications to your customers’ mobile devices.
• Reviews management – Send review requests to customers and capture customer feedback.
• Signup forms – Collect contact information using pre-build signup forms.
• Integrations – Connect Klaviyo to 300+ integrations, including Shopify and WooCommerce.
• Built-in CDP – Automatically capture and analyze customers’ history.
• Predictive analytics – Predict and forecast future customer behavior to make more data-driven decisions.
• Reporting – Use pre-built or create custom reports of marketing performance.
• A/B testing – Test messages and signup forms to optimize your campaigns.
• Pre-made templates – Start off with pre-made SMS and email templates or, create your own.

Pricing

Klaviyo offers 3 different pricing tiers that vary based on the number of contacts you need.

Here’s the pricing for 1,001 to 1,500 contacts:

• Email + SMS – Starting at $60 per month
• Email – Starting at $45 per month
• Free 

Check out their pricing page for more details.

Reviews

Klaviyo mostly receives 4-5 star reviews across online reviews.

Here’s what one verified user has to say about using Klaviyo:

“What do you like best about Klaviyo?

The email and SMS features are awesome because they give a lot of templates and options to customize – this helps make sure what we create are on-brand and appealing. It is very user friendly too, like the drag and drop editor for content creation’; no need for indepth coding knowledge.

What do you dislike about Klaviyo?

There is a learning curve to master, it is not as easy at first. Also, it starts to get expensive when your email list gets bigger. This can be a deal breaker for small businesses.

What problems is Klaviyo solving and how is that benefiting you?

Marketing automation. A lof of tasks we do can be automated which saves us a lot of time. The analytics that this comes with is also very useful in determining the right strategies to use.”

4. Podium

Podium is a communication platform made for local businesses.

It comes with SMS features and other tools a local business needs to communicate, engage, and manage its online reputation with customers.

Pros

• Easy to use
• Immediately engage and stay up to date with customer interactions
• Reputation management features
• Consolidated platform to view all customer messages across SMS, social, and phone calls.
• Payment processing features

Cons

• Pricey (compared to VipeCloud)
• Customers have reported support that’s “not great”
• Conversations aren’t integrated with CRM
• Customers have reported having a hard time not going over their contact limit without upgrading

Features

• Online reviews management – Gather and manage online reviews from various platforms to improve online reputation and visibility.
• All-in-one messaging platform – Manage customer communication via text, FB Messenger, phone call, and webchat from a single platform.
• Webchat – Communicate with potential customers via chat directly through your website.
• Payment processing – Send invoices and collect payments through text messages.
• Team chat – Enable internal communication within your team directly through the platform.
• Phone call – Receive and call customers through the Podium dashboard.
• Contact management – Podium comes with a CRM to help manage your contacts and interactions.
• Integrations – Podium currently has 180+ integrations.

Pricing

Podium offers 3 different pricing plans.

Here’s how the pricing plans measure up when billed annually:

• Essentials – $249 per month (or $289 paid monthly) for 1,000 contacts
• Standard – $409 per month (or $449 paid monthly) for unlimited contacts
• Professional – $599 per month (or $649 paid monthly) for unlimited contacts

We recommend checking out their pricing page for more information.

Reviews

Podium mostly receives 4-5 star reviews across software review sites.

Here’s what Sergey B. has to say about using Podium:

“What do you like best about Podium?

Podium is a powerful text messaging tool to contact customers, conduct marketing campaigns and promote the organization’s products and services. It is super intuitive; our entire team finds it easy to use, even those who have joined sometime after implementing it; the adaptation of users has been fast. I love that it also integrates payment functions; they are easy for everyone, especially for our customers, who have also been delighted. It is an excellent tool for contacting clients regarding payments, reviews, support and general communication needs.

What do you dislike about Podium?

Podium works well. However, there are features I would like to see in it, for example, being able to see who has viewed a message on the mobile platform, highlighting messages that have not been responded to after a certain period and the sometimes prolonged load times.

What problems is Podium solving and how is that benefiting you?

Through the use of this tool, we have been able to answer queries from our customers from different channels in real-time, schedule appointments with customers, and even make sales via telephone. The payment mechanism it offers provides greater security for both the client and us and helps us make the process easier, more convenient and faster. It is a tool I use every day in my company, and it has been a critical factor in improving our customer service and growth in general.”

Best General SMS Marketing Platforms

Looking for a designated SMS marketing platform?

These platforms’ main features are for SMS, but are compatible with a large list of integrations.

5. Slicktext

Slicktext is a designated SMS marketing platform with a solid reputation.

Some of the world’s largest companies choose Slicktext because of its powerful features in an easy-to-use user interface.

Pros

• SlickText is known for its intuitive, user-friendly interface, which makes it easy to navigate for beginners
• The platform provides a variety of powerful SMS features
• Many users have praised SlickText for its excellent customer support, citing quick responses and helpful assistance.
• SlickText helps businesses stay compliant with SMS marketing laws by including automatic opt-in and opt-out features.
• Easy onboarding for higher-tier plans

Cons

• Many users have found SlickText to be more expensive than other SMS marketing platforms
• Doens’t include a CRM (although it does have integrations)
• While SlickText does provide basic reporting and analytics, some users have mentioned a need for more in-depth analytics.

Features

• Mass text messaging – Send a single text message to a large audience at once.
• Text message scheduling – Schedule text messages to plan communication in advance.
• Autoresponders – Automatically send a response to customer messages or actions.
• Two-way text messaging – Engage in two-way communication with customers, fostering more personalized interaction.
• MMS messaging – Send multimedia messages, including images and videos.
• Link tracking – Include links in your messages and track who clicks on them.
• Keyword texting – Create unique keywords that users can text to a short code to easily subscribe to your messages.
• Contact management – Manage your contact list, including using segmentation features that allow for more targeted communication.
• Integrations – SlickText integrates with various popular platforms like MailChimp, Constant Contact, and Shopify.
• Drip campaigns – Set up a series of messages that are automatically sent out over a period of time.

Pricing

Compared to other SMS marketing platforms, Slicktext has one of the most complex pricing tiers. They currently offer 9 different pricing tiers ranging from $29 per month to $1,250 per month.

The pricing is based on the number of opt-in textwords you can have or the amount of texts you send.

• The Basic – $29 per month for 500 texts and 2 textwords
• The Step Up – $49 per month for 1,000 texts and 4 textwords
• The Lil Bro – $79 per month for 2,000 texts and 6 textwords
• The Big Bro – $139 per month for 3,600 texts and 8 textwords
• The Boss – $189 per month for 5,000 texts and 14 textwords
• The Albatross – $350 per month for 10,000 texts and 16 textwords
• The Whale – $750 per month for 25,000 texts and 20 textwords
• The Monstro $1,250 per month for 50,000 texts and 30 textwords
• Enterprise – Contact Slicktext for pricing

Check out Slicktext’s pricing page for more details.

Reviews

Slicktext mostly receives 5-star reviews across online reviews.

Here’s what one verified user has to say about using SlickText:

“What do you like best about SlickText?

I recently signed up for SlickText and am thoroughly impressed with their documentation and customer service. Their well-organized and comprehensive documentation provides step-by-step guides, tutorials, and FAQs, making the platform easy to use. It saved me time and helped me make the most of the platform.

SlickText’s customer service is also exceptional. Their support team is prompt, knowledgeable, and dedicated to assisting customers. They promptly addressed any questions or issues I had, going above and beyond to ensure my satisfaction.

What do you dislike about SlickText?

I wish I had the ability to see a history of all messages sent to each individual contact.

What problems is SlickText solving and how is that benefiting you?

We were looking for an easy-to-use SMS marketing campaign, and the added marketing tools Slick Text provides take the platform to another level. We are using it to build our SMS marketing list and integrating it into our POS to onboard our monthly members.”

6. EZ Texting

EZ Texting is an SMS marketing platform that has been allowing businesses to reach their customers through text messages since 2004.

EZ is a designated SMS platform, coming with all of the SMS features you’ll need without the complexity of other platforms.

Pros

• Has an intuitive interface, which makes the platform user-friendly, even for non-technical users
• Offers a rich set of SMS features, including scheduled messages, automations, personalized messaging, and keyword SMS campaigns.
• EZ Texting is recognized for its high delivery rates
• Can integrate with 4,500+ other software.

Cons

• While EZ Texting provides good value, it can become quite expensive as your list of contacts grows.
• EZ Texting does provide analytics, but you’ll need to pay for a higher-tier plan for access
• Customers have reported the setup being tedious
• Customers have reported occasional bugs that delay campaigns

Features

• Text messaging tools – SMS, group texting, 2-way texting, MMS image texts, opt-out options, and text forwarding.
• Customer list growth tools – Use QR codes, text keywords, and web signup fields to capture contacts and grow your contact list. 
• Text campaigns – Use text automation, scheduled texts, text reminders, drip campaigns, and recurring texts to nurture your audience.
• API & integrations – EZ Texting can integrate with over 4500 other software, including Hubspot, Constant Contact, Squarespace, and more.
• Analytics & reporting – Measure and track your SMS campaigns using a reporting dashboard.
• Template & design tools – Gain access to 20 million free photos for MMS campaigns and a template library to get a jumpstart creating messages.
• Accessibility – EZ Texting can be accessed via their mobile app. You can also Manage users on your team and client accounts.
• Textable number options – You have the option to text from a local number, toll-free number, high-volume number, text-enabled landline, or dedicated short code

Pricing

EZ Texting comes in 4 main pricing plans.

Each plan varies based on:

• Cost per text
• Daily message limit
• Delivery rate

Here’s how the pricing plans measure up when billed annually:

• Launch – Starting at $20 monthly (or $25 per user paid monthly)
• Boost – Starting at $60 monthly (or $75 per user paid monthly)
• Scale – Starting at $100 monthly (or $125 per user paid monthly)
• Enterprise – Starting at $3,000 monthly

We recommend checking out their pricing page for more details.

Reviews

EZ Texting mostly receives 5-star and some 4-star reviews across online reviews.

Here’s what Tania C. has to say about using EZ Texting:

“What do you like best about EZ Texting?

The ability to schedule and send messages is fantastic. Group messages are designed well. If someone replies to a group message, it does send it back to everyone else. It knows to send it back ONLY to the sender. This makes it easy for me on EZ text to track responses and get back to our employees promptly.

What do you dislike about EZ Texting?

If you add images to a text message, the quality is sometimes compressed. But adjust the resolution prior to sending help. But it would be nicer if there were less steps involved.

What problems is EZ Texting solving and how is that benefiting you?

Helps important messages get to our staff and prospective candidates. It is direct and to the point. No more missed appointments or missed email reminders. EZ text helps your message stand out when you need.”

7. Attentive

Attentive is a designated SMS marketing platform that’s used by some of the world’s most well-known brands.

Attentive is especially ideal for ecommerce, retail, food & beverage, and entertainment.

Of all the SMS marketing platforms on this list, Attentive is one of the only ones that uses predictive and generative AI to create copy, engage with customers, and to predict the next best action in a customer journey.

Pros

• Intuitive user interface
• Allows for sophisticated segmentation, enabling targeted and personalized communication
• Provides detailed reporting and analytics
• Dedicated client support
• High delivery rates
• Customers love how Attentive is constantly releasing new features

Cons

• Some users have reported that Attentive’s pricing can be high, especially for small businesses
• Some users have reported challenges with the opt-in process, noting that it could be more streamlined.

Features

• Audience manager – Track subscribers’ actions, create tags, and store subscriber data for more relevant marketing.
• Deliverability – Attentive has tools like Smart Sending and Quiet Hours to help you reliably reach your audience.
• Attentive AI – Generate copy and images for your campaigns in a few clicks using artificial intelligence.
• Analytics – Visualize your data using dashboards to make data-driven optimizations and decisions.
• Email – Create, design, segment, and automate your email campaigns.
• Signup forms – Create and design signup elements to capture subscribers.
• Messaging – Communicate using 2-way conversation with text, images, videos, GIFs, and audio.
• Integrations – Connect Attentive with Salesforce, Shopify, and 100+ other software.
• Compliance management – Easily comply with TCPA and CTIA guidelines by managing the opt-in and opt-out process.
• Dedicated client support – Users have access to an attentive client support team for strategic advice, best practices, and technical assistance.

Pricing

Attentive’s pricing is not public, so you’ll need to reach out to them for accurate pricing.

However, reviewers have mentioned that Attentive is a more pricey option for businesses on a budget.

Reviews

Attentive mostly receives 5 stars across online reviews.

Here’s what Brett F. has to say about using Attentive:

“What do you like best about Attentive?

Attentive platform is simple and easy to navigate.

It is the best SMS marketing company for compliance and legal guidelines. I love that many of my legal concerns are removed because of the recommendations and steps Attentive requires.

What do you dislike about Attentive?

If you are a smaller company, it can be pricey getting started and paying a platform fee.

It does take some learning to understand all of the journeys and signup units to make sure you are setting up everything correctly.

What problems is Attentive solving and how is that benefiting you?

We had never ran SMS marketing campaigns. Attentive is great to help set that up and run automated campaigns (journeys) as a funnel to convert leads to customers. It is also great to manage and send messages compliantly to a list of potential customers and a list of customers.”

Get Started With SMS Marketing Today

If you need an SMS marketing platform that:

• Comes with CRM 
• Seamlessly integrates with your email
• Is cost-efficient as you scale

Then you should consider signing up for a free 15-day free trial with VipeCloud.

Or, if you’d like to learn more about how VipeCloud can get you started with SMS marketing, request a demo. 

Our support team will be happy to send you in the right direction.