SMS MAILINGS
For the Messages That Are Worth Paying For
Connect your own messaging account, keep your own number, and pay your provider directly. We add no margin — and we will keep telling you when a free push would have done the same job.
See What a Send Actually Costs
Pick a list size and watch the bill. SMS is the most expensive channel you have — which is exactly why it should be the one you use least, and most deliberately.
Put your own rate in the box. The default is a rough US figure — yours will differ, sometimes by a lot.
No messages yet.
Sent from your own number, through your own provider account. Check your real rates on Twilio’s pricing page.
You Bring the Provider. We Bring the List.
SMS is not resold to you with a margin on top. You connect your own messaging account, keep your own number, and pay the provider directly at their rates.
Connect your SMS account
Mailings unlock once a messaging account is connected in your own settings — Twilio is the supported provider. Paste your credentials and sender number once, and it is done.
Pick recipients and write
All your customers, or one segment. Placeholders drop each person’s own details into the text, so a bulk send does not read like one.
Send now or schedule it
Fire it immediately or set a date and time. It arrives in the messages app from your own number — no wallet card required and nothing to install first.
Check who actually got it
Every mailing lists a delivery status per recipient, name by name. On a channel you pay for, that is the difference between a bill and a report.
Six Messages Worth Paying For
If push can do the job, let push do the job. These are the cases where paying per message earns its money back.
Appointment reminders
The day before
One no-show costs more than a hundred texts. This is the single clearest case where SMS pays for itself, and it is why clinics and salons send them.
Something changed today
Closures, delays, cancellations
When people need to know now and you cannot risk them not looking. SMS is the only channel where near-certain delivery is worth the money.
Order or repair ready
The moment it is done
Collection notices for garages, cleaners, workshops, and pharmacies. A message that saves a phone call is a message worth four cents.
Codes and access details
Door codes, bookings, confirmations
Anything the customer needs to find again later. Text messages are easy to search months afterwards; a push notification is gone once dismissed.
A genuinely short deadline
Today only, ending at 6pm
Use it rarely and it works. Use it monthly and people stop reading, which is expensive in a way push never is.
People who have not installed the card
With a personalised install link
Push only reaches cardholders, so this is the gap SMS was made for. Pick a card template and the message carries an install link for that exact card — then they are on push, free, from the next message onward.
Where SMS Beats the Free Options
Three channels, side by side, including the parts that do not flatter SMS.
And SMS here is outbound only. Your customers cannot text you back, so never end a message with a question or an invitation to reply. If you want an answer, send an email — that is the one channel where replies come back into your dashboard.
Seven Things That Decide What This Costs You
SMS pricing is not one number, and a few settings move it more than anything else you do.
Your provider bills you, not us
We add no margin and take no cut. You hold the account, you set the sender number, and the invoice comes from them at their published rates.
Rates differ enormously by country
Twilio’s US rate sits near a cent a segment before carrier fees; the UK is around four cents, and some markets exceed fifteen. Check your own destination on their pricing page before promising anyone a budget.
Length is billed in segments
A segment is 160 plain characters. Add one emoji or an accented letter and the whole message re-encodes, dropping the limit to 70 characters a segment — so a single emoji can double or treble the cost of an entire send.
Schedule it, do not send it at ten at night
A text at ten at night is intrusive in a way a wallet notification is not. Mailings can be scheduled for a date and time, so write when you have a moment and send when people are awake.
Delivery status per person
Open a mailing and you see who received it and who did not, name by name. On a paid channel that is the difference between a bill and a report.
Segment before you send
Every extra recipient has a price. Sending to the four hundred people it applies to instead of four thousand is not just better marketing — it is nine tenths cheaper.
A personalised card install link
Pick a card template and the message carries an install link for that card. So you can text everyone who holds your stamp card but not your cashback card, and invite only them.
Five Mistakes That Waste Money
SMS is the only channel here where a bad decision shows up on an invoice.
Using SMS for what push does free
“You earned a stamp” does not need to cost you anything. Reserve paid messages for things that are urgent, needed later, or aimed at people who do not hold your card. Everything else belongs on push.
Ending a text with a question
SMS in this platform sends one way. A customer who tries to reply is texting a number that nobody reads, which feels worse than never being asked. Put a phone number or a link in the message if you want a response, and keep the actual conversations on email.
Texting people who never agreed to it
Marketing texts are regulated in most countries, and the penalties are real. Send only to people who gave you their number knowingly, always identify your business, and always offer a way to stop.
Writing long, then wondering about the bill
A segment is 160 plain characters, but one emoji re-encodes the message and cuts that to 70. A 200-character message with a smiley is three segments, not one. Count characters before a big send — on five thousand recipients that mistake triples the bill.
Sending to the whole list because you can
The temptation with push is to send too often. With SMS it is to send too widely. A message that applies to a tenth of your customers should be sent to a tenth of your customers, and the saving is exactly ninety percent.
Start Free, Add SMS When You Need It
Push notifications are free and unlimited on every plan, so you can run a full loyalty programme without connecting anything. Add SMS later, for the handful of messages that genuinely justify it.