The best SMS marketing software in 2026

I bought a couch online six months ago. Since then, I have received approximately 4,000 texts from this company. They want to know if I'm "still thinking about couches." They want me to review my couch. They want me to join their couch loyalty program, which offers me points toward more couches. I have a couch. I'm good on couches. The couch situation is handled.

But you know what? I opened every single one because SMS marketing works stupidly well. Where emails rot in spam folders and social media posts get buried under an avalanche of engagement-bait, texts apparently get read in under three minutes, on average. That's faster than I read anything, including stop signs.

I tested and compared dozens of the top SMS marketing platforms out there, so you can blow up phones responsibly. Here are my picks for the best SMS marketing software.

The best SMS apps for small businesses

• SimpleTexting for easy-to-run SMS marketing campaigns

• Textmagic for quickly sending texts from an SMS service

• Textla for low per-text pricing

• SlickText for collecting phone numbers and advanced marketing

• Salesmsg for sales teams using SMS

• EZ Texting for straightforward mass texting

• Twilio for customizing your SMS marketing

• Attentive for large eCommerce brands

• ClickSend for no-contract global texting

What makes the best SMS app?

SMS marketing is a huge business around the world, so there are dozens of different SMS marketing platforms available. Lots of marketing automation platforms, like Mailchimp, have SMS marketing features built in, which is great if you're looking for an all-in-one tool. Some SMS tools are designed purely for high-volume broadcast campaigns, like political messaging or enterprise mass sends, without the flexibility that growth teams, CRM operators, or customer support functions actually need. Similarly, a lot of "apps" are actually API services that developers can use to add SMS functionality to their own projects, rather than a service you can sign up for and use straight away. 

To cut through the huge range of options, I set five key criteria that I was looking for in SMS marketing apps:

• Easy to use for marketing and ops teams. If you need to hire a software engineer or spend your entire budget on custom development just to send a text that says "20% off this weekend," you've already lost. The app should be simple enough to plug into whatever existing setup you have, without you needing a huge amount of technical knowledge. Marketing teams and operations folks are already juggling nine million things—they don't have time to become SMS experts just to do their jobs. 

• Capable of true two-way messaging, so you can have a conversation with your customers. A lot of SMS platforms are just glorified megaphones—they let you blast messages out to people, but if someone texts back with a question, you're out of luck. That's not good enough. Customers expect to be able to text you back and get an actual response, like they would with a friend. (Ok, maybe not exactly like a friend. Hopefully, your business is better at responding than my friends are.)

• Able to integrate with other apps and services, so you can automate workflows. Look, I am lazy. I don't want to manually do things that a computer could do for me. If someone abandons their cart, I want the system to automatically send them a text reminder. If someone fills out a contact form, I want them automatically added to my SMS list. The best SMS platforms integrate with other tools, whether that's your eCommerce platform, your CRM, your email marketing software, or literally any other app you use to run your business.

• Affordable with flexible pricing, so teams at any stage can get started. Some apps want you to pay thousands per month, which is fine if you're a massive company that sells yachts or something. But if you're a normal business selling normal things to normal people, you need something affordable. This meant prioritizing services that are either pay-as-you-go or offer tiered plans without punishing entry-level pricing. 

• Able to scale as needed. On the flip side, if you are a big business sending thousands of texts, you need a platform that can handle that volume without falling apart or charging you a kidney per message. The ideal platform grows with you, whether you're sending 50 texts a month or 50,000.

I should probably mention that this isn't a list of marketing automation platforms that can send tens of thousands of texts at once to run some giant coordinated campaign (though some of the apps I chose can do that if you need them to). And while some of these apps offer comprehensive features like voice calls and sending actual physical faxes (yes, faxes are apparently still a thing in some industries, and I have questions), their core function is to make it easy to send SMS messages to your customers and get replies back.

Also, a quick note: if you're sending texts to customers in the US, you'll need to register with The Campaign Registry. Phone numbers that aren't registered are likely to be blocked by carriers, meaning all the companies on this list have taken measures to ensure compliance—some require you to fill out a form, while others handle the registration for you.

I checked out every SMS message app I could find, testing all the ones that appeared to tick the boxes I mentioned above. I signed up for free trials, clicked through dashboards, sent test messages to my own phone until I was annoyed with myself, and explored any automation and integration features. After thoroughly investigating the most promising options and ruling out the ones that were confusing, overpriced, or just plain bad, I ended up with the list you're about to read.

The best SMS marketing apps at a glance

Best SMS marketing software for easy-to-run marketing campaigns

SimpleTexting

SimpleTexting pros:

• Makes setting up a marketing list very easy 

• Built-in apps and integrations allow you to run surveys and competitions and automate everything 

SimpleTexting cons:

• Sending individual messages is possible but not intuitive

SimpleTexting is the best option if you're looking to run marketing campaigns quickly. The user interface is intuitive, with everything accessible from the main screen—I didn't even need to view any tutorials to grasp how things worked.

While you can contact customers directly, SimpleTexting is more focused on easy-to-run marketing campaigns, where you text the same message to everyone on a list. Go to the Campaigns tab, click New, give it a name, and you're ready to start marketing to your customers.

To get new prospects on your list, set up a keyword in the Keywords tab. For example, potential customers can text SAUSAGE to 555888 and get put on your Sausage and Hot Dog Deals list. (This is also a great way to learn who in your audience is living their best life.) As soon as they join, an autoresponder can immediately text them with a discount code and ask them if they want more information. If they do, it can respond with another text.

With SimpleTexting's built-in apps available in the Apps tab, you can also conduct more technical marketing efforts like running surveys, polls, and sweepstakes. And the platform has gotten better at helping you write those messages, too. AI Assist (a built-in SMS copy generator) lives inside the campaign composer, so you can draft, reword, and tighten messages without bouncing to another tool.

Of course, for any marketing effort, you need analytics. SimpleTexting's Analytics tab offers detailed breakdowns of how your campaigns are going with information like the number of new subscribers, what keyword they're using to join, how many autoresponders have triggered, how many people have unsubscribed, and what responses you've been sent.

And there are lots of other nice features too. You can configure an away message in case a customer texts you when you're closed, and the cheapest plan comes with three user seats so you can collaborate with your team. You can leave notes on conversations or assign them to your teammates. All in all, it just checks a lot of boxes.

SimpleTexting also integrates with Zapier, so you can do things like automatically add people to your Sausage and Hot Dog Deals list from Facebook lead ads or anywhere else you get your leads.

SimpleTexting price: From $39/month for 500 credits (enough for 500 short texts). Additional credits cost $0.055 on the entry plan; there are higher volume plans if you need to send more texts.

Best SMS marketing software for quickly sending texts

Textmagic

Textmagic pros:

• The web app is very intuitive and easy to use 

• Pay-as-you-go pricing means you aren't locked into a plan 

Textmagic cons:

• Automation features aren't as advanced as some of the other picks

Unlike other apps, which open up to a dashboard cluttered with widgets and options, Textmagic takes you straight to what you want to do: send a text.

But that doesn't mean that Textmagic isn't functional or powerful. You can send messages from Textmagic's number so replies go to the API, web app, or your email; or from your own mobile number so replies go directly to your phone. You can build contact lists by importing an Excel spreadsheet or CSV file, manually entering them in the Contacts tab of the app, saving the number of anyone who texts you, or using a click-to-text form on your website.

In the Scheduled tab, you can schedule messages, for example, to send out a Friday Specials text every week. You can also set up templates in the Templates tab to quickly send recurring messages—like appointment confirmations—and automate responses to customer texts. And of course, you can quickly and easily send customers a text from the web or the iOS and Android apps.

Really, Textmagic hits that sweet spot of being both a joy to use and powerful enough for almost any SMS marketing use case. And even better, text credits are entirely pay-as-you-go, so you're not locked into an expensive ongoing contract. You prepay for credit, pay $10/month for a virtual number, and then just send texts—which start at $0.049—as much or as little as you need. You can pay less per text if you're willing to sign up for a monthly subscription, though, meaning there's flexibility for scaling.

More recently, Textmagic has leaned harder into lightweight SMS automation. Simple flows can string together messages (and, in some cases, email) so you can follow up without manually chasing every reply.

You can also connect Textmagic to thousands of organizational tools, scheduling calendars, and other apps through Zapier, so you can do things like automatically follow up with leads.

Textmagic price: Pay-as-you-go starts at $0.049/text sent; dedicated virtual numbers from $10/month.

Best SMS marketing software for low per-text pricing

Textla

Textla pros:

• Very affordable

• Easy to use

Textla cons:

• No native integrations (but it does integrate with Zapier)

Textla is very easy to get started with. An onboarding survey collects all the information needed to sign up for The Campaign Registry, and there will be plenty of chances to talk through your needs with a human customer support agent after. I got a text and a voicemail within a day of setting up my test account. 

The app itself is simple to use. There's an inbox to start sending texts as soon as you're approved, and you can easily set up campaigns, manage your contacts, and review your analytics.

The real standout here, though, is the price. There's a monthly subscription, starting at $19/month, and a per-text charge of $0.005 per message. That works out to one cent every twenty texts, a fraction of the price offered by most of the apps on this list. That can add up to big savings—and because the app itself is also quite good, you're not compromising.

Textla also connects with Zapier so you can connect it to the rest of your tech stack and set up a fully automated SMS system.

Textla Price: From $19/month plus $0.01 per text

Best SMS marketing software for collecting phone numbers and advanced marketing

SlickText

SlickText pros:

• Opt-in web forms and pop-ups make it super easy to collect phone numbers through your website or social media accounts, plus you can use it to run a loyalty program

• Solid onboarding and helpful hints throughout the app make it easy to get started no matter how technical you are 

SlickText cons:

• Might be more than you need for a basic texting service

SlickText is versatile. If you want marketing features, they're here in spades, but it also offers a pretty great inbox for one-on-one conversations. To me, though, the real strength here is making it easy to collect phone numbers in a variety of different ways and to run marketing campaigns by texting them.

The onboarding is quick and comprehensive, with a wizard that asks you what industry you're in, and it guides you through relevant features. The tutorials introduce SlickText's best feature: its Marketing Tools. Here you'll find easy-to-set-up opt-in web forms, website pop-ups, text surveys, automatic opt-in links, coupons, contests, promo codes, loyalty programs, and more—along with helpful hints on how to use them.

I was most impressed by how nice the default templates looked. For example, you can get a good-looking pop-up on your website ready to collect phone numbers in just a few minutes, which is more than can be said for a lot of other SMS marketing apps. It's the same for all of SlickText's other marketing tools—they're just good. Really, it's surprising how much functionality is tucked away in one section of the app.

Messaging your marketing lists is simple too. You go to Send a Message, select the list you want to target, enter your text message, and hit send. (You can also schedule it for some time in the future, or set it to send regularly, like on Fridays or the last day of the month.)

SlickText also has its own Workflows—available on every plan—that allow you to further automate your SMS marketing plans. Alternatively, you can integrate SlickText with Zapier so that anyone who fills in a form, abandons their cart, or takes any other sort of action gets a text.

SlickText price: From $29/month for 500 texts

Best SMS marketing software for sales teams

Salesmsg

Salesmsg pros:

• Allows you to get a local number wherever you are in the US or Canada 

• Integrates with HubSpot, Pipedrive, and other CRMs

• AI agents that automatically qualify leads and book meetings

Salesmsg cons:

• Web app is a bit simplistic

• Free trial requires a credit card number

Salesmsg is a great option for US- or Canada-based sales reps, field teams, or customer-facing roles that need a local presence. Unfortunately, it's not available internationally beyond that.

As soon as you sign up for Salesmsg, you're prompted to create a local number. This is the number that all your texts will appear to come from, and you can assign a separate number for each team member. You'll also be asked if you want to start the compliance process, though you can test the application during your free trial without doing this.

Salesmsg has one of the most straightforward web apps of any of the services on this list. You'll find the usual tabs in the sidebar—Inboxes, Outbound, Contacts, and Analytics—alongside one that's a little less common—AI & Automation. You can optionally set up an autonomous AI agent that can handle inbound questions and two-way conversations, though how comfortable you are letting a bot talk to your customers is a personal decision. Salesmsg has expanded this concept with specialized agents that go a step further: a booking AI agent that can schedule appointments over SMS, and an AI calling agent for automated voice conversations.

If you're building out repeatable messaging at scale, the AI knowledge base lets you document what your agent should know (and how it should answer), while the AI texting assistant helps you draft and refine messages so your team can move faster without losing your voice.

Salesmsg Campaigns let you run broadcast-style texting with more sophistication than a simple blast. It uses AI to help with timing and sequencing, so follow-ups land when they're most likely to get a response. For true "if this/then that" automation, Salesmsg Workflows adds a visual builder for triggers, actions, and logic, handy for capturing leads, booking appointments, and keeping conversations moving without manual busywork.

If you want, you can also enable call forwarding, so if a customer calls your text number, they'll get forwarded to your personal or business phone, or just answer calls using the web app. (Testing this was kind of silly as the calls were being routed through VoIP servers all over the world for my voice to travel six inches.)

Despite the simple web app, Salesmsg has a lot of power.

Salesmsg integrates with CRM platforms like HubSpot, Pipedrive, and Zoho, so you can use your CRM of choice and have Salesmsg automatically handle the text messaging. You can also use its triggers to create a webhook that you can use to send specific kinds of messages, like appointment reminders. Or you can use Zapier to connect Salesmsg to any service you want, so you can automate SMS and make sure it works with the rest of your marketing tactics.

Salesmsg price: From $25/month for 500 text messages and a single phone number. Additional messages are $0.04; additional numbers are $10/month. High-volume customers can save a little, per text, by opting for a higher priced tier.

Best SMS marketing software for straightforward mass texting

EZ Texting

EZ Texting pros:

• Some of the best onboarding and help docs for non-technical users 

• Customer service available and happy to help 

EZ Texting cons:

• All the hand-holding can be annoying if you know what you want to do

EZ Texting doesn't do much that the other apps don't: you can text your customers as a group or 1-on-1 from the Inbox; you can set up various kinds of marketing campaigns from the Campaigns tab; and you can view reports in the Reporting tab. What makes it stand out, though, is that at every step, EZ Texting makes it very clear what to do. And if you get stuck, there's the Getting Started Kit and informative help docs to sort you out.

Sign up for a free trial, and you can test all features, with the rather large caveat that you can only text your own phone number until you start paying. It's enough, though, to get a feel for how the app works. The dashboard after you log in has large, friendly buttons for group texts, conversations, automated drip campaigns, keywords, and signup forms.  

Click any of these buttons, and there are clear instructions on how to use it and, in the case of things like templates, working examples. If you aren't really comfortable with new apps, it's hard to beat this level of instruction. And, as the signup emails will keep reminding you, you can always schedule a call with one of their team members if you need more help. (Nothing says "we care" like "please book time.")

If you're looking for more automation than classic drip campaigns, EZ Texting's Workflows feature adds a visual, drag-and-drop way to build trigger-based sequences with ready-made templates (like abandoned cart nudges, after-hours auto-replies, and reminders).

EZ Texting doesn't oversimplify a complex product—it just makes it very accessible. It's as powerful as any others on this list. You can even use EZ Texting's Zapier integrations to connect it to any of the other apps you use in your business, so you can automate all your SMS workflows.

EZ Texting price: From $25/month for 500 text messages and one textable number.

Best SMS marketing software for customization

Twilio

Twilio pros:

• Completely flexible and customizable for any use case 

• No-code features and integration with Zapier make it accessible for non-developers

Twilio cons:

• A lot more effort to set up than any of the other apps on this list 

• Only a backend 

You might be here because you're looking for a Twilio alternative, but hear me out. Twilio, unlike the other SMS software on this list, is a blank canvas. It offers a range of APIs, so companies can build SMS messaging, phone number redirection, and dozens of similar features into their own apps and services to do whatever they want. Uber, Airbnb, and Reddit are just a few of the companies that use it behind the scenes. 

And while Twilio is mostly aimed at developers, you don't actually need to be one to use it—there are enough no-code features that most people with some general technical knowledge can get by. Instead of building your own apps, for example, you can use services like Zapier, HubSpot, and Zoho CRM to connect to Twilio's API directly, without the need for you to do much, if any, coding. You generally just have to find out which bits you need to copy-and-paste to where. 

For example, by connecting your Twilio account to your Zapier account, you'll be able to send and receive text messages using your email account or collect texts in Slack or a Google Sheets spreadsheet. Learn more about how to automate Twilio.

Or you can dig deeper into Twilio's other features, like Studio and CodeExchange, that help non-developers build their own apps. Plus, for most use cases, Twilio should work out cheaper than the other SMS marketing services if you're prepared to do the work to get it up and running.

Twilio price: Since Twilio is more of a platform than an app, its pricing is a little different from the others on this list. Text messages start around $0.0083/message sent and received—although there's an additional carrier fee of around $0.003/text on messages you send. Dedicated phone numbers start at $0.50/month (plus a $1.15 setup fee).

Best SMS marketing software for large eCommerce brands

Attentive

Attentive pros:

• AI-powered personalization optimizes send times, copy, and audience targeting automatically

• Integrations with 150+ eCommerce and CX tools make it easier to personalize messages

• Strong support and onboarding for high-volume programs

Attentive cons:

• Contract-based with quarterly minimums

• Not a great fit if you mainly need a simple texting inbox or basic broadcasts

If you're running a mid-market or enterprise retail operation, Attentive is your guy. It's built for serious eCommerce brands that want SMS to be a major revenue driver, not just another marketing channel.

Rather than manually figuring out when to send messages or which customers to target, Attentive's agentic AI analyzes customer behavior and automatically optimizes everything from send times to message content. The platform offers different AI modules: AI Pro handles performance optimization, AI Grow focuses on list acquisition, and AI Journeys creates hyper-personalized triggered messages for things like welcome series and cart abandonment flows.

Speaking of list growth, Attentive's patented "two-tap" technology is designed to make subscribing on mobile almost frictionless while still staying compliant. Instead of asking visitors to type in their phone number into yet another form, it prompts them to tap a call to action that pre-populates a text message in their native messaging app. They just have to hit send to confirm their opt-in. It's a small thing, but because SMS list growth is often less about persuasion and more about removing tiny points of resistance, this little mechanic can matter more than an entire afternoon of "conversion optimization" meetings.

The platform also includes Attentive Signal, which identifies anonymous website visitors and helps convert browsers into subscribers. For brands struggling with the loss of third-party cookies, this is a meaningful advantage. Beyond that, you get advanced segmentation, A/B testing, cross-channel journeys (SMS and email together), and, if you want to stay ahead of the curve, RCS Business Messaging support, which allows for rich media, interactive buttons, and branded sender profiles right in the native messaging app.

One thing to keep in mind is that Attentive is only for eCommerce. If you're a dental office or a dog groomer or literally any other kind of business, this platform will be useless to you. It's built for online stores that want to squeeze every possible dollar out of their mobile traffic, and it does that job incredibly well, but it does not do other jobs. Also, they're going to make you sign a contract with minimum spend commitments. Which means you're committing to spending a certain amount every quarter, even if you decide halfway through that you hate texting and want to go back to just posting on Instagram.

But if you are a big eCommerce brand, you have the budget, and you're serious about using SMS to make money (not just to "engage" or "build community" or whatever other vague nonsense marketers say when they can't prove ROI), then Attentive is probably the best option on this entire list.

Attentive integrates with the major players in the eCommerce ecosystem, including Shopify, Klaviyo, Snowflake, Salesforce, and Zendesk. You can also connect it to Zapier, so it can talk to the rest of your tech stack. Build AI-powered automated systems for all your SMS workflows.

Attentive pricing: Custom pricing based on business size and message volume.

Best SMS marketing software for no-contract global texting

ClickSend

ClickSend pros:

• Great for operational and transactional messaging and can still handle bulk sends

• Supports messaging all over the world

• 24/7 human customer support

ClickSend cons:

• Campaign content requires manual approval before sending

• Costs can add up quickly if your messages use emojis or run long

ClickSend used to be a bit of a Jack of all trades—SMS, voice, email, fax, even physical mail—as if it had personally taken offense to the idea that any message remain undelivered. But these days, it's gone all-in on SMS and MMS.

The platform claims to support messaging in over 200 countries, which is frankly absurd (only because I'm pretty sure there aren't even 200 countries in the world). If your business operates internationally, ClickSend is one of the few platforms that delivers globally without making you jump through flaming hoops.

The web dashboard is clean. It's not as hand-holdy as something like EZ Texting, but you won't be scratching your head either. You can send individual texts, manage your contacts, or fire off bulk campaigns. MMS is well-supported, too. Those messages can run up to 1,500 characters and attach images or GIFs. ClickSend will even auto-resize pictures so they don't get rejected by carriers, sparing you the small indignity of opening an image editor for the sole purpose of reducing a file by 12%.

For developer types—or for people who have developer types working for them—ClickSend offers REST APIs. This means you can build SMS functionality directly into your own apps or internal systems. The API documentation is apparently quite good (according to people who understand what API documentation is supposed to look like), and ClickSend supports basically every programming language you've heard of and several you haven't.

The real draw, though, is the pricing model. There aren't any monthly plans to worry about—you only pay for what you send. It's not the cheapest per-text rate in existence, but the absence of a monthly fee means you aren't paying for the privilege of not using it. If you have a seasonal business or just text customers irregularly, this can be significantly cheaper than subscription-based platforms.

However, if your messages include emojis, ClickSend switches to Unicode encoding, which cuts the SMS character limit per segment from 160 down to 70. A single cheerful 🎉 can turn one text into one or two additional billed segments, so keep an eye on your message length unless you enjoy paying extra for enthusiasm.

There is one other speed bump worth mentioning. ClickSend requires a team member to manually approve your SMS campaigns before they go out. This is a compliance measure, and it makes sense given today's regulatory funhouse, but it means you can't fire off a last-minute flash sale text and have it land in inboxes 30 seconds later. Plan a little ahead, and it won't be an issue.

ClickSend integrates with Zapier, so you can connect it to the rest of your business apps and automate texts based on triggers from your CRM, scheduling tools, or eCommerce platform. Check out some ideas for automating ClickSend, or get started with a pre-made template.

ClickSend pricing: Pay-as-you-go starts at $0.0095/text sent

Orchestrate your SMS campaigns with Zapier

No matter which SMS marketing app you choose, the real power comes from connecting it to the rest of your tech stack. With Zapier, you're not limited to whatever's built into each platform. You can automatically add new leads to your SMS lists from forms, CRMs, or ad platforms. You can trigger personalized texts when someone makes a purchase, abandons a cart, or books an appointment. You can even pipe incoming text responses into Slack, a spreadsheet, or your help desk, all without writing a single line of code.

And if you want to keep things simple, SMS by Zapier lets you send text messages as part of any Zap—no separate SMS platform required. It's a lightweight option if you just need to send quick notifications or alerts as part of a larger automation.

Whatever your setup, connecting your SMS marketing to the tools you already use is what turns one-off texts into a scalable, always-on system.

Related reading:

• SMS by Zapier: Send automatic text alerts for priority events

• The best secure messaging apps

• How to text from a computer

• The best VoIP providers

• eCommerce email marketing: Strategies and tips for success

This article was originally published in June 2019 by Harry Guinness and has also had contributions from Justin Pot. The most recent update was in March 2026.