How to get started with a company text messaging service (+ 12 top companies)

Let me ask you a question…

How often do you check your text messages? How often do you leave text messages unread?

Now let me ask you another question…

How often do you check your emails (outside of work, of course)? And how often do you leave your emails unread?

If you’re like most, your answer is that you check your email quite a bit less frequently than your texts—and you leave a lot more of your emails unread.

And that’s why company text messaging services exist: so that companies can send text messages.

Because many businesses recognize that text messaging is one of the best ways to actually reach people.

This article will walk you through some of the basics of a company messaging service, showcasing 1 in particular (Mobile Text Alerts) while also offering a comparison to others.

So you’ll be able to make informed choices about potentially implementing a company text messaging service for your own business.

Let’s get started, shall we?

The company text messaging service for you…

If you’ve been on the hunt for a company text messaging service—there’s good news for you because the wait is over.

There’s an SMS platform that has all the features you need:

• It’s got the mass texting capabilities to reach as many people as you need to, all at once (without needing an actual group text)
• It’s got the 1-on-1 inbox that lets you have individual conversations with anyone in your company (or your customers!)
• It’s got the integration capabilities through (1) native integrations, (2) SMS API, and (3) Zapier to connect with your HR software or CRM
• It’s got unlimited user capacity so you can have as many people as you need (without paying extra)
• It’s even got fancy extras like mass iMessage and an AI SMS Chatbot

But, most importantly, this SMS platform has customer support that is quick and eager to help you with whatever you need.

What’s the company’s name?

It’s a simple name for a simple (yet profound) concept.

Say hello to Mobile Text Alerts…

TRY IT NOW

Start cutting through the noise – with a company text messaging service

Let’s say you’re not quite ready to jump all in with an SMS service.

You may just be exploring the concept—you might even be wondering, “Why? Why use an SMS service? What are the benefits?”

High read rate & view rate

SMS has read rates of 55% and “view rates” of up to 100%.

What difference can that make for a company?

Well, here’s an example to illustrate… (we’re using our imaginations now!)

Once upon a time in a faraway office there lived an office manager (we’ll call him… Michael) who needed to let his entire team know about an office closure in the morning due to an expected snowstorm.

So he sent out an email to all of his staff.

Now, office worker Dwight religiously checked his email every hour on the hour, so he had no problem getting the message on time.

Pam also was a diligent email checker every night before bed, and Phyllis always checked her email first thing in the morning.

Other employees, such as Jim, tried to keep home and work life as separate as possible. So he didn’t see the notice.

And still others, like Angela and Erin, checked their email but missed the notice among all the other notices from social media, companies promoting products, and various appointment reminders.

So Jim and Angela and Erin (and others like them) trekked to work in the raging storm, risking life and limb—only to find out that the office was closed anyway.

Needless to say, they weren’t too happy with Michael. And Michael hated it when people weren’t happy with him.

So next time there was a major snowstorm, Michael decided to take a different approach. Alongside his email, he also used a text alert system to send out a corresponding text message.

The result?

Not only did Dwight, Pam, and Phyllis see the appropriate notice in time but Jim, Angela, and Erin did as well—because the notice came directly to their personal phones.

Dwight, Pam, Phyllis, Jim, Angela, and Erin were happy. And Michael was happy.

This silly (and somehow familiar 😉) story illustrates why text messaging’s high read rate makes it a powerful communication solution.

Image sourced from Peacock via GIPHY

Complementary to email

As the above story illustrates, text messaging as a channel is complementary to email (read: it is used alongside email, though it doesn’t replace it).

Every company already uses email. (Case in point: by some accounts, 240 million emails are sent globally every minute.)

Email is easy and inexpensive, so you won’t phase it out by starting to implement SMS.

But by implementing SMS, you will see your communication efforts improve.

Fewer missed notices.

More people engaging with your contact attempts.

Less information slipping through the cracks.

SMS and email thus go together in a beautiful marriage of partners.

(I know, I know—laying things on a bit thick here. I can’t help myself.)

The best option for reminders

One especially potent use of SMS is reminders for appointments, deadlines, or anything else that warrants reminding.

Want to see more people show up to your training webinar? Send a text.

Want to see fewer people skipping out on meetings? Send a text.

Want to see better engagement in your company events? Send a text, send a text, send a text.

Because SMS is the best solution to send quick and simple reminders to the people in your company (and customers too!).

That’s why a lot of business coaches use SMS to boost attendance to their webinars. And why dentists, optometrists, and general practitioner doctors use SMS to reduce no-shows for appointments.

There’s just nothing that can substitute the power of receiving that reminder directly as a text message on your phone—you almost have to be intentionally ignoring it not to pay attention.

How does a company text messaging service work?

So how does a company text messaging service actually work?

It’s actually not too complicated.

Platform or API?

First, how a company text messaging service works depends on whether you use a platform or an SMS API.

A text messaging platform allows you to:

• Access an online dashboard
• Use an already-built interface to manage your contacts and campaigns
• Visually view reporting and analytics from your message attempts

An SMS API, on the other hand, simply gives you access to the coding resources you need to build your own SMS process.

In other words, an SMS platform essentially works and allows you to send messages right “out of the box.”

With an SMS API, you or your developers will need to program things the way that you’d like them to be. So you can set it up so that contacts are automatically added to your SMS database, or that messages are triggered by certain activities in your other software, or that phone numbers can be deleted based on various conditions that you designate.

An SMS API gives you greater flexibility but is unable to be accessed by the layman or laywoman—you must have coding knowledge.

The platform process

So if you’re using a platform, this is how SMS works…

• Log in to your account.
• Load contacts into the online database via a spreadsheet import (or an integration)—alternatively, give your subscribers access to sign up for your text messages by texting in a particular keyword or by filling out an online sign-up form.
• Set up your messages…
  • If you want a whole workflow of messages including delays in between some of them, you can use drip campaigns, which automatically drip out a series of messages over a period of time.
  • If you want some messages to be automatically triggered when people send in a reply (or if they reply with certain words), you can build out some auto-responses within the platform’s dashboard.
  • If you want to schedule a message ahead of time to go out at exactly the date and time you set it, use the dashboard to schedule messages for the exact time that you’d like them to go out.
  • If you want to send a message immediately, you can simply type up your message within the dashboard and send it out.
• Check the reporting within the online dashboard to see how your messages are doing.

The API process

If you’re using an SMS API, this is how it works…

• Log in to your dashboard account to find your API key.
• View the SMS service’s API documentation to see all the functions you’re able to do.
• Plug in your API key into the document appropriately, as the documentation describe—some examples include:
  • Add subscribers
  • Send messages
  • Create drip campaigns
  • Create messaging groups to help people segment their messages
  • Show delivery report

As an example, you can view Mobile Text Alerts’ API documentation to see some of the things that are possible via an SMS API.

12 top company text messaging services and reviews

With some of the basics of company text messaging services down, what are some specific services you can review to see what would be a good fit for you?

Here are 12 top companies you can consider, with info available on review sites such as G2 and Capterra.

Mobile Text Alerts

Rating: 4.6 out of 5

Major pros:

• Ease of use / simple
• Customer support
• Bonus! iMessage capabilities and AI SMS Chatbot feature

Major cons:

• Messaging issues
• Limited functionality

Reviews:

• “When looking to create a small list for our business to check-in on investors, we were looking for an interface that was easy to use, and easy to personalize. So far, it's been precisely what we've looked for. The price has been fair, and the customer response team was prompt in addressing any issues I had. I highly recommend.” – Ben K.
• “Easy to use platform. Lots of great features and quick responses from customer serives” – Zana M.
• “It goes down all the time. We use this as our alert for hospital staff to come into work. It often goes down on the weekends and we have to call another manager to put it the message. – Anonymous

Twilio

Rating: 4.2 out of 5

Major pros:

• Ease of use
• Easy integrations

Major cons:

• Poor customer service
• Expensive

Reviews:

• “The way in which Twilio is integrated is amazing, it allows us to implement it literally in any application and software, plus it has a large repertoire of native applications, allowing us to connect without a code bar.” – Jose David C.
• “What I like about Twilio is its user-friendly system—the API alone is straightforward, and integration with communication systems is super easy. Reliable it is.” – Nikko R.
• “Unfortunately, Twilio's customer support has gone radio silent, and we've been waiting for over 2 months for a resolution to the problem. Meanwhile, we're missing out on crucial customer communication, and it's causing us to lose thousands of sales. We have always been happy with Twilio, but right now, they're actively hurting our business, and we're exploring other options.” – Eli A.

Tatango

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Major pros:

• Customer support
• Ease of use

Major cons:

• Issues with reporting

Reviews:

• “I love that Tatango is a very user-friendly platform. Many functionalities are available to support segmentation, conduct A/B tests, and various other tools that are needed in order to create a robust texting program. The team at Tatango is also very knowledgeable and has been great to work with. Whenever there is an issue or question, they are ready to help!” – Angie M.
• “The Tatango team has been incredible to work with. They have been very supportive through the entire process - from initial onboarding, to compliance, and even working with us to improve our campaigns. The platform is easy to use and relatively intuitive. Any time we have questions or issues we use the chat feature and one of the team gets in touch very quickly.” – Jessica S.
• “The user platform is not super intuitive and reports are not very clear - we aren't able to pull a ton of quick analytics.” – Anonymous

Bird

Rating: 4.0 out of 5

Major pros:

• Good API
• Value for the money

Major cons:

• Billing issues

Reviews:

• “It's helpful to have one platform where we can manage different contact points from social media platforms, SMS and WhatsApp. Knowing that an automated reply will be sent out of hours too is reassuring so that clients don't feel they're being ignored. And can all be managed via their APIs.” – Markus S.
• “MessageBird is the best API provider for Text Messages (SMS), WhatsApp Integration and audio calls. MessageBird also allows other social media integrations like Instagram, Twitter, Gmail etc.” – Nikhil M.
• “We gave them cancellation notice of our plan 30 days before our renewal date, however since they've received it 29 days (per email dates) prior to renewal they are refusing to cancel our plan and plan to 'auto subscribing' us for a further 12 months although we are not using their service.” – Anonymous

Omnisend

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Major pros:

• Ease of use
• Customer support
• Email marketing option

Major cons:

• Missing / limited features
• Expensive

Reviews:

• “Designed to simplify email and SMS marketing, Omnisend gives us a professional and attractive look without much effort. It allows us to create personalized marketing campaigns that can be triggered based on customer behavior, such as browsing history or past purchases. This allows for more effective targeting and higher engagement rates. It has many customizable templates that we can modify to our specifications. We can import contacts through its social media integration; forms can be automatically generated; and our contact database can be automatically expanded. It doesn't take long to learn how to use it.” – Tim A.
• “Omnisend is a very easy to use platform and has a lot of automation options for email, SMS. You do not need to be an email marketing expert to get the hang of things. It has a great selection of template blocks to use within your campaigns and makes it super simple to create engaging emails. It's helped our email revenue dramatically. The customer support team is also super helpful when needed.” – Anonymous
• “Not a platform for advanced marketing. You cannot search SMS, and SMS numbers are not associated with the contact record, which makes it very time-consuming. I would recommend skipping it if you are vetting ESPs.” – Jason M.

SlickText

Rating: 4.8 out of 5

Major pros:

• Ease of use
• Customer support

Major cons:

• Expensive
• Messaging issues

Reviews:

• “We've been using SlickText for about 4 months this year-- our first dip into the SMS marketing game. We've seen results in sales and that means my bottom line looks better when I give my report to leadership. SlickText is easy to use, billing documents are super easy to locate, and I can help direct customers to the right place when they respond with a question. Initial set-up was a piece of cake and we were sending texts to our customers nearly the first day.” – Anonymous
• “We have a small business and spend a lot of time corresponding with clients, I hesitatingly signed up for the service, thinking it would not work well and would be cumbersome… but to our surprise, it has been extremely easy to use and we get big results / a huge response rate whenever we use it. Thanks for making such a great user-friendly product that is actually affordable!” – Krista
• “The lingo and functionality of the platform is not intuitive for me. Definitely need assistance to use this efficiently and effectively” – Anonymous

Attentive

Rating: 4.7 out of 5

Major pros:

• Customer support
• Ease of use

Major cons:

• Issues with reporting
• Expensive

Reviews:

• “Onboarding was generally painless and the pricing seems very reasonable. The interfacing for sending SMS messages is very easy to use, especially compared to the email-sending tools I am used to (albiet text messages are a much simpler format to to work with). There is good analytics available in the platform and I am able to see nearly everything I would want to see (messages, costs, conversion rates). Other notables is their robust sign up system and link tracking functions (every text gets unique trackable links). One of the reasons I went with Attentive is that they have done a lot of work to make sure everything is on the legal up-and-up which is important as text messaging regulations can be messy.” – Caleb S.
• “The customer support team at Attentive is truly best in class. They are always available to help us work through strategies to maximize the tool and have also helped us with techniques to make sure we stay within our project budget.” – Annica C.
• “Sold product under false pretenses. We were told they would set everything up, that we dont need a dev team, that things are easy and fast. That we would have access to our customer lists. ALL LIES. Absolute bait and switch - I have never had a customer experience this bad after almost a decade of running my business. Never regretted using a software as much as these guys, ever, and Ive seen some shady things. Oh and FYI - everything they promised would be easy and later told us we would need an entire dev team to implement, I was able to do by myself with 0 help within 15 minutes with Klaviyo. Klaviyo is also much cheaper, has many more countries available, many more functionalities, and gu8ess what? They allow you to just export your customer data and do not steal it from you. Absolute sham of a business.” – Anonymous

EZ Texting

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Major pros:

• Ease of use / simple / user-friendly
• Automations

Major cons:

• Expensive
• Poor customer service

Textedly

Rating: 4.6 out of 5

Major pros:

• Ease of use
• Customer support

Major cons:

• Expensive
• Missing features

Reviews:

• “Getting started was extremely easy. After signing up you select a phone number to use and upload your existing contacts using their sample Excel sheet. Very easy to do. The service itself was easy to get the hang of. Putting together text campaigns and scheduling them was simple and they were always sent out quickly. Overall a good experience.” – Anonymous
• “EZ texting is a great tool to stay connected with employees, clients/customers. I like that I can schedule when to send out the text messages and I get notified immediately when I have a new notification. I also like how easy it is to create teams, which helps me stay organized by only reaching out to certain contacts. I would highly recommend every business to use EZ texting.” – Carmen P.
• “Features are often behind various paywalls. There are tiered plans and add-ons, this can be frustrating and feel like you are being nickeled and dimed. At times, it didn't work well with multiple users adjusting the platform.” – Sam D.

Emitrr

Rating: 4.7 out of 5

Major pros:

• Customer support
• Ease of use

Major cons:

• Issues with phone call feature

Reviews:

• “Emitrr has been a wonderful tool for our business. It has vastly improved our marketing efforts and is super easy to use/user friendly. The customer service is unmatched - anything I ask for help with is acknowledged quickly and usually resolved within a day or less. They also are quick to implement new ideas from clients. I don't have one negative thing to say about Emitrr.” – Spenser G.
• “User friendly layout and design that helps. Especially with our business model using multiple numbers. The customer support has always been extermely helpful and responsive. We use this daily and use all the features it offers. It was easy to implement and was a seemles integration into our system.” – Jamie N.
• “It is a very early stage for them and that is the reason they do not have very advanced API's and webhooks.” – Yogita B.

Textline

Rating: 4.6 out of 5

Major pros:

• Ease of use
• Customer support

Major cons:

• Missing / limited features
• Customer support (interestingly listed as both a pro and a con)

Review:

• “We have been using Textline everyday for years now and it is also integrated into our Freshdesk which is very helpful and aside from being very user-friendly, features like announcements and automation are top-tier. We are a growing business, and having an easy way to send to multiple contacts by filter is very helpful. Also, we can control the tagging of our contacts based on their replies using automation, which certainly makes our work a lot easier.They are also very easy to setup. Customer Support is also very responsive and fast.” – Mark B.
• “Textline is very helpful when it comes to reaching out to our customers daily. Textline enables each employee to reach out to customers accordingly, and allows others in the office to review, engage in, and take over conversations when needed. Textline keeps our employees safe by preventing us from having to use our personal phones to reach out to customers. It is also available to download on our personal phones if we do have to access it while we are away from the office, or working from home. Customer service is always very helpful. Textline is easy to navigate and use. It also enables our employees to send out ‘Mass Texts’.” – Destiny R.
• “The platform presents glitches regularly, for some reason, for a few minutes during the day (during business hours) messages would not load or would get a pop-up stating that the server experiences errors.” – Pedro C.

ProTexting

Rating: 4.8 out of 5

Major pros:

• Ease of use
• Customer support

Major cons:

• Expensive

Reviews:

• “Text message automation as a marketing service is very complete, you can design any type of SMS and then send it to your customers, you can create marketing campaigns, promote events, you can even perform interactive surveys to know the experience of customers with the services you offer within the organization. The interface is not complex and easy to understand, the control panel is well-structured and easy to understand. The price is very competitive with other digital messaging services, the SMS personalization is quite fun with the ability to add emojis to the messages. The mobile application is very good, providing the ability to manage all campaigns from the comfort of your phone.” – Santiago R.
• “I love how you can monitor sends, clicks, replies, unsubs, etc, all in real-time and all from a single place. The reporting features are very advanced. We can very easily monitor our metrics and performance without resorting to any third party tools” – Mehmet T.
• “The first negative point I consider is that the program lacks customization, the options are limited and offers very few. I would like to be able to integrate it with more marketing programs, sometimes the messages do not reach their recipients the program does not usually wear this anomaly would be a very good option to throw some bounce message. For this type of software a smartphone application that does not work well I consider it a disadvantage, it is necessary to improve and work more on application for the iOS operating system.” – Sunny S.

How to choose the best company text messaging service for you

Obviously, there are a lot of text messaging services to choose from!

How in the world can you choose?

Well, the reality is that a lot of these services are very similar. And you probably can’t go too wrong no matter which way you go.

But there are some differentiators and things you could look out for…

Out-of-the-box vs. API-only

Most of the above listed services are out-of-the-box platforms you can use almost immediately with minimal setup needed via an online dashboard and/or mobile app.

But some of them have no online dashboard because they’re intended for developers on your end to set up the messaging service the way that you want it to be—via an SMS API.

Most notably, Twilio is one of the most prominent company text messaging services in the world, but it relies on its SMS API rather than in an easily accessible online dashboard.

Now, it’s also important to note that out-of-the-box platforms usually have a corresponding API as well, so you can still program things the way you want them to be. But usually an API-only service will have a more robust API.

All of that being said, you’ll want to be aware of your bandwidth and your needs in this area—do you have the developer capacity for an API-only service, or would you prefer an out-of-the-box online platform?

Easy 2-way messaging

If you’re specifically looking for "company text messaging services," you’re probably looking to use it for communicating internally with your company (at least some of the time).

And in that case, you’ll want to select a service that allows for easy 2-way messaging so that you can carry on conversations with your employees (and with customers as well, if you choose to use it for customers).

Pricing that works for you

The most common pricing structure for these types of services is a monthly or annual subscription model.

And these subscriptions are usually tiered based on the amount of messages that you’d like to be able to send on a monthly basis, so you want to have something of an idea of how many messages you’d like to send regularly. Then make sure the texting service matches what you need.

Some other pricing models that exist are:

• Pay-per-text
• Custom contract-based (typically for higher messaging volumes)
• Price per user

Extras!

Most of the text messaging services will have their little “extras” that help them stand apart from the others.

And some of these “extras” are actually pretty significant!

For example, Mobile Text Alerts offers a mass iMessage option and an AI SMS Chatbot, which are rare features in this industry.

So as you’re comparing services, you can check if the services have any extras like that, which might help you decide which one to move forward with.

Comparison chart for company text messaging services

Use cases and examples for a company text messaging service

So how can you actually use a company text messaging service?

Here are some use cases with examples.

1. Internal Communications

Example: A logistics company could send a group message to drivers about a sudden change in route due to road closures, ensuring smooth operations and timely deliveries.

2. Appointment and Meeting Reminders

Example: An office manager could send a meeting reminder an hour before a staff-wide meeting to make sure people actually attend.

3. Emergency / Urgent Alerts

Example: A university could use its text messaging service to alert staff and students about a campus closure due to severe weather, providing updates on when it will reopen.

4. Customer Engagement and Promotions

Example: A clothing retailer could send a text to announce a 24-hour sale, with a 20% discount code that can be redeemed online or in-store.

5. Order and Delivery Notifications

Example: A local restaurant could send a text to a customer confirming their food order, along with an estimated delivery time and a link to track the driver’s location in real-time.

6. Event Management

Example: An event planning company could send a text with a personalized QR code for entry, along with venue details, start time, and a parking guide for an upcoming conference.

7. Customer Feedback and Surveys

Example: A car dealership could text customers a short survey immediately after a service appointment, asking them to rate their experience and provide any additional feedback.

8. Product Launches

Example: A tech company could text its subscriber list to announce a new smartphone model, including an early-bird discount link for pre-orders, driving immediate interest and purchases.

9. Loyalty Program Updates

Example: A coffee shop could text a customer that they’ve earned enough points for a free drink, along with a link to redeem it during their next visit.

10. Lead Nurturing and Follow-Up

Example: A software company could text a prospect after an initial meeting, providing a link to a demo video and offering to answer any questions.

How to get started with a company text messaging service

How can you actually get started with a company text messaging service?

Most texting platforms offer a free trial so that you can get a feel for how things work, so that would be your first step.

Then you can just play around with the system.

One of the most important things you’ll do when testing is add subscribers—either on your end via a spreadsheet or integration, or by having your contacts subscribe themselves through various mechanisms the SMS platforms offer).

You can also feel out the reporting options and automation options to make sure the platform or service can do what you’re looking for.

Company text messaging service FAQ

Got other questions regarding company text messaging services?

What is a company text messaging service?

A company text messaging service is a text messaging service that allows companies to send SMS to employees as well as customers or anyone else they need to keep contact with.

How do companies send text messages?

To send text messages, companies use a text messaging service. This can be an SMS platform and/or an SMS API service.

How much does it cost a company to send a text message?

Costs for SMS will vary depending on the platform you choose and the amount of messages you send, but may start somewhere in the $20–$30 per month range for low-volume sending (~500 messages per month) but can get down to less than a penny per message for high-volume plans.

What is corporate text?

Corporate text refers to companies sending text messages to the employees for internal purposes, such as emergencies and meeting reminders.

Take the first step now

So we’ve been through a massive amount of information about company text messaging services.

What now?

The only thing left to do is to take the next step: to try out an SMS service for yourself.

And why not try our platform Mobile Text Alerts? Get your free account now to test it out for yourself.

–

Sam Pelton is the content director for Mobile Text Alerts, an SMS marketing service that gives businesses an easier way to really reach customers. He has 10 years of experience working with the texting platform in the areas of customer support, quality assurance testing, content creation, copywriting, and marketing strategy.