SMS Marketing Rates: Everything You Need to Know for 2025

No matter how big or small your business is, every business cares about the same thing…

Your bottom line.

Because the bottom line is that your bottom line matters.

Without money, you have no business.

And that’s why SMS marketing is a good thing—because we all know that people love to use their phones. Constantly. So what better way to promote your business and boost that bottom line?

At the same time, like any good business, you need to make sure that your investment is worth it.

So SMS marketing rates matter.

With that in mind… what does SMS marketing cost? What cost considerations should you take into account so you can know whether you’ll see a good ROI?

Let’s dig in and uncover the answers.

What are standard SMS marketing rates? (How much does SMS marketing cost?)

SMS marketing rates, like anything else, vary depending on a number of factors.

But is there a baseline average you can go off of as you’re researching?

Most prominent SMS marketing services operate on a SaaS subscription basis, so you’ll need to pay a monthly subscription fee for access to a certain number of messages that you can send per month.

The rate per message for these subscription services goes down if you purchase more messaging credits.

Low-volume subscriptions

For low-volume plans, rates typically start around $25 per month for 500 messages per month.

Here are some examples…

SlickText

• $29/month for 500 messages
• $49/month for 1,000 messages
• $79/month for 2,000 messages
• $129/month for 3,500 messages

Textedly

• $26/month for 500 messages
• $38/month for 1,000 messages
• $69/month for 2,000 messages
• $99/month for 3,500 messages

SimpleTexting

• $39/month for 500 messages
• $59/month for 1,000 messages
• $89/month for 2,000 messages
• $119/month for 3,000 messages

Mobile Text Alerts

• $25/month for 500 messages
• $44/month for 1,000 messages
• $74/month for 2,000 messages

Medium-volume subscriptions

For medium-volume subscriptions, plans can start around $150 per month and go up to $600 per month.

Here are some examples…

SlickText

• $169/month for 5,000 messages
• $319/month for 10,000 messages
• $579/month for 25,000 messages

Textedly

• $139/month for 5,000 messages
• $249/month for 10,000 messages
• $349/month for 15,000 messages
• $499/month for 25,000 messages
• $599/month for 35,000 messages

SimpleTexting

• $239/month for 7,500 messages
• $409/month for 15,000 messages
• $559/month for 25,000 messages

Mobile Text Alerts

• $149/month for 5,000 messages
• $274/month for 10,000 messages
• $499/month for 20,000 messages

High-volume subscriptions

For high-volume subscriptions, plans can start around $900 per month.

Here are some examples…

SlickText

• $939/month for 50,000 messages

Textedly

• $849/month for 50,000 messages
• $1,599/month for 100,000 messages
• $2,299/month for 150,000 messages
• $2,999/month for 200,000 messages

SimpleTexting

• $909/month for 50,000 messages

Mobile Text Alerts

• $1,074/month for 50,000 messages

Pay-per-message and contracts

Some plans (especially at enterprise-level volumes) are either pay-per-message or customized for each specific contract.

These prices can vary widely from provider to provider.

Here are a few examples:

Twilio

• SMS outbound: $0.0079
• SMS inbound: $0.0079
• MMS outbound: $0.01 (if sending through a longcode) / $0.02 (if sending through a toll-free number)
• MMS inbound: $0.02
• Plus carrier fees
• Plus phone number fees

Klaviyo

• Pay for email + SMS credits
• Active profiles are taken into account when considering pricing

Mobile Text Alerts

• Contact us for a custom quote.

What factors influence SMS marketing rates?

Message volume

The amount you’re going to pay for SMS marketing largely depends on one primary factor: the amount of messages you’ll be sending.

As mentioned above, most SMS marketing plans (whether subscription-based or not) are priced based on message volume.

Typically, the higher the volume of messages you’re sending, the better rate you’ll get per message.

Message length

Another factor determining how much you’ll pay for SMS marketing is how long your SMS are.

If you send longer SMS (longer than 160 characters), it typically costs more per message.

So if you’ll be sending longer text messages, you can expect to pay more.

Media attachments

When you send text messages that contain media (i.e., images), it typically costs more.

What that means is that you’ll have to plan to pay more if you intend on sending picture messages or other messages containing media elements.

Sometimes: number of users

Though not common, some SMS marketing platforms also charge you based on the number of users you have for managing your SMS marketing efforts.

If you’ll be having more than one user managing your messaging, you’ll want to make sure you’re aware of whether or not your provider charges for additional users.

How can you make sure you get a positive ROI from SMS marketing?

To make sure you get a positive ROI from your SMS marketing rates, here are a few best practices you can keep in mind.

1. Limit your characters

As mentioned above, if you go over 160 characters in your messages, it can use up more messaging credits from your plan—so it costs more.

If you can limit your characters to 160 or fewer, it will be easier to get a positive ROI.

2. Consider whether you actually need to use media

We all know that images and pictures are effective.

But since picture messages usually cost a lot more than text-only messages, you can consider limiting your texting efforts to avoiding images.

3. Make sure you’re sending to relevant audiences

Relevance is important for any marketing channel.

But for SMS especially, people don’t want to receive messages on their phone’s SMS inbox if those messages aren’t relevant to them.

So not only will it waste money to send irrelevant messages, it will also train your audience to not pay attention when you try to connect with them.

One of the easiest and best ways to make sure you’re sending to relevant audiences is to make sure people clearly understand what they’re opting in to when they sign up to receive your texts.

You can also, of course, segment your audiences according to whatever criteria you’d like.

4. Use texts sparingly

SMS is a highly effective marketing medium—when used sparingly.

In most cases, sending 2–4 SMS campaigns per month should be plenty in order to get the most out of your SMS efforts.

Any more than that and you risk fatiguing your audience, leading to them unsubscribing.

5. Pay attention to the message preview copy

All marketing copy is important.

But when it comes to SMS, the text that will show up in the preview of your message is key.

Why? Because virtually everyone in your audience will see this preview text, even if they don’t actually open the message.

Based on our research, message app previews can show anywhere from 40–86 characters of your message—so pay special attention to those first few characters when planning your message copy.

6. Select the right SMS marketing plan for your business

If you’re not on the right SMS marketing plan for your business, you could be overpaying for your SMS.

Remember that higher volume plans give you lower rates, so get on a plan that gives you the level of messaging credits that actually makes sense for your business.

This could involve some trial and error at first, but after a while you should be able to find your sweet spot.

How do you select an SMS marketing plan?

So how can you actually choose a plan that makes sense for your business needs?

Here’s a breakdown:

1. Estimate how large your SMS audience will be—note that your SMS audience may be significantly smaller than your email audience, because people are less willing to give out their phone numbers.
2. Estimate how many SMS campaigns you’d like to send per month.
3. Multiply your estimated audience size by your estimated monthly number of SMS campaigns—this will tell you approximately the total number of monthly messages you’ll need.
4. Find a plan that provides the amount of messages determined in step 3 and go 1 plan above that (to take into account if you’ll be sending longer messages or picture messages that use up more messaging credits)

You may get into it and find that you have too few or too many messages, but you can always change your mind and change your plan later.

These steps give you a starting point so you have an idea of what you might need.

SMS marketing rates FAQ

Here are answers to some of the most commonly asked questions about SMS marketing rates.

How are messages counted when considering costs and rates?

With most SMS platforms, each individual recipient for your messages counts as a single message (for example, a message sent to 2,000 recipients counts as 2,000 messages).

If your message is longer than 160 characters, it counts as 2 or more messages per recipient rather than 1.

If your message has a media attachment, it counts as 3 messages per recipient rather than 1.

Are there hidden fees?

Many SMS providers do charge pass-through fees from the mobile carriers, on top of their listed subscription fees.

Additionally, some providers have registration and/or phone number fees.

You’ll want to check with individual providers to determine whether these types of fees are included in their pricing plan or whether they cost extra.

Get SMS marketing rates that make sense for your business

The bottom line is that your bottom line matters.

And what’s right for one company might not be right for another.

We’ve walked you through what you should know about SMS marketing rates so that you can make the best decision about what makes sense for your business.

Interested in giving SMS a try? Get a free trial account at Mobile Text Alerts today and see if it’s a good fit for you.

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Sam Pelton is the content director for Mobile Text Alerts, an SMS marketing service that gives businesses an easier way to 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.