Best Business Texting App: 19 Top Contenders

Here’s a rundown of some top business SMS providers, so you can find the mobile business text messaging app that works best for you.

For most of this list we pulled in some of the business SMS apps that had the most reviews on software review site, and collected some helpful review comments for each.

Short answer: For SMS-only sending and fast setup, look at Mobile Text Alerts, SlickText, SimpleTexting, or Textedly. For a shared team inbox, MessageDesk. For ecommerce with email and SMS together, Klaviyo or Attentive. For high-volume cross-channel orchestration, Braze. Fuller comparisons with real customer reviews below.

Review information is current as of September 2024. Editorial updates made September 2, 2026.

What’s the best business texting app? 19 top apps

How we chose these 19 apps

We started with business texting platforms carrying the highest review volume on G2, Capterra, and TrustPilot, then pulled both positive and negative verbatim reviews for each. Star ratings reflect those sites as of September 2026. This list is not ranked. The order doesn't imply one app is better than another.

Two disclosures: Mobile Text Alerts is our own product, and MessageDesk is a Mobile Text Alerts collaborator. Both were included for those reasons rather than on review volume alone.

We included negative reviews for every vendor including ourselves.

Mobile Text Alerts

Mobile Text Alerts is an SMS-specific web platform, API, and business text messaging app.

Star rating: 4.6 out of 5.

Some helpful positive reviews (from G2 and Capterra):

• 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.

• I like how easy it is to add subsribers, it is very intuitive. Also the reporting tools are great because you can see whp's carrier rejected the message, etc. Easy to implement and integrate as well. Customer support is nearly immediate with the chat bar on the right. I use it frequently.

• Mobile Text Alerts is the ideal SMS marketing solution for businesses looking to reach their customers at the correct time. With its user-friendly interface, businesses can easily communicate with their customers, employees, and audience when it is meaningful. This platform is perfect for generating sales, announcing notifications, and maximizing engagement in a reasonably priced and efficient way. … What I found nice was the integrations. They have options such as Salesforce, Facebook, Constant Contact and many more. Another good thing is live support chat feature in case if you experience any trouble during the integration process. We built a nice landing page with the goal of building a subscriber’s list. We can now set up a welcome message to send out to our subscribers.

Some helpful negative reviews:

• had some issues had to work it out via chat which was annoying. Tutorials are ok but there is lacking for those who aren't tech savvy.

• 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.

MessageDesk

MessageDesk is a Mobile Text Alerts collaborator.

MessageDesk is a shared team inbox for business text messaging. It provides teams with tools for collaboration, customer support, and communication automation.

Star rating: 4.8 out of 5.

Some helpful positive reviews (from G2 and Capterra):

• I like how you can organize contacts into groups instead of clicking every contact individually. It helps us reach the target audience. Using our office number for the app helps clients verify the legitimacy of the message as opposed to a spam text.

• The ability to text from or receive texts from our business number is priceless. We are very busy and many calls go to voicemail. This allows our customers to directly connect with us without having to remember another phone number. Most of our customers are on the go and love to get texts rather than read an email. I tend to send the same text over and over and being able to make templates really cuts down on time. The companion phone app works seamlessly. When a customer purchases new equipment, I can easily schedule a text to go out in the near future to check on them.

• I am constantly surprised by how easy, helpful, and useful MessageDesk is. Writing and scheduling broadcasts is quick, and clear, and offers multiple ways to include or exclude contacts. The shared inbox my team uses keeps messaging organized and our customers are happy we don't miss any messages. Adding contacts with either tons of info or very little is great. All around very pleased with this product and the support offered.

Some helpful negative reviews:

• I think the cost is a little high, but otherwise, I really like all the functions. Realistically it is definitely worth the money.

• More features to see how often customers interact with us would be great - but I expect with all the other improvements I've seen in my time using the app they will be coming soon.

• There really are not many downsides to MessageDesk. My one ask would be adding the ability to schedule a broadcast using the same time as a previously scheduled one - similar to scheduling multiple emails in Google using the same send time. But's that it!

Intercom

Intercom is a customer service platform that includes chatbots, email, and SMS, so it can be used as a texting program for business. (It is not intended for mass SMS marketing.)

Star rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Some helpful positive reviews (from G2 and Capterra):

• Intercom allow extremely fast setup on self-serve basis. All major communications methods are covered from email/sms to widgets and social accounts. Range of plugins allows significant extension beyond the original functionality

• The customer support provided by Chatgp4 is exceptional. The use of workflows and integration with other tools is seamless and efficient. The unified inbox allows for easy communication through Chat, Email, SMS, and phone. Overall, the system works perfectly out of the box.

• Intercom is super easy to use and doesn't require a lot of training of end users. I like that we can add it to directly to our website so that it's easily accessible by our customers. We also heavily utilize their proactive support features to alert customers to new features and updates, which is very handy. We also use their survey feature and like that it's easy for our customers to answer. Their chat feature is good and we like the automation that you can program to triage customer issues.

Some helpful negative reviews:

• It is difficult talking to support, each person comes back with a different answer and sometimes it takes days to get a response back or no response at all when trying to contact a human. Due to this getting new feature add-ons is a pain and the add-ons are very expensive. We also weren't aware we had as many features as we did within our initial subscription. The biggest pain point myself and my team has is with reporting. The reports are confusing and when we try to recreate custom reports for teams, they never align with pre-made reports. We always just hope the numbers are accurate. Tagging for reports is not ideal and it would be great if you could just separate reports by teams.

• support - they have no knowledge about their product. it takes 3 days in chat to explain the problem and to get an answer. everything should be double-checked cos the support offer provides incorrect answers. The same goes for our "customer success manager" - we had to almost argue with him over video call to prove that the explanations in their help centre is not correct (not how it works in reality)

• I do not fully see the value for the money we pay. When I go to use a new feaure, I feel like I am asked to pay more

Constant Contact

Constant Contact is a digital marketing platform that offers email, SMS, social media, and ecommerce services (therefore it is also a texting app for business).

Star rating: 4.0 out of 5.

Some helpful positive reviews from G2, Capterra, and TrustPilot:

• Constant Contact is the industry leader in email marketing. We use it for our own business and recommend it to all our small business and nonprofit clients. The drag-and-drop templates are intuitive and easy to use, so you don't need a degree in graphic design to create professional quality emails.

• The platform is user-friendly, intuitive, and meets every marketing need you can imagine. From email marketing and SMS to social – Constant Contact is the one-stop shop for communications efforts.

• The ease of sending an SMS or Email Blast, it is easy to design, test and send to the individual lists, it makes my job so easier than it was before. Thank you Constant Contact!

Some helpful negative reviews:

• It is impossible to cancel sub, they removed button in my account (manage plans, it was before but disappeared).There is only information contact us. You cant do this through chat because they dont have access to account. So you have to wait no body knows how long to get respond. I was trying to contact but no answer and now they will charge me for next month. Great way to do some extra money.

• I wish the SMS add-on didn't require two steps for subcribers to opt in.

Marketing 360

Marketing 360 is a marketing platform that includes comprehensive services (such as website building, ecommerce, point of sale, email marketing, and SMS marketing as a text app for business).

Star rating: 3.4 out of 5.

Some helpful positive reviews from G2 and Capterra:

• What I liked most about this platform is its customization capacity and the ease of use, integrating all the marketing and management tools in one place has greatly simplified the daily operation of my business.

• Pros: The simplicity of reaching a large range of potential clients through the expertise of the platform that has freed up an immense amount of time to focus on critical aspects within the business.

Some helpful negative reviews:

• I wish the pricing plans were more affordable for small businesses. Also, the learning curve can be steep for beginners.

• disgusting, absolutely nothing in return for a huge investment. Could never contact any who could help. … continual message - "This takes time, no worries you will see" Well $44000 later and I see nothing

BirdEye

BirdEye is a comprehensive messaging solution offering services such as review generation, social media management, and a text messaging software for business.

Star rating: 4.7 out of 5.

Some helpful positive reviews from Capterra and TrustPilot:

• We switched to Birdeye from a competitor and are excited about what this all-in-one-platform will do for our company. From the first interaction with our sales rep, Trevor, the customer service has been amazing. Following implementation, we've experienced a few bumps in the road with odd glitches, but the customer service team has been fantastic as they've attempted to resolve the issues we've faced. They have been with us through the entire process. It has been super helpful to have a live person to talk with....something the competitor we used didn't have.

• Review management features, the social media integration is fantastic! Very easy to use.

Some helpful negative reviews:

• SMS marketing list segmentation needs serious work. The tags are complicated and confusing. Cannot send SMS marketing to more than one list at a time.

• WARNING TO EVERYONE this company will lock you in and make cancellation EXTREMELY HARD then they will say you can't cancel because you didn't cancel on time. We tried MULTIPLE times to call and cancel. Then emailed. Then they said they can't cancel via email (contrary to their contract) IT MUST BE A PHONE CALL. Then they changed the time of the Zoom call without notice. Then they said we had missed the cancellation date but we could renew with a 90 day cancel option included. I AM LODGING A COMPLAINT WITH CONSUMER AFFAIRS AND GOING LEGAL. This company is a rip-off WARNING, WARNING, WARNING I cannot make it clear enough...avoid them like the plague.

Podium

Podium is a digital platform specializing in SMS marketing (therefore able to be considered among texting programs for businesses). It also specializes in capturing leads.

Star rating: 4.6 out of 5.

Some helpful positive reviews from G2, Capterra, and TrustPilot:

• The product is great. The user experience is very intuitive and the platofrm is user-friendly. The sales teams helps out with your onboarding as well.

• We previously used Podium and we switched to a less expensive option. Well, you get what you pay for. Podium is a far better product. Reviews increase, we get paid faster using card readers or text to pay. Excellent customer service!

Some helpful negative reviews:

• I think there is a higher learning curve than people may think unless you really are thorough with everything and bring it up during onboarding. It is very limited in the way you can't move the chat widget, change the appearance of landing page designs (not fields), and other issues like you're set with only x amount of sms texts. There are many other services out there that are cheaper than what you pay for Podium

• Trying to cancel with Podium is the worst experience we've ever had with a company… they will dodge and outright ignore correspondences about cancelling service. They've admitted their issues, told us they are letting us out of the 1-yr contract, yet they are still charging our credit card each month. We have finally had to take the issue up with our credit card company.

Kixie

Kixie is a communication platform that focuses that offers both calling and SMS as a business text app.

Star rating: 4.8 out of 5.

Some helpful positive reviews from G2, Capterra, and TrustPilot:

• Kixie is super user friendly and which made implementing and training my team painless! The dialer is so great for texting and calling. When I had a problem with my CRM integration, the customer support was so supportive and responsive.

• I appreciate how Kixie PowerCall & SMS integrates with our CRM, allowing for efficient dialing and easy access to client information. The SMS feature is also very handy for quick, direct communication with clients. Customer service was top notch as well.

• My overall experience with Kixie has been phenomenal since day 1. Kixie will truly listen to your company's needs and expectations. Kixie will strive to make the consumer experience so much better

Some helpful negative reviews:

• Cons: lack of consistency with usage and customer support is sometimes not available for hours.

• Honestly, this was software that did not work. Everyday there was a different issue. Nice people, but absolutely not honest about the capabilities.

Brevo (formerly Sendinblue)

Brevo is an email marketing and CRM company that also offers SMS, chat, and other marketing solutions, so it can be evaluated in the realm of texting programs for business purposes.

Star rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Some helpful positive reviews from G2, Capterra, and TrustPilot:

• I love the ease of use, it's very user friendly. I create campaigns and add lists of contacts I want to reach out to. There is a wide variety of easily customizable templates to make my emails look very sharp and professional.

• Very complete suite all-in-one. Works very well and easy to use. Good and responsive support.

Some helpful negative reviews;

• I regret that no help is readily available in real time as an online chat. I had to write an email to customer service with a pressing issue and because it was Friday and they were ‘abnormally busy’, I had to wait until Monday to get an answer. The answer got me unstuck instantly, but I would have prefered interacting in real time with someone (NOT a bot as 99% of time they don't help) in real time.

• Not giving the SMS credits in the basic versions along with the email version is something I don't like.

Braze

Braze is a customer engagement platform that offers services across several communication channels, including SMS so you can use it as a business texting app.

Star rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Some helpful positive reviews from G2 and Capterra:

• I love that it's user friendly and we're able to implement new features relatively quickly to achieve a personalised, best in class multi-channel CRM journey for our audiences. We use Braze every single day and it's so easy to integrate new things such as catalogs and data fields. I like that our account manager is always on hand to support with any issues and recommend ways we can optimise our campaign or canvas performance.

• Braze is very powerful in orchestrating marketing and service messages across different channels such as in-app messages, push notifications, sms, email and web messages. It does not require technical skills to set up a journey which has many decision points. My record of creating a campaign with an audience is within 12 minutes, so you can create a campaign while listening to Ravel's Bolero 😃

Some helpful negative reviews:

• The quality of customer support is low. It takes endless time out of my week to resolve the issues we're facing. Many standard functionalities are missing. The fact that you have a limited amount of data points is frustrating. The AI copywriter is cringy and not on point.

• It can be difficult to transition over to Braze from other platforms fully. For our business, it is a lengthy process and cannot be done without the help of developers. There's also lot of limitations around reporting and how the campaigns are built; it's not quite as in-depth or user-friendly as other platforms.

Attentive

Attentive is an AI marketing platform that specializes in SMS, so it can be used as a texting program for business purposes. It also offers email marketing.

Star rating: 4.8 out of 5.

Some helpful positive reviews from G2, Capterra, and TrustPilot:

• Excellent! It is great for a small business like ours and the scheduling and analytics are extremely helpful. The app itself doesn't require consistent attention outside of that as long as you have your flows set up correctly.

• I only have positive things to say about Attentive. The team is incredibly responsive and always mindful of our KPIs and Budgets. I meet with our account manager once every two weeks and Ellyson constantly brings new ideas, strategy recommendations and assistance to help us make the most of our SMS campaigns. We have a small marketing team and so sometimes we don't have the resources internally to make the most of the platform. Attentive has solved this by offering to help us build journeys and draft campaign ideas for us too.

Some helpful negative reviews;

• After working with them for years ive had such a bad experience due to bad systems being in place. I was over charged because i agreed to a different plan but they still charged me 350$ a month when i signed a contract. Then on black friday my account gets locked.... I was just told to pay it all to get active for black friday and they would make it right after... well they didn't and my account was not active for Black friday so i got NO texts out for business. Very unfortunate because they came so highly rated but with staff changes and systems in place they have lost my business.

• The cost is WAY too expensive compared to others in the industry. I don't like the long contract period and inflexibility for cost or program adjustments.

• User interface (ui) is not intuitive at all. I really wish they could help more with setting up journeys and flows because it was very tedious and difficult to learn

SlickText

SlickText is a platform specializing in SMS marketing as one of the prominent texting programs for businesses.

Star rating: 4.8 out of 5.

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Some helpful positive reviews from G2 and Capterra:

• Most SMS Marketing softwares are very similar, I mean how different can they possibly be? What differentiates slicktext from the other softwares is there support team. There is nothing worse than creating an account for a brand new software you paid for and not being able to get in contact asap with the support team. Every other software I have tried does not have a support team like this. It normally takes less than 1 minute to get in contact with the support team and they actually know what they are talking about, with a lot of other softwares they initially get in contact with you fast but once you ask them a question it takes them 30 minutes to respond becasue they themsleves balrey know anything about the software, that is not the case for slicktext. Lastly, I gotta shout my guy Zachary out. He helped me out a ton with getting my account set up the right way. He is an amazing support member.

• I love the intuitive ease of the platform. It is very simple and easy to navigate through. As someone who just started using SMS Marketing, I was able to jump right into the platform and deploy a text right away.

Some helpful negative reviews:

• I wish it was more efficiant. I need more how to videos.

• It can sometimes be confusing on how to finish setting something up.

Klaviyo

Klaviyo is a marketing automation platform for engaging with your audience via email, SMS, mobile apps, and other similar avenues.

Star rating: 4.6 out of 5.

Some helpful positive reviews from G2, Capterra, and TrustPilot:

• It has been great! I've really enjoyed Klaviyo and think that it is the strongest ecom email platform on the market for Shopify merchants. The customization of emails is relatively easy, it has robust feature sets for additions like reviews and sms, and their flows are a hugely important piece to generate passive income. I'd recommend Klaviyo as long as the person onboarding new tools understood how pricing structure works.

• Great integration with Shopify made segmentation easy. We've been able to been some detailed segments based on Shopify data that has helped reach targeted audiences

Some helpful negative reviews:

• Look, if you're constantly sending emails, Klaviyo might be worth it. But for most anyone who doesn't need the full suite, you'll be throwing money away. I certainly have! There are better options out there with more customer-friendly billing practices and at much more competitive price point.

• Overall it does get the job done. It is a lot of work and their support is very limited. It seems that they're not focusing on ecommerce anymore and things have changed recently complicating integration. The SMS is limited. I would like there to be more customer support with setting up campaigns and flows.

TextUs

TextUs is a business text messaging app to connect with consumers, recruiting candidates, and employees.

Star rating: 4.7 out of 5.

Some helpful positive reviews from G2, Capterra, and TrustPilot:

• I love how quick and easy we can communicate with our clients and caregivers. We use it quite frequently in our jobs as recruiters in our agency so it's nice to have something this easy to use to communicate with a lot of people in such a short amount of time. It's easy to text a mass group of people by adding contacts into groups so that comes in handy when it's time to reach out to caregivers for their monthly or annual requirements. It's helped my job as a recruiter immensely!

• I like that TextUs is easy & convenient. I have the mobile app as well. So if I miss a message on my computer it comes straight to my phone. Their IT/tech team is always quick to e-mail when there are major issues with the system. They also respond whenever I submit tickets about issues that I have, and they always follow up on the issue until it's resolved.

Some helpful negative reviews:

• Customer service is unacceptably slow. Whole business day slow. When you use text as a primary outbound mode of contacting candidates for recruiting, it literally stops work.

• Text Us is extremely buggy with notifications. It goes offline fairly frequently and their customer service is not responsive.

EZ Texting

EZ Texting is an SMS platform for marketing, sales, customer service, and HR.

Star rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Some helpful positive reviews from G2, Capterra, and TrustPilot:

• EZ Texting helped remind our parents about our summer reading program. Attendance was high because parents remembered! I was also able to attach RSVPs and get immediate feedback. Parents could opt out at anytime.

• This service is perfect for fast communication with clients. We us the service to make sure that clients triple check their emails once we have sent them sensitive information. The platform also allows you to receive resposnes which is fantastic because they don't have to call and we can just begin a texting conversation. Additionally, the list manager makes it great to add or remove people from groups and send them information.

Some helpful negative reviews:

• Cost is a little expensive. So can be cost prohibitive.

• Customer service is severely lacking. If your needs are not the norm and work arounds are required, avoid the headaches and spend the money for a full service platform with great customer service.

Text Request

Text Request is a texting app for business that focuses on customer engagement.

Star rating: 4.6 out of 5.

Some helpful positive reviews from G2, Capterra, and TrustPilot:

• Text Request has made our ongoing business texting needs a breeze. Text Request allows us to upload our prospect and customer list to send personalized text messages to the masses. We like this software a lot more than past providers we have tried because there are more features to this platform. We recommend their services to our fellow franchisees often.

• Text Request allows my business to operate 3 seperate business location lines with ease, keeping us in constant contact with our clients and prospects in a way they want to communicate. There are 4 of us that have access to using the platform for texting purposes. The platform makes it easy for us all to see what eachother has done or is doing and gives accountability control to me as the owner needing to make sure my staff is on top of customer communications. The program also easily integrates with our company's contact management system. Onboarding new staff to using the program has also been super easy. We use Text Request every single day in my business.

Some helpful negative reviews:

• Customer service was lacking and not proactive in fixing issues affecting the service. No initiation was done on their part to resolve issue. Billing terms were not clear and once they realized we wanted to stop services, the customer service was even more sparse.

• Not loading conversations or contacts slow

Project Broadcast

As far as texting programs for business purposes go, Project Broadcast is a cost-effective SMS marketing solution.

Star rating: 4.9 out of 5.

Some helpful positive reviews from Capterra:

• Project Broadcast enables our team to keep in touch with the people and build relationships with them. We can automate our communication and keep track of our processes. It is affordable and a must use platform!

• Excellent. Customer service is top notch. The team is very responsive to questions. In additon, the training modules are fantastic!

Some helpful negative reviews:

• Not being a programmer, sometimes it can be a little hard to understand. There are definitely a lot of advanced features that I am not taking advantage of, because I don't understand how to use them.

• It’s a little bit hard to learn and navigate the training

Textedly

Textedly is a text app for business, centered around SMS marketing.

Star rating: 4.6 out of 5.

Some helpful positive reviews from G2, Capterra, and TrustPilot:

• We started using Textedly several months ago and have already seen a significant jump in our 1st time sale purchases as a result of the high percentage of people seeing our text messages. I like the scheduling feature and how quick customer service is to responding to my questions and resolving any operator error issues I encounter. Highly recommend and plan on using this company for many years to come!

• Textedly makes it easy to send our bulk texts to our non-profit subscribers. Even those on my team who aren't super tech savvy have been able to navigate it well. When we switched from a different service they made it very simple for us to bring our existing contacts. I love the customer support team too! As we've navigated the transition while at the same time growing at an exponential rate, customer support has been massively helpful with all my questions!

Some helpful negative reviews:

• Even after paying for an annual subscription, it's impossible to use. There is an approval process that takes an unspecified length of time before you can bulk upload contacts and can only manually add ten contacts.

• I used this service for a long time and the customer service is absolutely terrible. They’re difficult to get ahold of, support tickets are just ignored, and once you do get ahold of someone, they just send copied and pasted responses that are no help. It’s really unfortunate that you pay what you do and trust them with your business, to have such awful customer service. I personally cancelled my subscription because of it.

SimpleTexting

SimpleTexting is a text marketing platform used by industries across the board as a text messaging software for business.

Star rating: 4.7 out of 5.

Some helpful positive reviews from G2, Capterra, and TrustPilot:

• We had tried three options simultaneously and picked SimpleTexting because it has so many integrations that are easy to use. We are able to do giveaway contests, collect data, it integrates with our email software - really, they are the pros and have figured out what most clients need from the start.

• I am constantly amazed at how this company manages to find and keep some of the most talented people who are relentlessly dedicated to their customers success. In an age when many tech companies rely on synthetic customer service driven by soulless algorithms, Simple Texting is NOT one of them. ST is real live people WITH SOULS who truly care about their customers success and will do anything in their power to make it work for customers. They take complicated technology and strategies and make them flat-out simple.

Some helpful negative reviews:

• There are not a lot of segmentation functions that you are able to do with other softwares. To make lists based off of the user's actions that they've taken, you must really set up some interesting workarounds and they're subpar at best. Not a great tool for higher-level strategies. Easy to grow out of this software.

• It can be confusing to someone who is just getting started.

What is a business texting app?

A business text message app is a mobile app or web app that allows you to send text messages (particularly mass text messages). These apps also allow you to manage a database of texting contacts and monitor your texting campaigns.

How to send messages from a business texting app

Here’s what to looks like to send a message from business texting app, using our app Mobile Text Alerts as an example.

First, you’ll download the app on your phone or tablet. Then the process of sending messages is really quite easy.

Step 1: Add Contacts (Subscribers)

The first step is to add contacts into your texting database so that they can receive your messages.

There are 3 ways to add contacts from the mobile app.

Adding Manually

The simplest way to add contacts is to add individual contacts manually. You can do this under a “Subscribers” tab within the app.

You just tap to add and then fill in the information. Once you click to “add,” the new subscriber will be added immediately.

Importing Your Contact List

You can also add in all of your phone’s contacts automatically. You can do this within the “Subscribers” tab as well.

Doing this will load in all of the contacts from your phone.

You’ll just need to select "YES" (or “OK”) on the prompt for the app to access your contacts.

Using Text-to-Join

Your mobile app account will come with a free phone number. Anyone can send a text into your account’s phone number, and they will be automatically added as a contact on your subscriber list.

This makes it really easy for people to sign up for your text list.

You can also set up “keywords” that people can text into your account’s phone number—when people text in these particular “keywords,” they can be automatically added to a specific segmented group on your account.

Keywords also allow you to set up a particular “auto-response” welcome message to be sent to the recipient when the text in that particular word.

You can view and manage your keywords from the “Keywords” tab within the app.

There are other ways to add contacts from the web app or via API as well, including:

• Importing a spreadsheet of contacts
• Automatically generated QR codes
• A customizable web sign-up page
• Custom programmable integrations
• No-coding-required integrations (via Zapier.com)

Step 2: Send Messages

Once you have contacts loaded in, there are a couple different ways you can send messages from your business texting app.

Sending/Scheduling Manually

To send a message manually, you can go to the “Send a Message” tab within the app.

Here you can select when you’d like your message to be sent, who you’d like to be the recipients for your message, and what content you’d like to include in the message.

Then you just click “Send.”

When sending messages, there are some other actions you can do as well:

• You can attach images to include in your messages (MMS)
• You can save message templates so that you can create pre-filled messages without needing re-type out all of the content again
• You can insert each recipient’s first name automatically into your messages
• You can shorten links, making it easier to include them in text messages

Responding Individually

If anyone replies to your messages, their responses will show up in your “Inbox.” From your Inbox, you can then quickly send a response back as appropriate.

You can include images, shortened links, and other features in your response.

How can a business use a texting app?

There are almost endless potential uses for a business texting app—as many uses as there are reasons to communicate.

Below are just a few.

Most platforms on this list can handle all of these use cases.

Promotions

Here are some examples of SMS promotions:

Pelton Music: Now’s the perfect time to spring for that electric guitar you’ve been wanting. Why? Because all Gibson and Fender models are 30% off THIS WEEKEND ONLY. Stop by or shop online: [link]

Hadley’s: Text club exclusive - 20% off everything! Today only! Click here to shop our new & trendy fall selection: [link]

Updates

Here are some examples of SMS updates:

Welcome! You're registered for the 'Teach Your Child to Read in 5 Months' workshop! Mark your calendars for 2pm every Saturday for the next month. Book a consultation with us: [link]

Special releases available NOW! Minimal quantities! Check them out here: [link]

Reminders

Here are some examples of SMS reminders:

The 'How to Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half' webinar starts in 10 minutes! See you there! Here’s the link to join: [link]

Just a reminder that we will have our monthly office engagement meeting this Friday at 1pm in the conference room.

Customer Service

Here are some examples of SMS for customer service:

Hi there! Hal from LouLoop here. Just checking in on your recent order - Are you fully satisfied with your purchase and with the experience you had?

Thanks for reaching out to Miller Furniture Mart! What questions or concerns can I help answer for you?

Employee Engagement

Happy birthday to Melody Pelton! We appreciate you and all that you do!

Please reply with your meal preference for the sales conference tomorrow: smoked salmon or avocado BLTs.

Payment Collection

Your subscription renewal was unable to process using the card on file. To keep the subscription active, please update your card at [link]

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How to choose a business texting app: 7 criteria that actually move the needle

Not all business texting apps are built for the same use cases. You can use some of the criteria below to sort vendors by what matters for your team and budget.

• Delivery: Try asking for published delivery rates. (Hint: most probably won’t divulge.)
• Compliance and opt-in tools: Look for built-in opt-in flows, automatic opt-out handling, brand regstration guidance to help you with regulations and carrier requirements.
• Integrations and API: Verify whether the platform has native connectors for your CRM, scheduling tools, or a fully documented API for automation.
• Ease of use and onboarding: How long until a typical team sends its first campaign? If onboarding requires developer time, factor that into total cost.
• Pricing transparency: Check for per-message and number fees, plus any overage or carrier pass-through costs. Hidden fees could kill ROI for smaller teams.
• Support: Confirm support hours and expected response time. Written SLA terms matter for mission-critical alerts.

How to get started with a business texting app for your business

In this guide, we've gone over the nitty-gritty of both positive and negative reviews of texting platforms. Plus, we've explored some general information about how business texting works and how could use it.

To get started using a text message app for your business, you first just need to get a free trial.

Author bio

Sam Pelton is the content director for Mobile Text Alerts, an SMS service that gives businesses an easier way to reach customers and audiences. He has 12 years of experience working with the texting platform in the areas of customer support, quality assurance testing, content creation, copywriting, and marketing strategy. He’s also a father of 6 and loves a good (bad) dad joke. Connect with him on LinkedIn.