Mass Texting Service: How to Get Started [2025]

A Mass Texting Service You Can Count On

So you’re looking for a mass texting service.

But you need something that you can count on…

A mass text messaging service that will deliver the messages you need to be delivered…

Something that will work the way you need it to work…

Something that will give you the support you need when you need it.

Enter Mobile Text Alerts.

SEE HOW IT WORKS—FOR FREE.

What Is a Mass Texting Service?

A mass texting service is an online platform and/or API product that allows you to send text messages to large numbers of people at scale.

These services usually come in the form of an online platform that you can log into and use right out of the box, as well as a corresponding API service that allows you to program your SMS messaging according to your needs.

Texting services enable the user to send SMS on both an individual and group basis, allowing effective communication through text messaging.

Why? Because you know that you can get more sales or better group communication through texting.

(After all, everyone texts; there are over 6 billion smartphone users worldwide. And almost everyone has their phone on them constantly - 88% of us even use it while on the toilet.)

How Does a Mass Texting Service Work?

Text message platform providers offer a web SMS platform (and often a mobile app) to allow you to easily send out your mass SMS and connect with your audience. They will also allow you to send MMS, or picture messages).

These platforms also offer tools to manage the contacts within your text list and view analytics on your texting efforts).

Mass text messaging services are typically provided on a subscription basis, with discounts often given for paying annually rather than monthly.

Prices vary widely depending on how many messages you want to send, but typical starting costs begin in the $20-$40 per month range.

The process of sending messages through a mass texting service looks like this…

Adding & Managing Contacts

To get started, you’ll need to load in a subscriber list (if you have one). You can import a spreadsheet or connect to other services (such as your CRM) through integrations or API.

You can also allow people to sign up for your text messages by having them text in a “keyword,” scan a QR code, or fill out an online form.

You can view and edit all your contacts from that online dashboard, and you can organize them into groups for segmented messaging.

Sending Messages

There are a few different options for sending messages:

• You can send messages on an ad hoc basis whenever needed
• You can schedule messages for particular dates/times
• You can set up automated campaigns

So you can use whatever method is appropriate for your situation and send out your message(s).

Best Ways to Use a Mass Texting Service

So what are some ways you can actually use a mass texting service?

Here are some examples…

1. Promotional Campaigns and Special Offers

Text messaging becomes an excellent way to get promotional campaigns and special offers directly in the hands of your subscribers.

This would include initiatives such as:

• Time-sensitive offers
• Flash sales
• Product launches
• Coupon codes

“

🎉 FLASH SALE ALERT! 🎉 50% OFF all summer styles for the next 4 hours only! Use code SUMMER50 at checkout. Shop now: [link] Reply STOP to opt out

2. Reminders for Events and Appointments

What’s one of the best ways to help make sure people actually show up to events and appointments?

Text messages.

(You can also use texting for appointment confirmations and cancellations.)

“

Reminder: Your dental appointment with Dr. Smith is tomorrow, 06/15, at 2:00 PM. Reply Y to confirm or C to cancel. Questions? Call us at (555) 123-4567.

3. Customer Service

Since everyone texts, it makes sense to implement SMS as a part of your customer service.

This could be for transactional updates such as shipping notifications and status updates, or it could be individual interaction to help answer customer questions.

“

Your order #12345 has shipped! Estimated delivery: 06/18. Track your package: [link]

4. Audience Updates

Texting is one of the most effective ways to let people know about important updates.

Event announcements, new upcoming products, company news, or any other updates can be communicated via text message—and you can be confident people will actually see the update.

“

Exciting news! 🎉 Our new SuperPhone X is almost here! Pre-order now and get a free case: [link]

5. Internal Communication

Texting is also effective for keeping your internal team up to date on important notices.

Thus, internal communication becomes a way to let people know about things like meetings, safety notices, and HR updates.

“

URGENT: Office closed today (06/15) due to severe weather. Please work from home if possible. Stay safe and check email for updates. Contact HR at (555) 246-8102 with questions.

How to Choose the Right Mass Texting Service

When looking through mass text service providers, some considerations to take in mind would be:

• Price

• Learning curve

• Ease of use

• Availability of customer support

What Features Do Mass Texting Services Offer?

Mass Sending and Scheduling Capabilities

This is obviously the most important benefit a mass texting service can provide: an SMS (and MMS) sender tool to get your communication out in the easiest and most effective way possible.

But an SMS sender tool shouldn’t stop there.

It should allow the flexibility…

• To schedule your messages ahead of time

• To group your recipients into organized segments

• To track links in the messages you send

• To include “name” variables

Mass text messaging services will provide those options to you so you can have more control over your SMS efforts.

Sending MMS

What’s the difference between SMS (short messaging service) and MMS (multimedia messaging service)?

The basic difference is this:

• SMS is a simple text message. No muss, no fuss.

• MMS includes media along with the text message.

Sending an MMS means that you can include attachments (such as an image) in your message - and it also means that your message can be longer.

Keep in mind that mass texting service plans typically charge an SMS as a single messaging credit unless it exceeds 160 characters.

Once it hits 160 characters, it doubles the number of credits needed to send the message. And if the text reaches 320 characters, it triples the credits, and so on.

MMS, on the other hand, can have up to 1,600 characters.

Now, MMS are typically charged more than SMS–Mobile Text Alerts charges 3 credits per MMS, for example.

But since they can contain so many characters, if you want to send longer messages, it can actually be more cost-effective to utilize this multimedia messaging option.

Online Platform

Your texting service should have a robust yet easy-to-use SMS platform.

User-friendliness is the key to a smooth and enjoyable experience learning your mass texting tool.

Because who wants to be stressed out trying to learn something new? Not you!

It’s an extra bonus if the platform that your chosen texting company provides comes with a corresponding mobile app too.

Maximum convenience for the win!

Text Messages Sign-Up & Subscription

Having an effective texting tool is not enough.

You also need to have easy options to build your text subscription list.

Otherwise, you won’t have anyone to send texts to and all your planning and effort will be wasted.

To make things easy for you and your audience, use convenient tools that allow them to sign up and subscribe to your text messages.

These can include:

• “Text to join”

• QR codes

• Spreadsheet imports

• Web forms

• Integrations

• API

Use any of those (or a combination) to get more subscribers for your texts and see better results.

Phone Number Options

What if you want to have more control over the phone number your text messages go through?

After all, with a mass text service, you’re typically assigned a random number AGAINST YOUR WILL.

Which is fine, and works for many, many businesses.

But if you want a different number or more options, it’s nice to have that choice.

Some mass texting services will give you more robust choices for what types of numbers you can use to send your messages, so that’s one thing you can be on the lookout for, if it interests you.

What Is an SMS Short Code?

You may have heard of the phrase “short code.”

What does it mean, exactly?

Put simply, a short code is a short phone number used by mass text messaging services.

You’ve seen it before - Companies will say things like, “Text the word ‘sales’ to 74121 to receive discounts and deals!”

So what is short code texting and how do you go about it?

Consumers and businesses like short codes because they are easy to remember and type in.

For instance, it’s much easier to remember the number 74121 than to remember 800-568-3493.

Short codes are also good because they are heavily vetted ahead of time by cell phone carriers, which results in a higher success rate for delivery.

What does that mean?

Basically, non-short code numbers can have a higher chance of messages being filtered out as spam by the phone carriers. (Which means, therefore, a higher chance of not getting delivered.)

Short code numbers aren’t under the same scrutiny because they are pre-screened by phone carriers.

And yet another benefit of short codes is a high throughput - they can send messages out at a fast speed.

For many businesses, higher sending speeds aren’t necessary.

But for large businesses with a lot of recipients (hundreds of thousands or more) – higher sending speeds can mean the difference between your recipients receiving the message within minutes of sending, or within hours.

Dedicated Short Codes vs. Other phone Numbers

“Dedicated” means it belongs to you and you only, so it’s even better than “shared” short codes which belong to multiple senders.

The catch?

Dedicated short codes cost $2,500 to set up and $500-$1,000 per month to lease, so you’ve got to be willing to shell out the cash. (And they also take several weeks to get provisioned and ready to go.)

Despite all that, this can be something to consider if you’re a larger company with a robust marketing budget.

If you decide you don’t want to use dedicated short codes, we would recommend sending through “text-enabled toll-free” numbers or 10-digit long codes

These numbers are 10-digits long and are sometimes included for free with a texting service account.

SMS Service API

If you don’t know what API is, don’t worry!

It’s simply what allows web developers to connect different software together.

Many texting services will allow API access so that you or your web developer can set up your own automations and integrations with various services.

Because, why not make your life just that much more convenient?

If you’re interested in a mass texting service’s API, you can check out their API documentation to see some of the different ways you can use it to create automations and integrations.

SMS Integrations

Speaking of integrations, what if you don’t have access to a developer?

Or what if, for one reason or another, you can’t use the API with a service you’re wanting to connect?

That’s why Zapier exists.

It allows you to integrate 2 services together, no coding required.

So you can set up your OWN integrations all by yourself. Pretty nifty!

2-Way SMS

What if you want to engage with customers (or other audiences) individually with SMS or MMS, rather than on a group basis?

A mass text message service will allow 2-way SMS and should have some conversation management options so that you can easily engage back and forth.

Think of it like an email inbox, but for business texting.

Those are just a few of the benefits and features to look for when scoping out a text alert service.

Which elements are important to you and your situation?

What Industries Use a Mass Texting Service?

Virtually any industry can use a mass text messaging service, because any industry can benefit from better communication.

Here’s a representative sample list of some of those industries.

Coaches

Online coaches can use SMS as a way to send updates to their clients and prospects.

Our most common use case for coaches is to send reminders and follow-ups for their sales webinars. (These can even be automated if you use Zoom or GoTo’s webinar platforms.)

Ecommerce

Ecommerce stores use SMS to promote their products and offers.

One especially popular use case is to use SMS to announce a flash sale—seeing an urgent promo directly on their phone could be a good catalyst to get people to take advantage of the promo.

Healthcare & Professional Services

Healthcare offices and other professional services (such as lawyers, salon, etc.) primarily have two use cases for SMS.

The first use is for reminders about appointments, so that they can increase the show-up rate.

The second use is for internal updates among team members, to let them know about shift needs or HR requests.

Restaurants

The restaurant industry is notoriously competitive, so anything that restaurants can do to stand up is a good thing.

Using SMS is one way to make sure restaurants really reach their customers with updates such as promotions and menu changes.

Real Estate

Real estate agencies and individual agents can both use SMS for different reasons.

Agencies can use it to keep their agents informed about updates such as meetings and trainings.

And individual agents can use it to promote properties to prospective clients.

Construction & Manufacturing

The primary use case for both construction and manufacturing companies in regards to SMS is to use it to keep team members informed about safety updates. (Or any important company update.)

For example, they can let field workers know if there’s been a lightning strike nearby.

Churches, Education, and Nonprofits

While businesses take advantage of mass text message services in order to get more sales and communicate with customers, churches and nonprofits utilize SMS too.

The use case for these types of organizations is more for connecting with members and employees - to have better, more efficient, and more effective communication.

Most of the texting services listed below will work well for churches and nonprofits as well as for businesses.

10 Top Mass Texting Services

So what mass text services are actually out there? What is there to choose from?

Here are some of the most prominent mass texting services.

1. Mobile Text Alerts

• Type of service: Online platform & API
• Starting price: $20/month (500 messages)
• Standout comments:
  • Markets as the “dependable business texting solution’
  • No “carrier fees”
  • Multi-country support

2. Twilio

• Type of service: API
• Starting price: $0.0079 per message plus carrier fees
• Standout comments:
  • One of the leading SMS API service providers
  • Offers other communication APIs as well

3. Textedly

• Type of service: Online platform
• Starting price: $26/month (600 messages)
• Standout comments:
  • Has a marketing-specific use case focus
  • Also offers text-to-pay and review collection services

4. SlickText

• Type of service: Online platform & API
• Starting price: $29/month (500 messages)
• Standout comments:
  • Has a marketing-specific use case focus
  • Also emphasizes customer support

5. SimpleTexting

• Type of service: Online platform & API
• Starting price: $33.20/month (500 messages)
• Standout comments:
  • Geared toward small businesses
  • Emphasizes budget-friendly plans

6. EZ Texting

• Type of service: Online platform & API
• Starting price: $20/month (500 messages)
• Standout comments:
  • Has a marketing-specific use case focus
  • Has been around since 2004

7. Textmagic

• Type of service: Online platform & API
• Starting price: $.049/message + $10 phone number fee
• Standout comments:
  • Pay as you go platform
  • Offers SMS, email, and voice

8. Amazon SNS

• Type of service: API
• Starting price: $0.00581/message + carrier fees
• Standout comments:
  • Good for enterprise customers
  • Multi-country support

9. Sinch

• Type of service: API
• Starting price: $0.0078/message + carrier fees
• Standout comments:
  • Presents itself as the “customer communications cloud”
  • Claims over 150k customers

10. Telnyx

• Type of service: API
• Starting price: $0.004/message + carrier fees
• Standout comments:
  • Emphasizes global reach
  • Has an AI focus

FAQ

Here are some frequently asked questions about mass texting services.

What is the best mass texting service?

The best mass text services will vary based on your budget and your needs, but we would present our service Mobile Text Alerts for your consideration.

With Mobile Text Alerts, you get:

• Affordable yet high quality plans (with no added carrier fees)
• Friendly and accessible customer support
• Unique features such as iMessage capabilities and an AI SMS Chatbot option

Is a mass texting service free?

Mass text message services are not typically free. There may be some free services out there, but they will come with limitations and catches.

For the best experience, you’ll generally want to avoid services claiming to be a free option.

Is there a free mass texting service for nonprofits?

As with mass text messaging services in general, most service providers will charge a fee even for nonprofits. If you encounter services that don’t charge fees, you’ll want to be vigilant to find out what the “catch” is—whether that’s a low limitation of messages, a requirement for ads, low quality message delivery, or some other inconvenience.

What’s the cheapest mass texting service?

There are many affordable mass texting services available.

Some of these include:

• Mobile Text Alerts
• Textedly
• Textmagic

Why You Should Choose Mobile Text Alerts

Now that you’ve been inundated with information about mass texting services, maybe you’re ready to take one of the first steps.

Hint: you should explore Mobile Text Alerts. 😉

Why? Because with Mobile Text Alerts you’ll get:

• Dependable service so that your messages actually get delivered
• No hidden carrier fees
• Friendly and helpful customer support

So why not give it a try? No risk—we promise.

Get your free trial now.