SimpleTexting Review and Pricing

Why We Chose SimpleTexting for Small Businesses

Small companies use business texting to reach prospects and customers and create relationships that can increase sales and loyalty. SimpleTexting is an excellent platform for these goals. It’s extremely user-friendly and includes a wide range of valuable features that can help small businesses maximize the power of texting. 

The platform’s $119-per-month package is particularly hard to resist. It allows 3,000 texts per month that roll over to the following month if unused. So, if you have 750 customers on your books, you can text each one weekly to keep in touch. However, if you’re new to text message marketing and need time to build your list, the platform has less expensive options, including a $39-per-month plan for 500 monthly texts and a $59-per-month plan for 1,000 texts. You can pay even less per text if you take a toll-free number instead of a local number and pay SimpleTexting annually.

SimpleTexting allows you to connect seamlessly with your other business apps via Zapier. For a small fee, the company will also assign its team of programmers the task of creating fully customized integrations unique to your business.

For its price, features, flexibility and customer service, SimpleTexting is our pick for the best text message marketing platform for small businesses.

SimpleTexting is a cost-effective, feature-full text messaging option for small businesses. Source: SimpleTexting

Ease of Use

SimpleTexting’s clean, minimalist dashboard is easy to navigate. Source: SimpleTexting

SimpleTexting is exceptionally easy to use. The image above shows the platform’s easily navigable in-browser dashboard. The left navigation menu has links to your inbox, campaigns, autoresponders, keywords, apps and contacts. Beneath those are links to analytics, integrations and settings, where you can add new team members and toll-free numbers.

SimpleTexting’s user interface is particularly appealing. New users won’t have any trouble understanding the platform’s functions. For example, to launch a new campaign, select Campaigns from the left navigation bar and choose New campaign. You’ll see the following screen:

SimpleTexting makes it easy to compose and launch a new text message marketing campaign. Source: SimpleTexting

We like that you can access templates directly in the message field, shorten URLs (to give you more characters to play with) and add custom fields, such as a person’s name, to personalize your messages. Choose your list (or lists), access the excellent AI function to help craft your message and schedule your campaign. 

It’s also easy to migrate contacts from another messaging platform or add them manually. Create and name a new list within the Contacts section. If you’re importing contacts, your file will need a header row so SimpleTexting can correctly map the data. Next, select your newly created list, agree to SimpleTexting’s terms and import your contacts. Include as much contact information as possible during the import process to allow maximum personalization and segmentation options later. Similar to opt-in email marketing, subscribers will receive a free compliance text to ensure they want to receive your text messages.

SimpleTexting Features

SimpleTexting’s features include the expected, like keywords and segmentation and the extra-appealing, such as custom-built integrations and in-depth analytics.

Built-in and Custom Integrations, Plus Integration Assistance

While SimpleTexting’s integrations are limited, they include big names like Salesforce, Mailchimp, HubSpot, Slack, Zoho CRM and Shopify. The Zapier building tool within SimpleTexting is very user-friendly and can help you connect to many more third-party programs — but you must know how to use it. Fortunately, SimpleTexting’s team will jump in and help you fix Zapier applications that have stopped or are yet to start working. 

If you’d prefer SimpleTexting to create custom integrations tailored to your business away from the Zapier platform, you can pay for this functionality on any plan. There’s a $1,000 setup fee plus a $199 monthly cost. 

Inbox History and Two-way Interaction

You can see all customer messages from your inbox, including all previous and ongoing conversations with every client. To start a new conversation, select the button in the middle of the screen. You can add emojis and links to your message. We like how easily you can implement templates without leaving the current screen. You can also create templates from existing messages to save time later. 

We were impressed that you can have ongoing interactions with customers and message back and forth in real-time, answering questions promptly, pitching a particular product or service or otherwise building client relationships — all critical components of increasing sales via text messaging.

When you’ve resolved a conversation, you can “close” it on the system to declutter your dashboard. This makes unanswered or unresolved threads more visible. We appreciate the degree of control you can apply to your inbox to determine what messages appear.

SimpleTexting helps you build customer relationships with real-time texting. Source: SimpleTexting

Segmenting

SimpleTexting’s subscriber segmentation functionality impressed us. We appreciate how easy it is to set up segments. Select the Subscriber tab, choose your contacts or segment-defining criteria and save the settings for future use.

You can decide whether you want to create segmented lists from all your contacts or contacts on specific lists you’ve already made. You can also segment subscribers based on when they joined your list, how they joined (web form, Mailchimp, Zapier or an Excel file) or even whether they clicked on a short URL in a previous text campaign. You can even combine these criteria. For example, you can create a segment of customers who subscribed after a specific date after clicking on a particular link. 

SimpleTexting makes it easy to segment subscribers by various criteria. Source: SimpleTexting

Custom Fields

We like that SimpleTexting lets you create custom fields to capture additional information about subscribers, such as their age or ZIP code. This feature is helpful when analyzing information about your audience or targeting specific customers. For example, if you have multiple locations, you could create a custom field so that subscribers receive messages only from the location closest to them.

Keywords

SimpleTexting supports keywords, so you can segment customers from the start by inviting them to text a keyword that reflects their interests. Adding keywords is easy with SimpleTexting. You can set a different autoresponse for each keyword (see more on autoresponding below), letting subscribers know how often you’ll text them with offers and information each month. This frequency is preset to four instances, but you can change it.

AI-powered SMS and Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) Campaigns

SimpleTexting supports SMS and MMS messaging for marketing campaigns. To start a new campaign, create a message, choose your subscribers and schedule your message distribution. You can also set a recurring campaign without navigating to a different part of the platform — something other texting solutions we reviewed require. 

We loved SimpleTexting’s AI-powered internal copywriter, AI Assist. You can ask the platform to write compelling sales copy for your text message marketing campaigns and run A/B tests to see what copy works best for future engagement.

SimpleTexting’s AI Assist can help you craft compelling copy for your text marketing messages. Source: SimpleTexting

Autoresponders

We like that SimpleTexting allows businesses to set different autoresponses for subscribers based on how they’ve been segmented. Autoresponses are excellent customer service tools when you can’t respond immediately but want customers to know you’ve received their message and care about their needs. You can personalize responses to include the customer’s name and set response times (immediately, after a short delay or on a specific date). 

SimpleTexting lets you choose whether an autoresponse is sent immediately or after a delay. Source: SimpleTexting

Analytics

SimpleTexting’s comprehensive analytics dashboard shows the number of responses and unsubscribes to individual campaigns, autoresponders and application programming interface messages against the number of text messages sent. You can choose the time frame for which you want the analytics function to create statistics. We appreciate that you can also monitor subscriber growth over time, broken down by list, segment, keyword, web form and clients shared with Mailchimp.

We like SimpleTexting’s ability to measure campaign performance according to the individual team members responsible for specific campaigns. This function helps evaluate and measure employee performance and is another unique feature that differentiates this product from competitors.

List-building Tools

We like that SimpleTexting helps you grow your subscriber base. You can use the platform to create cell phone opt-in web forms for your website and graphics for social media accounts and email signatures. Opt-in tools can even allow new subscribers to specify which messaging list they want to join. 

We especially liked SimpleTexting’s birthday text function, which lets you invite people to text you with their date of birth. An autoresponse will go out acknowledging receipt. They’ll receive a “happy birthday” text from you on their special day, perhaps with a special offer or coupon, helping to boost engagement and loyalty.

Appointment Reminders

You can set up appointment reminders using SimpleTexting, Zapier and either Google Calendar or the Acuity Scheduling app. Complete instructions for setting up this integration are provided. Still, for businesses on a high enough plan, it’s probably better just to ask SimpleTexting to do it for you free of charge.

Mobile App

SimpleTexting’s mobile app helps you use its text messaging services on the go. Unlike many competitors, the mobile app offers the same functionality as the full platform. It also benefits from a well-designed, user-driven and straightforward interface — more reasons why SimpleTexting stands out for small businesses.

SimpleTexting’s mobile app is unique in its high functionality. Source: SimpleTexting

SimpleTexting Pricing

SimpleTexting offers the following price points based on how many texts you wish to send per month and whether you want to pay monthly or annually. Companies that pay annually get a 20 percent discount. Custom packages are available for businesses sending more than 50,000 messages a month.

There are no contracts with SimpleTexting and you can move up and down the following service plans monthly:

We like how messaging, contact management and support services are available to all clients regardless of their plan. Companies sending more than 50,000 texts monthly also get a dedicated customer success manager.

Note the following pricing factors: 

• If you want any plan with a short code, you must speak with the sales team.
• Each plan includes three user seats while additional seats cost $20 per month, per user.
• Additional numbers cost $10 per month.
• Each plan offers a monthly rollover. Any unused credits from the previous month will be used up before your new month’s allocation.

SimpleTexting does not offer a free trial period, but it does allow you to test drive the system by setting up an account without providing your company’s credit card details. The company also offers a 30-day money-back guarantee for extra peace of mind.

Implementation and Onboarding

SimpleTexting setup is straightforward. You’ll get an email from the vendor’s team a few minutes after registering, complete with tips on using the platform’s most popular features.

As the product’s name suggests, inviting employees to join the system and send texts is, well, simple. Go to Settings and select Team > Invite Team Member. You can designate each person as a member or manager (managers can alter platform settings). You can also decide whether a new team member can access all contacts or just contacts from assigned lists.

There is no software to download for SimpleTexting, making implementation effortless. However, you can’t configure the dashboard’s functionality or appearance, which is a drawback of every text message marketing platform we reviewed.

One aspect we appreciate is the speed with which SimpleTexting rolls off numbers. You can use the system often on the same day with a local number and the company handles compliance.

Customer Support

SimpleTexting’s customer service team is available via web chat from 8 a.m. to midnight Eastern time Monday to Friday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET on weekends. You can also call the vendor between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. ET on weekdays and 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET on weekends. These support options are relatively generous compared to some rivals that offer support only during standard business hours. 

Over 190 articles are available on the company’s self-service knowledge base, separated into 17 categories ranging from getting started to settings and billing. The answers are clear and straightforward and the search function makes it easy to find the information you’re looking for. However, the front end would benefit from better on-screen organization and perhaps a list of links to the top 20 most-requested articles to save customers time.

Limitations

To make SimpleTexting even more suited for small businesses looking to grow, the vendor and its clients could benefit from offering some intermediate plans. Currently, the jumps in the number of texts per month seem excessive. For example, a business would have to expand significantly to need 7,500 texts per month suddenly after using only 3,000. SimpleTexting can be great for scaling businesses, but expecting a company to grow that fast is unrealistic.

Additionally, although SimpleTexting’s help center is thorough, it would benefit from being easier to navigate and better integrated into the dashboard. We’d like to see SimpleTexting include an AI-powered question bar on the dashboard that could provide personalized answers to questions using the information in the help center.

Methodology

We spent several weeks researching the top text message marketing services to determine the best solutions for various business segments. As part of our analysis, we looked at ease of use, features, pricing, customer support and integrations. To determine which text messaging service is best for small businesses specifically, we paid particular attention to affordability, scalability, included features, support availability and ease of use.

Bottom Line

We recommend SimpleTexting for …

• Small businesses that want to use text message marketing to grow sales.
• Companies looking to automate actions through custom integrations.
• Organizations ready to explore new marketing avenues.

We don’t recommend SimpleTexting for …

• Larger businesses with more complex communication needs.
• Companies that want a text messaging platform with a significant number of built-in integrations.