Any SMS marketing services for the US?

Hi everyone,

Could you recommend any SMS marketing services for the US? We're looking for a platform that supports large daily campaigns and doesn't have overly strict compliance requirements.

Our volumes are around 4–15 million messages per month, and we're only interested in toll-free numbers.

We're aiming for pricing below $0.013 per message. We're not looking for SMS gateways/routes or custom third-party setups, only established platforms.

We've already tried Twilio, but unfortunately their compliance requirements don't really work for our use case.
We also tested SimpleTexting, Infobip, and a few others, but the situation is pretty similar.

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Have you tried searching Google for this OP?

Macqueen13 said:

Hi everyone,

Could you recommend any SMS marketing services for the US? We're looking for a platform that supports large daily campaigns and doesn't have overly strict compliance requirements.

Our volumes are around 4–15 million messages per month, and we're only interested in toll-free numbers.

We're aiming for pricing below $0.013 per message. We're not looking for SMS gateways/routes or custom third-party setups, only established platforms.

We've already tried Twilio, but unfortunately their compliance requirements don't really work for our use case.
We also tested SimpleTexting, Infobip, and a few others, but the situation is pretty similar.

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Click to expand...

At that volume, every reputable US SMS platform is going to have compliance requirements especially for toll free messaging so its unlikely youll find a major provider that skips them.
If Twilio, Infobip, and SimpleTexting don't fit, I'd look for providers that help streamline registration and compliance instead of trying to avoid it.
You'll probably have better luck optimizing approval and pricing with a compliant setup than searching for a platform with looser rules, since that's become the industry standard.

Yeah @longshotpro is right on this, carriers block unverified toll free traffic anyway now so even if you find some platform that lets you upload the list, your delivery will be close to zero. At 4m+ messages you are going to trigger carrier spam filters in minutes without proper registration.

If you want established platforms and that pricing, you have to play the compliance game to some extent. Have you looked at Plivo or maybe Bandwidth? They can be a bit more flexible than Twilio on onboarding if you talk to a sales rep, but you still gotta do the toll free verification. Honestly, at your volume you should be negotiating directly with the actual network providers anyway, SimpleTexting and those guys are just white-labeling and charging you a markup.

Yeah @Zephyroo is right about the carrier level blocks. Even if you find a platform that lets you send without verification, the downstream carriers will just silent block your traffic. At 4m+ a month you should look at Telnyx. They are a direct carrier like Bandwidth and their compliance team is actually pretty helpful with getting campaigns approved if you talk to them. The pricing is definitely there if you commit to that volume, but you still have to do the paperwork. There is no way around the registry anymore if you want actual delivery.

The thing you're chasing basically doesn't exist anymore, not on the toll free side anyway. TFV is mandatory and carriers throttle unverified traffic to nothing, so any "loose compliance" platform is either lying or your delivery will tank fast.

That said, at 15m/month you have real leverage. Plivo and Telnyx like the others said, but honestly with those numbers I'd stop looking at platforms and get on a call with Bandwidth or Sinch directly. They'll approve campaigns that are legit and the per message cost drops well under your target when you commit volume.

One thing nobody mentioned... if your use case keeps getting rejected everywhere, the problem might be the content/opt in setup not the platform. Worth looking at that before burning more time testing providers.

Sending such a large volume of non-compliant text messages per month, a budget of $0.013 per message might mean never finding a suitable provider.

I send over 20,000 text messages to North American users every day, which is indeed costly at $0.055 per message. But if it increases customer acquisition, what's a little extra cost?

Thanks for all the help, guys. I can tell from some of the advice that there are quite a few people who are new to this niche. Hopefully some real sharks will jump in and share a few more tips for someone who’s just getting started… even though I’ve already been sending tens of millions of messages every month for the past couple of years.

It wont find what you want, with the price range you want friend. Big and stablished providers doens't work for any kind of gh or bh offers, even more toll free. The longest but best path you could use is build your own engine with someone that really knows how to do that. You'll probably spend way more per message, but surelly your profit should cover the costs

Does P2P or A2p sms work for you?