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Tired of missed appointments, communication breakdowns, and marketing messages that never seem to land?
The right texting app can transform your business communication from hit-or-miss to precision-targeted, ensuring every message counts.
Unlike email, people check their text messages 6 more more time per day. With such high engagement, sending SMS messages for appointment reminders, marketing efforts, or to ask for reviews is a great way to ensure your messages are not only noticed, but read too.
Business text messaging refers to the use of text messaging services for business purposes. It allows businesses to connect with customers, clients, and employees through SMS, enabling efficient and effective communication.
Business text messaging offers numerous benefits, including:
It also provides businesses with a cost-effective and time-efficient way to communicate with their audience.
By leveraging business text messaging services, companies can send personalized messages, reminders, and updates directly to their customers’ mobile devices. This direct line of communication helps build stronger relationships and ensures that important information is delivered promptly.
Crafting effective SMS messages is crucial for successful SMS marketing campaigns. Here are some strategies to help your business create impactful SMS messages:
Keep it concise: SMS messages should be short and to the point. Keep your message concise and focused on the main objective.
Use clear language: Avoid using jargon or technical terms that may confuse your audience. Use clear and simple language that is easy to understand.
Include a clear call-to-action (CTA): Include a clear CTA in your SMS message, such as “Reply YES to confirm” or “Click the link to learn more.”
Use personalization: Personalize your SMS messages by using the recipient’s name or referencing their previous interactions with your business.
Use attention-grabbing headlines: Use attention-grabbing headlines to capture the recipient’s attention and encourage them to read the message.
Include a sense of urgency: Create a sense of urgency by including a limited-time offer or a deadline for response.
Use mobile-friendly formatting: Use mobile-friendly formatting to ensure that your SMS message is easy to read on mobile devices.
Test and optimize: Test your SMS messages and optimize them based on the results to improve their effectiveness.
Here's a great example of an appointment reminder SMS example:
By following these strategies, businesses can create effective SMS messages that engage their audience and drive results. Whether you’re launching a new product, promoting a special offer, or simply keeping your customers informed, well-crafted SMS messages can significantly enhance your sms marketing efforts.
While there are endless opportunities for how to leverage sms campaigns to drive revenue, knowing how you want to use text messaging for your business will help determine what platform is best for your business. Here are just a few examples to help inspire your sms marketing efforts:
SMS apps are definitely not one-size-fits-all.
Some criteria, like ease of use, apply universally to all businesses, while others, such as features, may vary. Your choice will depend on your specific needs, including essential integrations, features for daily operations, and your budget. Choosing the right business texting software is an important decision that you'll need to make as a small business owner.
With that in mind, we chose and rated the eight best SMS apps for small businesses based on:
The 10 Best Scheduling Apps Of 2025 |
1. YouCanBookMe (YCBM)YouCanBookMe integrates scheduling, SMS notifications, and online payments into one intuitive tool. Users can automate personalized text messages for bookings, rescheduling, cancellations, sales updates, and marketing purposes.Read more about YouCanBookMe |
2. CapacityCapacity is an AI-powered support platform with an SMS branch. They're a business texting platform designed to improve your customer experiences through AI and human-powered conversations. |
3. TwilioTwilio’s cloud communication tool uses APIs to engage customers through SMS messaging, call redirection, and marketing analytics. It’s highly customizable but technically advanced, making it best suited to developers (or people with access to one). |
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5. EmitrrEmitrr is a text message marketing software designed for customer interaction and engagement across various industries, from small businesses to healthcare. The platform offers seamless integration with 1000+ external tools and its features are highly customizable. |
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🧰 Once you’ve made up your mind, dive into the latest SMS best practices to get the most out of your selected texting app! |
YouCanBookMe combines stress-free scheduling, SMS notifications, and online payments in one easy-to-use tool. With YCBM, all text messages are triggered through the booking page, allowing you to automate SMS messages based on actions such as booking, rescheduling, and cancellations. Users can schedule personalized confirmations, reminders, and follow-up text messages to inform clients about sales, significant changes, or market other services.
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Pricing: Pay-as-you-go, with texts starting at $0.07*
*You can send SMS messages from YCBM’s free scheduling plan or upgrade to the paid version for advanced features.
YouCanBook.me has a clean interface, allows SMS notifications, works great for teams and is a highly effective sales and communication tool – we absolutely love it.
- Deepak Shukla, Founder of Pearl Lemon Leads
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🧰 Need help crafting your ideal reminder SMS? These appointment reminder text message templates will help you get started. |
With super customizable booking pages and forms, YouCanBookMe users have the ability to add a phone number field to their booking form. This means that you can easily get permission from your clients to send SMS notifications and reduce no-shows.
Check out how Greg Schwartz Schwartz, an AI and prompt engineering consultant has included SMS into his booking process.
Appointment reminders are phenomenal. Before I turned them on, I had almost 20% of appointments canceled. After turning them on, that went down to less than 1%.
- Greg Schwartz, a self-employed AI and prompt engineering consultant
Another great business texting service is Capacity. Their AI-powered SMS software will help your business build stronger client relationships and drive more sales as a result. Their business texting service gives your customers the ability to:
Beyond text messaging, Capacity's suite of tools also empowers businesses to AI-power phone calls and SMS campaigns as well, which in turn will help your business:
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Pricing: No public pricing
Considering that Capacity is more than just an business texting service, they offer multiple pricing tiers based on your use case. To get accurate and personalized pricing for your needs, you'll need to reach out or book a demo.
Twilio is a cloud communication platform that uses APIs to reach your customers effectively. It’s highly customizable, allowing you to select from various features, including SMS messaging, call redirection, and marketing analytics tools. Although it offers some out-of-the-box features, Twilio is best suited for developers, as you’ll need technical expertise to get the most out of the tool.
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Pricing: Twilio's pricing structure is based your location, the type of message you're sending, and which carrier the SMS is being sent.
For example, here's a breakdown of SMS and MMS pricing if you're located in the United States:
SimpleTexting is an all-in-one SMS and MMS marketing tool that lets you launch sms campaigns without needing a developer. Users can send bulk text messages to subscribers to promote their latest deals or set up automated reminders. Additionally, features like two-way conversations simplify follow-ups. Since SimpleTexting is cloud-based, campaigns can be accessed from multiple devices using an integrated dashboard.
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Pricing: Starting at $29/month for 500 SMS credits and $10/month for a local number (toll-free numbers are free). You can see the full breakdown of pricing on their website based on your needs:
Emitrr is an SMS and customer communication software that provides essential texting features, including two-way texting, mass/bulk texting, MMS messaging, and recurring texts.
The platform uses an affordable volume-based pricing model and integrates smoothly with over 500 third-party CRM, EHR, and PMS tools. Emitrr is also TCPA and HIPAA-compliant, ensuring robust security measures.
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Pricing: Starts at $149/month.
Textmagic is a business text messaging service that lets you quickly send notifications, alerts, reminders, and marketing text messages. It simplifies workflow management with SMS autoresponders, AI-powered responses, and pre-built analytics. Textmagic features two-way communication, offers full access to its SMS API, and integrates with 1,000+ apps via Zapier for no-code automations. Additionally, its pay-as-you-go model keeps it cost-effective, especially for small businesses.
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Pricing: Pay-as-you-go, with texts starting at $0.049/message and numbers at $10/month (note: UK numbers start at $4.10/month). Volume discounts available with monthly plans.
Have a look at the full pricing breakdown from Textmagic:
Salesmsg is a cloud-based SMS service that lets you send, receive, and manage text conversations via web or iOS and Android apps. It provides extensive integration options for efficient messaging and calls from a single number, making it helpful for real-time lead generation and boosting speed to lead. Additionally, Salesmsg facilitates collaboration by allowing team members to share texting features and offers analytical tools to track campaign progress.
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Pricing: Starts at $25/month for 500 messages. If you go above that within a month, it will cost you 4¢ per additional credit.
OpenPhone is a VoIP business phone system that combines calls, texts, voicemails, and contacts in one app. The platform supports SMS and MMS messaging, allowing for exchanging text, images, videos, and other multimedia content. With features like call routing, auto-attendants, and team collaboration tools, OpenPhone streamlines communication workflows for teams of all sizes.
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Pricing: Starting at $19/month, with additional messaging and carrier fees when billed monthly.
EZTexting is a text marketing solution catering to companies in the US and Canada that want to set up SMS communication quickly, including mass messaging capabilities. All EZTexting plans include unlimited incoming messages, phone and chat support, image editing tools, and growth tools but differ in terms of users, keywords, and numbers allowed. The platform stands out for its clear instructions, extensive help resources, user-friendly dashboard, and straightforward setup.
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Pricing: Starting at $25/month with 500 texts per month. This also includes the cost of a local textable number.
Textedly provides comprehensive business texting service and seamless integration with popular tools like Slack and Mailchimp. Plans include free incoming messages, mass group texting, toll-free numbers, and two-way SMS, with varying message limits and custom keywords. The platform supports omnichannel communication, is favored for bulk messaging, and has a clean interface with user-friendly analytics.
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Pricing: Textedly offers a free plan with 50 text messages included per month. Their paid tiers start at $26/month with 500 text messages when billed monthly.
To set up text messaging for your business, you’ll first need to choose an SMS app. Consider factors such as pricing, features, and integrations to select the best fit your needs. Next, you’ll need to create an account and provide a payment method. Once you go through a quick setup, you’ll either have to input your own contacts list or start collecting phone numbers from your customers via the SMS tool you chose. Once your recipients are all set, you can start drafting and scheduling your texts.
Unfortunately, no apps on the market will allow you to send mass texts for free. However, many SMS service providers (including the ones listed above) offer affordable pricing plans based on the number of messages you send, making them cost-effective options for businesses of all sizes.
With YouCanBookMe’s SMS app, you can send text messages without using your personal phone number or purchasing a new one. YouCanBookMe will send your SMS messages for you through a region-specific number based on the recipient’s location. All replies will go directly to your email inbox.