In the world of ecommerce, email marketing has long been the preferred strategy for businesses. However, it's time to dispel the myth that SMS marketing is ineffective. SMS holds significant power in reaching and engaging your target audience directly through their mobile devices, boasting impressive open rates.
This level of visibility ensures that your marketing messages have a higher chance of being seen and acted upon by customers. SMS marketing also allows for personalized and targeted campaigns, enabling you to deliver highly relevant content that resonates with your audience.
With the cost-effective pricing for SMS messages and the 24/7 customer support that Omnisend offers, it's clear that SMS marketing is a valuable channel that should not be overlooked.
In Omnisend, the number of SMS messages you can send with the credits depends on the price of a single SMS in your recipients' countries. You can check the price for a single message here.
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Before you start
On the Free and Standard plans, you get $1 credit for SMS messages sending. Since the price for a single message in the US is $0.015, with a $1 credit, 66 texts can be sent to US/CA numbers.
On the Pro plan, you get FREE SMS credits equivalent to the price of your subscription. If you are paying $59 on the Pro plan, you get $59 on your monthly SMS messages budget.
On any plan, you can subscribe to receive SMS credits.
Each of the Brands connected to your Omnisend account has a separate budget for the SMS messages sent.
Adding SMS credits
There are a few ways to get SMS credits added to your account; they can be included in your plan (Pro plan), ordered as a subscription service (Free, Standard, Pro), or they can also be rolled over from the previous billing period.
You can find more information on the number of SMS messages sent in the overview window by clicking on your Profile menu or going to the Store Settings page. From here, you can click subscribe SMS credits.
In the Pricing plan page in Store Settings, you can see detailed information on the number of SMS credits in your account and the details about your subscription plan.
SMS credits for the Pro plan
All the customers on the Pro plan will get SMS credits equivalent to the monthly subscription plan payment. For example, upgrading to a $59 Pro plan, you get $59 SMS credits for the next 30 days;
These credits will be added automatically and can be used within the current billing period or rolled over to the next 30 days for monthly payments.
SMS credits subscription
SMS credits subscription is an additional service you may purchase within your current Free, Standard, or Pro plan.
The billing tiers for the SMS credits subscription include but are not limited to:
Monthly subscription: $10, $15, $20, $25, $30, $40, $50, $65, $80, $90, $100, $120, $140, and so on.
Once you have a subscription, you may also turn on the auto-upgrade for the SMS if the number of SMS credits falls below the specified minimum. To avoid overpaying, you may also add the ceiling tier for your monthly upgrade.
Before choosing the billing tier, check the price for a single SMS in your recipient countries to see how many credits are needed.
Let's imagine that you've enabled the Auto-upgrade with the floor and ceiling amount presented in the screenshot.
In that scenario, when you use more than $115 credits out of $120 available, your SMS credits subscription plan will upgrade to the next billing tier, you will get charged $200, and you will have $205 SMS credits on your budget.
Note that the auto-upgrade option will be available only if your remaining SMS credits are more than $1. If your current balance is less than $1, you'll receive a prompt indicating that you need to select a higher SMS tier.
For example, if you have $120, you must choose a higher tier, such as $140, to enable the auto-upgrade checkbox.
It is entirely up to you whether you want to turn on the auto-upgrade option. However, if you have automation workflows with SMS messages, you may want to secure yourself if you run out of credits before your billing cycle ends.
If you want to cancel your SMS credits subscription, you must click on the Cancel button on the Pricing page of your Store Settings.
Rolled over credits
If you do not use all of your credits in a month, those credits will roll over to the next 30 days. Please be aware that only the charge for the last billing period is rolled over.
For example, if you have $20 credits left from September, you will get them for your October budget, but the credits for September will expire before November.
Important to note:
SMS credits are NOT related to your Email credits. If you run out of Email credits, please do NOT purchase SMS credits - you can check this article for information about Email credits.
SMS credits are non-refundable.
SMS pricing for the US/CA recipients
Once you have a budget for the SMS messages sending, you can start using it to send texts to both US/CA and non-US/CA customers. The price for a single SMS is based on the recipient country, meaning that with $1, around 65 messages can be sent to the US/CA numbers.
Price estimation
If you need to send SMS messages to US/CA numbers, on the Price Estimation stage of the SMS campaign, you will see the price for all non-US/CA and US/CA customers calculated separately.
The final amount will include the cost of the SMS messages sent to non-US/CA customers to US and CA customers.
FAQ
Can I purchase more SMS credits on the Free plan? On the Free plan, you get 1$ worth of SMS for free, and you can purchase more if needed.
Will my SMS credits transfer to the next month? The free SMS credits you get with a monthly Pro plan and the ones you purchase with the SMS credits subscription plan have an expiration date of 60 days. If you don't use your credits in the first month, you will be able to use those the next month.
Is it possible to send MMS? You can send MMS messages to the United States and Canada; more info here.
Why did I pay x2, x3, x4... price for my campaign? The character limit for a single SMS message is 160 characters, so your campaign has likely been too long. The message can be shown as one long text on your phone. The reason is that most modern phones and networks support concatenation. So, it's still 2 or more SMS sent but merged into one by your phone and/or mobile provider.
Did you need help finding the answer to your question? Please contact our Support Team; it is available 24/7 and can be reached via In-app chat or email at [email protected].