SMS has become a very popular marketing channel among Shopify brands.
This is because it’s an inexpensive yet effective way to reach and engage a large number of customers. SMS also has a higher open rate than emails and easily integrates with other marketing channels.
Because of these advantages, more and more Shopify stores are using SMS marketing. In this post, we’ll take a look at the 15 best Shopify SMS apps you can use to market your products effectively and build a loyal customer base.
Shopify SMS FAQ
What is SMS vs MMS?
SMS, or Short Message Service, is the most common type of text messaging. It’s one of the oldest and most widely used texting technologies. MMS, on the other hand, stands for Multimedia Messaging Service and allows you to send a message that has an image, audio, or video content attached to it.
SMS is made of only text (which can include URL links) whereas MMS can include other types of content. Also, SMS only allows for 160 characters, whereas MMS allows for 1600 characters, but the latter is more expensive.
Can Shopify send SMS?
Yes, Shopify can send SMS for order shipping. You can give your customers the option to enter their phone number instead of their email address at checkout to receive order confirmations and shipping updates by SMS.
Does Shopify charge for SMS?
Shopify will not charge you for sending SMS confirmations to your customers. However, standard message rates may still apply to your customers depending on their phone carrier.
The Best Shopify SMS Apps for Marketing and Conversion
Back in Stock SMS & Email Alerts
Back in Stock allows you to capture lost sales by notifying your customers when products are back in stock. Customers receive either an automated SMS notification or email whenever the products they are interested in are restocked, so you won’t lose sales when items are out of stock – this is a big and common problem in eCommerce.
With Back in Stock, you can completely customize the out-of-stock experience. From the signup form to the button, Back in Stock makes it easy to match your Shopify store’s theme and branding. On a sold-out product page, customers will see a popup form that asks them to opt-in for back in stock notifications once the item is restocked. Setting up notifications is easy and requires no coding. It’s also possible to set up notifications for flash sales and pre-orders.
Back in Stock has flexible pricing that ranges from $19/month to $79/month, and SMS communications cost $0.015 per message. You can get started with a free trial and choose later the plan that best fits your store size and budget.
PostScript
PostScript is an SMS marketing platform that lets you create, launch, and manage SMS marketing campaigns. After syncing your Shopify store data, you can set up automated and personalized text messages for welcome series, abandoned carts, shipping notifications, and win-backs. This effectively helps you increase revenue while reducing the time, effort, and money that typically goes into marketing.
Postscript is also designed to help you build a TCPA-compliant subscriber list. Customers give their permission to send them SMS communications, and they can opt-out anytime.
You can sign up for a 30-day free trial. Pricing ranges from $25/month to $500/month – you can calculate a custom price for the number of messages you want to send per month.
Klaviyo
This well-known email marketing platform has its own dedicated SMS marketing app that helps achieve similar results: increasing sales by increasing subscriber conversion, engagement, and retention.
With Klaviyo, you can automate many of your eCommerce communications and send targeted messages. Using both email and SMS marketing in tandem is likely to result in more sales than if you were to focus solely on one of them.
Note that Back in Stock integrates with Klaviyo, so you can use both apps to send Shopify SMS notifications to customers interested in restocked items.
Klaviyo is free for up to 50 SMS contacts and 250 email contacts. Pricing starts at $5/month for up to 150 SMS contacts. External charges may apply – check this page to estimate prices based on the number of contacts.
OmniSend
OmniSend is another Shopify SMS app that combines text and email marketing to increase sales. As you can imagine, OmniSend allows you to set up automated messages and segment your SMS list to send targeted messages.
You can also use a mix of SMS and MMS to recover lost abandoned carts and products as well as win back inactive customers.
As for pricing, OmniSend’s free trial only allows you to create email campaigns. To use both email and SMS marketing, you can start with the Standard Plan which costs $16 per month. The Pro plan unlocks all features at $99 per month, and there is also the option to request custom pricing to send unlimited emails.
SMS Marketing & Cart Recovery
It’s all in the name: SMS Marketing & Cart Recovery (developed by Shipway) lets you send SMS messages to convert cart abandoners into customers and notify them of new promotions, shipment, and more. Note that you can send your automated messages via Whatsapp as well.
Using this app is simple: you create a new notification, choose the target audience, choose a text template, edit the details, and define the trigger conditions. You can set up highly targeted messages with follow-ups to increase conversions.
Users of this app have praised its simplicity and the responsive support team. The pricing works differently from other apps: instead of a monthly subscription, you pay a small fee for each SMS or Whatsapp message you send. For example, it costs $0.015 to send an SMS to a subscriber in the US.
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SMSGo
Another solid choice for automating text marketing to make more sales without increasing your workload, SMSGo is designed mainly for:
- Cart recovery
- Upsells
- Two-way SMS communication
This last feature is very useful as it allows customers to make specific requests and provide feedback. Having a one-on-one conversation is sure to boost their satisfaction and loyalty.
The Basic Plan of SMSGo lets you install and use it for free; you pay a few cents for the SMS sent and received. The Premium Plan costs $19 per month and unlocks features like the option to use a private number two-way SMS chats
Air SMS Marketing
Air SMS Marketing is used by many Shopify stores to automate SMS campaigns and essential messages such as abandoned carts, customer recovery, and shipping confirmations. Air SMS Marketing also has a simple UI, can be set up in minutes, and comes with an analytics feature. Moreover, using this app allows you to stay compliant with GDPR, TCPA, and the Anti Spam Act.
Customer reviews mention the effectiveness of this app at recovering lost revenue and the great customer service. Air SMS Marketing costs a minimum of $10 with a small amount for each SMS segment (up to 160 standard characters or 70 Unicode characters) which varies depending on the destination. For instance, the price for the United States and Canada is $0.0185.
Cartloop SMS Marketing
Cartloop provides the features you can expect from a Shopify SMS app: cart abandonment flows, SMS marketing campaigns, and list segmentation. It also allows for 1:1 chats, popups that help you build your SMS and email lists, analytics, and compliance with TCPA and GDPR.
Cartloop differentiates itself with 24/7 live support and the pricing model: you pay for results. After your 14-day free trial ends, you can use the free Essential plan and only pay 10% of the sales generated through Cartloop. You can upgrade to the Growth plan ($49/month + 7% of Cartloop revenue) that adds new features like abandonment insights and conversation insights, or the Pro plan ($299/month + 3.5% of Cartloop revenue) which adds dedicated 1:1 support and a dedicated success manager to help you make the most out of Cartloop.
Privy
Perhaps the most widely used app in this list, Privy is a great choice to get customers to turn website visitors into first-time and then repeat customers. Privy does this in three main ways:
- Website popups to build your email list
- Email marketing
- SMS marketing
The SMS marketing feature lets you send trigger-based messages, including welcome messages, abandoned carts, coupons, follow-ups, and more.
Privy is free for up to 100 mailable contacts. For Shopify SMS Marketing, you’ll have to pay $10/month for up to 100 text contacts and add $10/month per additional 100 text contacts.
ONE+
ONE+ bundles Shopify SMS marketing, email marketing, and pop-up spin wheels in one platform to help you increase conversions and repeat purchases. You can set up and automate common eCommerce tactics like abandoned cart recovery, upsells, discounts, and more. The SMS feature includes automation, broadcast, and compliance with TCPA and GDPR.
A big focus of One+ is social proof. Your store visitors will see pop-ups of recent sales which adds credibility to your products and creates a FOMO effect.
This app also introduces gamification in the form of a “Spin to Win” feature where subscribers can spin a wheel to win a prize such as a discount coupon, Buy One Get One, etc. You can use this spin wheel feature in your Shopify SMS marketing to drive more conversions.
The free plan lets you use ONE+ with a limit of up to 2,500 unique website visitors and 250 SMS starter credits. Paid plans range between $15/month and $79/month and give you up to 5,000 SMS starter credits.
The Best Shopify SMS Apps for Customer Service
AfterShip
This Shopify SMS app focuses on helping you provide a stellar post-purchase customer experience which translates into better customer loyalty and more sales.
With AfterShip, you can also monitor all order statuses and quickly find any shipment with filters like delivery status, courier, customer email address, etc. You can also send tracking links and delivery notifications to customers via SMS and email. There is also the option to customize tracking pages to be on-brand and drive traffic to your website.
Furthermore, AfterShip integrates with 800+ couriers as well as other Shopify SMS applications like OmniSend or Klaviyo.
AfterShip is free with a limit of 50 shipments per month. Depending on your needs, you can choose between three paid plans, priced respectively at $11/month, $35/month, and $119/month. Note that all three plans are discounted if you choose to pay once per year.
Marsello
Marsello is described as an all-in-one marketing platform for Shopify stores. In addition to marketing automation and email / SMS campaigns, Marsello also has a Loyalty Rewards feature that lets you create rewards customers can earn and redeem. These rewards can be triggered upon performing various actions like making a purchase, following your brand on social media, or referring your products to other people.
The SMS campaigns feature lets you send one-off promotional campaigns to customers who have given you permission to receive SMS marketing.
You can start using Marsello with a 30-day free trial. Pricing starts at $99 per month and goes up depending on your integration as well as how many sites and customers you have. Go to this page to calculate your pro subscription. Keep in mind that SMS credits have their own pricing plans – more on this here.
SMS Text Messaging and Marketing
Developed by Lazer Technologies, SMS Text Messaging and Marketing allows Shopify stores to receive and send SMS and MMS text messages.
Like other apps in this list, you can build your TCPA-compliant SMS subscriber list from your Shopify data. Automation and segmentation are included as well, and MMS messages allow you to include more than just text; think images, and even audio or video content.
On top of SMS / MMS campaigns, you can have one-on-one conversations with your customers where you directly answer their questions and get their feedback. This is a great way to deliver a pleasant and satisfying customer experience that makes your Shopify store stand out from the competition.
The pricing for this app is quite simple: you pay 2 cents per text message sent in the US or Canada, 6 cents per text message sent to an international contact, and 5 cents per MMS message sent.
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The Best Shopify SMS Apps for Shipping and Delivery
Appointment Scheduling SMS+
As the name suggests, Appointment Scheduling SMS+ allows your customers to seamlessly book appointments online for events, parties, services, classes, or workshops. Features include:
- Using multiple calendars for different appointment types (service, product, location, etc.)
- Blocking out date/times
- Disallowing double booking
- Customizing your call to action, appointment confirmation, and reminder text messages
The SMS text messaging features allows you to market your products to customers who attended your appointments. Since they took the time to engage with your brand, they are much more likely to become loyal customers, and SMS marketing helps with that.
Appointment Scheduling SMS+ is free for one calendar. To use more calendars, you can pay up to $15 per month. Adding SMS broadcasts will cost $50 per month.
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Order SMS Verifier & Campaigns
This app was designed specifically for customers located in Pakistan. Shopify stores that sell in this country use this app to verify CoD (Cash on Delivery) orders via SMS, which is the most common payment method in Pakistan. Users say this app helps them decrease returns and the number of phone calls needed to verify orders.
Order SMS Verifier & Campaigns is easy to install and set up. You can choose from a variety of SMS dynamic templates and change them to match your branding. Whenever a Pakistani customer places an order, they receive an SMS with a confirmation URL on their mobile phone. They will also be notified whenever an order is marked paid, fulfilled, or canceled. You can also launch SMS campaigns with short URLs. So if you happen to sell to customers in Pakistan, this Shopify SMS platform is a must.
You can send up to 10 SMS per month for free while benefiting from all features and 24/7 support. The Developify plan is priced at $5 per month plus $0.01 / PKR 1.5 per 160 characters. Lastly, the full control plan raises the monthly subscription to $9 per month and adds unique features
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Conclusion
As we have seen in this list, there are many Shopify SMS apps you can use to improve the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. Everyone sends and receives text messages, so it makes sense to use that channel to promote your products, keep your customers informed on the latest order updates, and deliver excellent customer service that builds loyalty.
As we’ve seen, all apps serve different purposes and are better for different situations. You should choose a Shopify SMS app that best fits your circumstance. If you’re looking to convert interested customers on restocked items – Back in Stock, our email and SMS notification app is a great way to let your customers know when items they wanted to buy are back in stock. It’s easy to set up and helps you make sales you would have lost otherwise. Try Back in Stock for free today and see the results.
I'm Khalid, the author. I am a business and technology writer with a passion for helping businesses run better.