If you’re looking for a text message service in Canada that makes it easy to send marketing campaigns, you’ve come to the right place. Here’s how our platform works.
Recently, the national statistics office, Statistics Canada, decided to start texting questions to confront the falloff in its response rates.
Their reason was simple: people avoided picking up phone calls and didn’t respond to emails.
They aren’t alone in their pivot towards SMS. Organizations of all stripes and sizes are turning to business texting services to communicate with their audiences and take advantage of the 98% open rates of SMS.
It’s not just businesses that are benefiting from this shift. A full 75% of Canadians said they would consent to receive communications (“opt in”) from a brand they trust.
If you’re looking to get in on the action, we have good news for you. In this article, we explain how our SMS marketing service service works.
Yes, SMS marketing is legal in Canada.
If you have a list of phone numbers, you will need to be aware of compliance requirements. That’s because Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) requires anyone sending text messages within Canada to:
We always advise our customers to consult with their legal counsel to understand the details of compliance legislation and how it may affect your texting campaigns. We also encourage you to review our compliance guide for more general information about compliance.
It’s incredibly easy to start text marketing in Canada with SimpleTexting. You can get up and running in just four steps.
At any point in your free two-week trial, you can head over to the billing page and upgrade to a paid plan. This will give you full access to our suite of SMS marketing tools and texting capabilities.
Note: You’ll need to register for a Canadian 10DLC number to send texts to Canadian numbers. After upgrading your SimpleTexting account, you can let our customer support team know that you’d like a Canadian number. If you want to send messages to both U.S. and Canadian numbers, you’ll need to register for a toll-free number.
If you already have a list of contacts who you have express content to text, you can import them directly to our platform by following these instructions.
Even if you have no experience with text marketing, it’s easy to collect numbers. Here are three tried-and-tested methods you can use.
An SMS keyword is a word or phrase that your customers can text to your phone number to receive future messages. Also known as text-to-join, you can set it up so that you also collect email addresses.
You can also have your customers subscribe via a web form on your website. With SimpleTexting’s web form, you can capture phone numbers, first names, last names, and more. To add one to your website, all you have to do is copy and paste a small piece of code.
If you’re after 670% list growth, then our mobile signup widget is for you.
When someone clicks on it, their phone’s native messaging app opens with your phone number and keyword prefilled.
All they have to do is click send and they’re subscribed to your messages.
Once you’ve got everything set up and ready to go, it’s time to write your first promotion, update, event reminder—whatever you want, really—and then send or schedule it for later.
SMS marketing is a dynamic and impactful tool for Canadian businesses, offering distinct advantages in today’s digital landscape. Its directness, efficiency, and expansive reach make it an indispensable tool in the modern marketing mix. Here are five key benefits:
For Canadian businesses, SMS marketing represents a direct, efficient, and highly personal way to connect with customers, enhancing brand engagement and fostering long-term customer relationships.
Text message marketing is just one of the many ways that you can use bulk SMS.
Here’s a simple table that covers a small portion of all the different types of SMS campaigns businesses send daily.
| If you want to… | Send an SMS campaign with… |
| Gather more customer reviews | A link to your reviews page |
| Increase event attendance | An event reminder with time and location |
| Keep employees informed | An update with important or time-sensitive information |
| Start more conversations | An invitation to reply directly by text |
It’s worth calling out here that businesses can do more than send text blasts. You can use our SMS chat to have two-way conversations and:
If you want to see some real-world examples of the above use cases, we recommend you check out our success stories.
If you’re only starting to research text messaging services in Canada – and not ready to sign up for a free trial – then here are a few things to look for in a text messaging service. (Beyond the ability to send and receive text messages.)
The final consideration is the pricing structure of a Canadian texting service. The per-message price is a huge factor. It’s also worth understanding if credits roll over from one month to the next.
The cost for all of our pricing plans are the same for Canadian users, except that we have them listed in USD, so they will be charged differently in CAD.
The current fees for SMS and MMS sent to devices on Canadian wireless plans are listed below. The fees below are listed in CAD, but will be charged in U.S. dollars (based on a trailing-average CAD to USD exchange rate). All rates are subject to change.
| Carrier | SMS | MMS |
| Bell & Virgin Mobile | $0.0110 | $0.0410 |
| Rogers & Fido | $0.0090 | $0.0150 |
| Telus | $0.0060 | $0.0100 |
| Freedom Mobile/Wind | $0.0047 | $0.0093 |
| SaskTel | $0.0080 | $0.0080 |
| Eastlink | $0.0080 | $0.0100 |
| Videotron | $0.0070 | $0.0070 |
In early 2021, Canadian carriers applied surcharges on outgoing messages to Canadian phone numbers from toll-free numbers.
The current Canadian fees for SMS are below; MMS is passed through at twice this cost. Fees are charged in U.S. dollars (based on a trailing-average CAD to USD exchange rate).
All rates are subject to change.
| Carrier | CAD (Per Message) |
| Fido | $0.0075 |
| Bell | $0.011 |
| Rogers | $0.009 |
| Telus | $0.006 |
| Freedom | $0.006 |
| Videotron | $0.007 |
| SaskTel | $0.008 |
For Canadian users, dedicated short codes come with a $4500 app fee and $12k/year for leasing and hosting.
SimpleTexting supports many of Canada’s most widely used wireless carriers. Check out the full list.
If you have more questions, you can also request or watch a demo. Alternatively, you can text or call us at (866) 450-4185 or use the chat at the bottom of your screen.
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Drew Wilkinson is the Head of Marketing at SimpleTexting. Drew has more than a decade of experience managing successful integrated marketing programs to build brands, raise awareness, and generate demand.
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