Chances are you’re familiar with the saying, “If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.” The same applies to unlimited SMS marketing plans.
It’s the year 2007, and flip phones are everywhere. A friend texts you a mysterious, “Hey, how’s it going?” Your immediate reaction is not, “I wonder what he wants,” but, “That cost me ten cents!”
Now most Americans choose from one of the many unlimited texting plans offered by U.S. cellphone providers and don’t think twice about the cost of texting someone.
If you’re in the market for a text message marketing service, you probably want to apply the same carefree approach and send unlimited SMS messages for a flat fee.
The problem is that there is no such thing as a true unlimited mass text messaging service.
While that may seem unfair given that you can send messages from your mobile phone as often as you want, we’ll explain why it doesn’t work for text marketing.
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While we don’t offer unlimited SMS and MMS messages at a flat fee, we never place a cap on the number of messages you can send. Plus, there are a ton of elements of our service that are unlimited or free.
Here are the unlimited elements of our software:
Here’s what comes free with every SimpleTexting plan, regardless of its size:
Like the vast majority of industries, SMS marketing services benefit from economies of scale. (Economies of scale are cost savings that occur as a result of making more of a product.)
SMS aggregators charge SMS providers like SimpleTexting a price per message. We then combine our user-friendly platform and its range of features with these messages. As we purchase more messages, the cost per message decreases.
The good news is that we pass along these savings to you. That’s why our plans start at 0.055 ¢ per SMS and decrease to 0.020 ¢ per SMS–and even lower–as you send more texts.
The issue is that the math starts to look problematic for us if we sell you an unlimited plan for $229 and you turn around and send 30,500 texts. We’d run a loss, and no business can afford to do that and stick around.
The math also looks problematic for you if you buy a $229 a month plan and only end up sending 500 SMS. In this instance, you’ve overspent by $200, which adds up $2,400 over a year.
It’s why we offer tiered pricing plans based upon how many messages you plan to send: it ensures that you don’t overspend and that we can continue to offer reliable service, build new features, and produce useful content.
It also provides customers with flexibility–you can scale your usage up and down–and transparency–you know why your plan costs a certain amount.
We’ve already used one Economics 101 term, economies of scale, so let’s use another concept to understand why unlimited SMS marketing plans are problematic–incentives.
At SimpleTexting, our incentives align with yours. The more your business grows, the more texts you’ll send. It’s why we write industry guides, create how-to videos, and regularly update our Navigating SMS blog with useful tips and tricks. It’s why we focus on helping you drive ROI.
It’s also why we pride ourselves on our top-notch customer service and onboarding team.
If we only offered one or two unlimited plans, there would be less reason for us to ensure customers get the most value out of texting.
We’d only be comfortable with you reaching a certain point of usage and then hope that you stop growing.
You don’t want to work with a company that wants to put a ceiling on your growth.
Cellular carriers can create unlimited text plans for a flat fee for several reasons:
1. All kinds of terms and conditions that apply. Fair Usage Policies typically apply to unlimited plans and prevent use that is ‘excessive’ or that negatively affects other users.
2. Cellular carriers factor into their margins that some customers will send more texts and others a lot less. For example, Experian found that 18-24-year-olds send just shy of 2,000 texts per month. However, 45-54-year-olds send only 525 texts per month. Now imagine you have a small business owner that sends 400 texts per month and an enterprise that sends 100K. That’s a much more challenging accounting problem.
3. There are only so many texts a single person is likely ever to send in a given month. With SMS marketing, you can send hundreds of thousands of texts in just one campaign. Most mobile phones only allow you to text a maximum of 10 people at once.
As you can see, cellular plans and text marketing plans are not an apples to apples comparison.
Chances are you’re familiar with the saying, “If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.” The same applies to unlimited SMS marketing plans.
They don’t make any sense economically and create an environment where your service provider is rooting against your success. Who would want that?
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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