How Much Does Ecommerce SMS Marketing Cost in 2024?

Are you wondering if you have the necessary budget to run SMS marketing campaigns for your e-commerce business? 

Managing marketing expenses is a big part of running a successful business. And this fact couldn’t be any more true for an e-commerce store. After all, to get more sales, you need to constantly remind your prospects about your business and its products. 

One of the ways to do that is by implementing e-commerce SMS marketing strategies to inform potential customers about the latest deals, exclusive offers, or any other information that could help you convert them into customers. 

However, a million-dollar question is, how much does it cost? 

The answer depends on several aspects. Having said that, let’s explore these factors and understand how much it exactly costs to run an e-commerce SMS marketing campaign.

Elements that affect the price of SMS marketing

When it comes to identifying SMS pricing for e-commerce, there are certain factors you have to consider. These factors affect the feasibility and capability of running an effective SMS marketing campaign, thereby influencing its cost. 

So, let’s take a look at these factors separately. 

Type of messages

In SMS marketing, as the name suggests, you are primarily sending text messages promoting your business’s offerings. However, if you want to send media-rich messages consisting of photos, GIFs, or videos, then you can use the MMS messages. 

Since MMSs are more interactive compared to SMS, they are much more expensive. So, sending bulk MMSs will cost you significantly more than sending SMS at scale. 

Location of your recipients

SMS pricing varies based on the country of your recipients. This is because each country has its telecommunication laws that you have to meet and protect its citizens from spam messages. 

For example, if you are using Zixflow to send a promotional SMS to the US it will cost you $0.012 per message. On the other hand, sending one to the UAE will be $0.086 per message. This is because of the stricter marketing laws of the United Arab Emirates.

Number of messages

Another important factor that influences the overall cost of your e-commerce SMS marketing is the volume of the messages. If you are sending hundreds or thousands of messages a month, you need to evaluate the entire marketing cost otherwise you might go over your budget unknowingly.

Provider fee

Lastly, in order to run the SMS marketing campaigns for your e-commerce business, you will need a marketing platform that will serve as a centralized hub for all your activities. 

In most cases, you will have to pay a charge for using these marketing tools. These solutions offer different kinds of payment options to best fit your needs. Some of the frequently offered payment plans are:

• Monthly or annual payment: In this model, you have to pay a fixed amount for using the platform on a monthly or annual basis. This option usually comes with a specific number of messages you can send and members you can add. 
• Pay-per-use: Here, you will be changed depending on the number of messages you send and the features you use. 

Keep in mind that not all SMS marketing solution providers offer the same pricing plans. So ensure you do due diligence about the pricing or how much it will cost for you to run SMS marketing initiatives using a certain platform before making a commitment. 

How much does SMS marketing for e-commerce cost?

After understanding the factors affecting the cost of SMS marketing, let’s see how much you need to budget to run effective SMS campaigns for reaching out to your prospects and driving sales. 

Pay-as-you-go

Pay-as-you-go or pay-per-use payment structure gives you more flexibility to use the capabilities offered by your SMS marketing platform according to your needs. 

As I said before, in this model, you only have to pay for the messages you send and the features you use. This means you can customize your marketing based on your budget and craft a tailored sales engagement model for boosting your bottom line. 

In the last few years, modern platforms have started offering a pay-as-you-go pricing model, allowing you to make the most of the platform to hit your goals. And one such solution is Zixflow. 

Zixflow is an advanced communication and sales platform built to streamline your marketing efforts across multiple channels, including SMS, WhatsApp, and email.

For this article, I'll only talk about its SMS functionalities. It lets you send different kinds of SMS, such as promotional, transactional, and OTP messages. Also, it provides you with complete information about the costs of sending international SMSs, enabling you to calculate the expenses beforehand and plan accordingly.

For example, you want to target contacts in Brazil. According to the pricing list, sending promotional messages to Brazil via Zixflow costs USD 0.014 per message. Now if you want to send 1000 SMSs it will cost you $14 (0.014 x 1000). 

Furthermore, Zixflow lets you craft customized SMS marketing campaigns using its built-in Campaign Builder to ensure maximum sales engagement. By using the campaign settings, you can choose to send your messages at a later time or send them as flash messages for quick interactions.

Not just that. With Zixflow, you can add personalized smart links to your SMS messages. These links will act as CTAs to drive traffic to your e-commerce store. You can also monitor the performance of each smart link to identify the best-performing ones.

Monthly subscription

Another payment model that most marketing platforms offer is a flat monthly (or annual) subscription. This payment structure allows you to use the platform to send a fixed volume of text messages. 

An issue with this kind of subscription model is that it is too rigid. You are charged for all the features a platform has to offer even though you might not use them.  

Also, if you have a large marketing team, you will need to add them to the platform. This will increase your spending and further shoot up your marketing budget. So make sure you take care of all these aspects before you decide on an SMS marketing platform. 

Calculating ROI for your e-commerce SMS marketing

Apart from figuring out the cost of e-commerce SMS marketing, you also need to know how much revenue you are generating. It is a crucial aspect of running an effective e-commerce SMS marketing initiative. 

To calculate your SMS marketing ROI, you will need three things:

• Total revenue generated by the SMS campaigns - This total number of deals you closed by utilizing text messages. 
• Total SMS marketing costs - This is the total amount you spent running the SMS marketing campaign. 
• Net profit - Subtract the marketing costs from the total revenue to find out your net profit. 

Once you have your net profit numbers, to find out the ROI on your SMS marketing campaigns, use this formula:

ROI = (Total profit/Total SMS campaign expenses) * 100

For instance, if you spent $100 in total on your SMS campaigns and closed 50 deals worth $30 each, generating $1500 in revenue (50 x $30), your net profit would be:

Net profit = $1500 - $100 = $1400

Using that, you can calculate your ROI to be:

ROI = Net profit/Total marketing costs) * 100 = (1400/100) * 100 = 1400%

Enhance your e-commerce business with the correct pricing information about SMS marketing

All in all, SMS marketing can be a cost-effective way to promote your e-commerce store and get your products in front of your potential customers successfully. 

However, before you can dive into sending personalized text messages to boost your sales, you need to have a solid understanding of the costs involved in doing so. Leaving it up to guesswork will cause you more harm than good. 

Also, the marketing platform you choose to run the SMS marketing campaigns from plays a huge role in determining your expenses. So make sure you select the right one that best matches your needs and budget. 

Zixflow is one of the best marketing platforms that comes with a native sales CRM to help you save all your customers’ data into a single solution and access it readily. On top of that, it is a robust marketing solution that is powered by APIs to customize and automate your messaging the way you want. 

And the best thing about Zixflow is that it is free to sign up and get started with the platform! Simply sign up for an account, import your contacts, and start sending SMSs to boost your e-commerce sales to new heights.