Compare SMS Gateway Prices: Finding the Right Option

The SMS gateway price is one of the most important factors affecting the ROI of your marketing.

If you find a low SMS gateway price, you can expect lucrative bulk SMS marketing. Of course, you need to consider the global reach of the gateway along with features like MMS and API. Here we want to present a price comparison for SMS gateways to help find the best SMS gateway for your business.

What Is an SMS Gateway?

Consider you want to send bulk text messages to lots of phone numbers. Of course, you can’t use your phone to manage all of these communications. So what to do? That’s where SMS gateways come in handy. 

An SMS gateway is actually a software service that allows you to send and receive SMS from your computer to mobile phones. You might ask how?

In fact, it’s a bridge between the Internet on your computer and mobile networks. When you send an SMS using an SMS gateway, the gateway converts your message into a format that can be interpreted on the mobile network.

It’s obvious that these services are commonly used by businesses because individuals don’t need mass messaging tools.

Here are the benefits of using SMS gateways in your business communications:

• Widespread Reach
• High Open Rates
• Real-Time Communication
• Cost-Effective
• Easy Integration
• Personalization
• Two-Way Communication
• Scalability
• Reliable Delivery
• Compliance and Security

Factors that Affect SMS Gateway Price

There are numerous gateways with various features and services. So you have countless options from free SMS gateways to expensive SMS providers. Here are the factors that affect the price of an SMS gateway:

Message Volume

Just like many other services/products, the volume of your purchase has a huge impact on the final price. 

SMS gateway providers often offer bulk discounts. The higher the messaging volume you get, the lower the price they’ll offer.

Destination

Another factor that can significantly increase the price of the SMS gateway is the distance.  The cost of an SMS gateway usually varies depending on the recipient’s location.

Of course, sending messages to domestic numbers is cheaper than sending them to international destinations. The reason is that each country has different carrier charges and regulations.

Delivery Speed and Priority

Sometimes, SMS gateways offer different pricing packages based on the speed and priority of message delivery. For example, if you need high-priority messages with immediate delivery, you need to accept higher costs than standard messages.

Additional Features

Some SMS gateways offer additional features like two-way messaging, MMS, delivery reports, and API integrations. These factors are usually included in the premium packages and can significantly impact the overall cost.

Dedicated Numbers

If you need a dedicated number for sending and receiving messages, you have to pay more. The price depends on the type of the number like shortcodes or long codes. If you want an outstanding number for your brand recognition, you need to buy more expensive options.

Compliance and Security

Regulations like GDPR or HIPAA are really important in SMS marketing campaigns. You need to make sure that the SMS gateway complies with these regulations.

Also, it’s good to know that extra features like encryption, two-factor authentication (2FA), and other security measures can add to the overall cost of an SMS gateway.

Comparing the Price of Top SMS Gateway Providers in 2024

To choose the most affordable SMS gateway for your business, it’s good to compare features and pricing of the top 5 SMS gateway in 2024.

#1 Bird: Low Price SMS & WhatsApp

Bird is one of the best SMS gateways and has affordable pricing. It’s a cloud-based marketing platform for SMS, email, and WhatsApp, and offers lots of features around the world. 

Here are the key features offered by this platform:

• SMS Marketing: It allows you to run bulk messaging campaigns at an affordable price.

• WhatsApp Marketing: Apart from SMS, you can reach out to your customers on WhatsApp.

• Segmentation: It gives you segmentation features so that you can send personalized SMS to your customers.

• Templates: Bird has useful templates that facilitate SMS marketing and save you time.

It has various pricing packages based on the number of contacts with monthly payments. On its website, you can easily estimate the cost of your campaign by entering the number of SMSs, contacts you want to send text from, and the channel (shortcode numbers, 10-digit numbers, WhatsApp).

Overall, you have to pay around 0.3 to 0.4 cents per SMS plus a monthly cost of around $45. For example, if you want to send 500 text messages, it gets $1.655 and you have to pay around $48 per month.

#2 Notifyre: Affordable SMS & Fax

One of the cheapest SMS gateways on our list is Notifyre. It offers reliable SMS messaging services for businesses of all sizes using an easy-to-use interface. Here are some other features of Notifyre:

• Customizable sender IDs: It allows you to use your brand name or a specific number. This way, your message’s credibility will increase.

• Bulk messaging: You can choose multiple recipients simultaneously for efficient communication.  

• Scheduled messaging: You can find the time to send text messages and schedule your SMS to be sent later.

• Two-Way Messaging: Apart from sending SMS, you can receive your customers’ text messages using Notifyre.

• Supporting Fax: Apart from SMS, you can send faxes to your customers.

It offers both pay-as-you-go and pre-pay methods and charges you 2 cents per SMS, which is an affordable option. For each additional feature like 2FA, Account Notifications, Security Alerts, and Polling and voting, you have to pay $11.4 per month.

#3 ClickSend: Affordable Rich Messaging

ClickSend is a famous brand in the realm of communication. It gives you so many options apart from an SMS gateway. This way, you don’t need to go to other platforms to use other channels, like Facebook, WhatsApp, fax, etc.

Here are some features offered by ClickSend:

• Business SMS: Send and receive business SMS messages at an affordable price.

• Business MMS: Add MMS to our messages to increase engagement rates.

• Rich Messaging: Use rich messaging channels like WhatsApp.

• Voice: Use text-to-speech voice calls to increase intimacy with your audience.

ClickSend offers various pricing packages for different countries. For inbound contacts, it offers free packages and the price range for SMS is between 0.8 to 2.5 cents. You need to pay more if you want to use shortcode numbers or send messages using other channels.

#4 Twilio: Scalable Pricing for SMS Gateway

Twilio is a popular cloud communications platform and a famous SMS gateway. It offers a variety of services and provides businesses and developers with a flexible way to send and receive text messages.

Look at the key features of Twilio’s SMS gateway:

• Programmable API: Twilio offers a great API that allows you to integrate SMS messaging into your business applications.

• Global reach: It can send and receive SMS messages to and from numbers worldwide.

• Flexible messaging options: Twilio supports various SMS message types, including text, MMS, and two-factor authentication codes.

• Real-time notifications: It sends you instant notifications when messages are sent, delivered, or failed.

It has flexible pricing for its SMS gateway and a great volume discount for bulk messages.

#5 Plivo: Professional SMS Gateway

Plivo is the last platform on our list of affordable SMS gateways. It offers you a straightforward and efficient way to communicate with your customers via text messages. 

Here are the key features of Plivo:

• User-friendly interface: Plivo has a great web-based interface that makes it easy to send and manage SMS messages.

• Bulk messaging: You can send messages to multiple recipients at once, saving time and effort.

• Scheduled messaging: Set up messages to be sent at a later time.

• Two-way messaging: Allow customers to reply to your messages directly.

• Contact management: Store and organize contact information for easy reference.

You can now compare SMS gateway prices in the following table.

Conclusion: The Best Gateway Price for Your Business

Numerous SMS gateways in the world offer a wide range of features. Apart from the prices of SMS gateways, you need to look at their features and limitations to be able to choose one for your business. Look at your business and your requirements and then consider the SMS gateway prices we suggested. Also, if you want to integrate your SMS marketing campaign into your website, you can use the WP SMS plugin along with one of these gateways.

This way, you can manage your SMS marketing campaigns directly from your WordPress dashboard. It supports over 300 SMS gateways including Twilio and Plivo and offers lots of features like segmentation, scheduling, and two-way messaging.

FAQs