BULK SMS SERVICE - Which is the cheapest?

[DataRambler]

After MUCH searching the web, I've managed to source a UK based company who will allow you to use there system and send bulk SMS massages to databases at just 1p per SMS - which is very cheap (most on the web when you search start from 3p per SMS). So when you want to send 20,000 plus per week (like I do) it can make a diffenerce to your BULK SMS spend. Their system also allows you to send up to 200,000 messages per day, so thats good too.

However, quite a few marketing people who are active in this area with whom I've spoken to keep telling me that they can bulk SMS for less than 0.5p per SMS. One even told me he is send 100,000 per DAY through his system.


Does anyone on this forum know of anywhere who can souce a BULK SMS service this cheap?

 

[Databroker]

100,000 a day!?

within a few months - you will have gone through every opt-in SMS number available. Is this a debt related message you are looking to broadcast?

 

[DataRambler]

100,000 a day!?

within a few months - you will have gone through every opt-in SMS number available. Is this a debt related message you are looking to broadcast?

i'm not too sure what he's broadcasting to send 100k per day, i gathered he does multiple campaigns.

Do you know anywhere offering less than 1p per sms?

 

[DataRambler]

Try contacting E-goi.com... I think they can give u a competitive price

http://tel4u.co.uk/

This company seem to be one of the cheapest, however, I have not yet used them & they are a new company. My colleague is about to try them out and if the feedback is good I'll prob give them a go.

I was hoping for someone even cheaper, I have it on good authority that about 0.5p per SMS or less can be achieved - anyone out there?

 

[Textlocal]

In the UK the operators (O2, Vodafone etc.) all charge what is called an ‘Interconnect Fee’ which basically is a fee to send a message to their customers. This obviously is one of the ways they make money. In the UK this fee is roughly 2.5p however for large mobile marketing companies get some discount.

No matter who you are though and even if you send 50 million messages a month you won’t get below 2.2p at this current moment in time.

So if anyone is getting a price below this then the company offering this price will be using what is commonly referred to a ‘cheap economy routes’ which are routes that use International operators to send texts directly to the UK operators customers without paying the UK operator their Interconnect Fee. Obviously this is a game of ‘cat and mouse’ with the UK operators constantly shutting these routes down as best they can.

The disadvantages of using these routes will include either all or some of the following:

• Sender Name: You will most probably not be able to send messages from the name of your company. Generally all messages will arrive from a short code eg. ‘Message received from 12345’. Obviously from a marketing perspective this immediately looks like spam, will annoy a lot of people and not be as responsive as say ‘Message received from Coca Cola’.

• Delivery Receipts: These will often not be included. As such, not only will you not know how many people got your message but more importantly if you send out 500k texts how do you know the company actually sent them all and not just 10k say?

• Economy Route Cut Off: As mentioned above this ‘cat and mouse’ type of activity means that at any point the UK operator will see these messages and close down this route to their customers. As such, if you were sending out 500k messages and the route gets closed down after 10k your supplier may well be able to open up a new route (although this may take quite some time) but as they don’t know what was sent from the 500k file chances are they won’t resend the 500k for you. Making the whole activity very expensive for you.

• Time: In order to keep their costs down the texts themselves may well be batched up with all their other clients for the day and sent out in 1 big batch when the airtime for them is at its cheapest. This will often mean that your customer will get the text either late at night or in the very early hours of the morning.

• Ported Numbers: The supplier will often not include checking for Ported Numbers as part of its process. What this means is anyone that, for instance, originally took out a number with O2 but has since kept their number but ported across to Vodafone will never get your text as your supplier will be trying to deliver it via O2. Millions of people over the years have kept their number but ported it over to a differnet network.

All in all, what may seem like a good price is in actuality very risky, cheap and not very customer friendly and generally only used by ‘spamming’ type companies.

 

[Normansmith]

We create text message services for small business, to keep in touch with their customers, who opt in for VIP discounts, offers etc. This advertising costs them zero Restaurants and fast foods places, bars with live music etc love it ! So i agree that mass text messaging is spam, but targeted to your customers, this has the biggest response rate of any marketing system.