8 Best Text/SMS Automation Platforms for Business Use [2023]

Text and SMS automation has become an invaluable tool for businesses to engage customers, drive growth, and scale operations. Instead of manually sending text messages one by one, automation platforms enable you to set up triggers and workflows to send targeted, personalized messages automatically.

In this comprehensive guide, we will compare the top 8 text and SMS automation platforms available today and help you determine the right solution for your business needs.

What is a Text/SMS Automation Platform?

A text or SMS automation platform allows you to pre-define messages and triggers to automatically send text messages to customers and prospects. Once configured, the platform handles sending messages at the right times without any additional work on your end.

Text automation is commonly used for:

  • Appointment reminders and confirmations
  • Alerts and notifications
  • Surveys and feedback requests
  • Abandoned cart/browse abandonment messages
  • Event announcements and reminders
  • Alert subscription and unsubscription confirmations
  • Status updates and reports
  • Personalized special offers or coupons
  • Customer service and support

Benefits of text automation include:

  • Increased efficiency – Automate tedious manual tasks
  • Improved customer engagement – Send timely, relevant messages
  • Higher conversions – Capture more sales with triggered offers
  • Expanded reach – Text broader subscriber lists
  • Lower costs – Reduce manual labor expenses
  • Valuable insights – Analytics to optimize campaigns

Now let’s dive into the top text and SMS automation platforms available today.

Omnisend

Omnisend is an automation-focused platform built for ecommerce brands. It enables you to set up comprehensive SMS workflows and campaigns.

Key Features

  • Drag-and-drop workflow builder
  • Pre-built automation templates
  • SMS and email integration
  • Global messaging to any country
  • Real-time order and customer data
  • SMS open & click analytics

Use Cases

Omnisend is a great choice for ecommerce stores wanting to boost conversions. Typical use cases include:

  • Abandoned cart recovery
  • Automated order updates
  • Customer win-back campaigns
  • Email subscription promotion
  • Birthday/loyalty promotions

Pricing

Omnisend has two main plans:

  • Standard – $16/month
  • Pro – $59/month

Pro supports higher volumes and additional features like predictive intelligence.

Pros

  • Specialized for ecommerce use cases
  • Powerful visual workflow builder
  • Tight integration with platforms like Shopify

Cons

  • More focused on ecommerce vs generalized use cases
  • Can get more expensive for high volumes

Overall, Omnisend is one of the top text automation platforms designed specifically for ecommerce stores. It makes it easy to set up beautiful customer journeys with SMS.

TextMagic

TextMagic offers robust automation tailored more for general business use cases. It provides both MMS and SMS messaging capabilities globally.

Key Features

  • Keyword auto-reply triggers
  • Two-way messaging
  • Contact management system
  • Schedule messages in advance
  • Send over 450 message types

Use Cases

Common ways businesses utilize TextMagic include:

  • Event & appointment reminders
  • Alert subscription confirmations
  • Customer surveys & polls
  • Lead nurturing campaigns
  • Alerting customers of new promotions
  • Shipping/order notifications
  • HR updates to internal teams

Pricing

TextMagic has volume-based pricing:

  • 500 Messages – $10/month
  • 5,000 Messages – $39/month

Overall fairly affordable, especially for lower volumes.

Pros

  • Easy-to-use
  • Excellent deliverability
  • Affordable pricing plans
  • Flexible API & integrations

Cons

  • Interface less intuitive than some alternatives
  • Features can be pretty broad vs specialized

TextMagic excels as an affordable and flexible SMS automation solution for general business purposes like notifications and alerts.

Textline

Textline differentiates itself by providing phone numbers with each region to facilitate two-way global conversations.

Key Features

  • Toll-free regional phone numbers
  • Visual workflow builder
  • Automation templates
  • Auto-reply bot triggers
  • Bulk messaging
  • SMS scheduling

Use Cases

Textline shines for use cases that require back-and-forth conversations, including:

  • Customer service bots
  • Event & appointment confirmation
  • HR updates to remote teams
  • Lead nurturing sequences
  • Quizzes, contests, and votes

Pricing

Textline has two main plans:

  • Limited – $59.97/month
  • Pro – $249.95/month

The Pro plan supports higher capacities for contacts, messages, keywords, and toll-free numbers.

Pros

  • Local phone numbers provide better deliverability
  • Conversational messaging capabilities
  • Generous amounts of included messages

Cons

  • 2-way texting requires some development work
  • Keyword triggers take more customization
  • Steeper learning curve than some platforms

With its two-way messaging numbers, Textline can enable some compelling conversational text automation.

SlickText

SlickText is another top-rated simple but powerful text automation solution used by leading brands.

Key Features

  • Drag-and-drop workflow builder
  • Bulk messaging
  • Autoresponders
  • Automated appointment reminders
  • Two-way messaging capabilities

Use Cases

Typical use cases where SlickText delivers value:

  • Customer service bots
  • Appointment reminders
  • Application lifecycle notifications
  • Lead nurturing campaigns
  • Alert subscription management

Pricing

SlickText keeps pricing simple with one plan:

  • $29/month includes 500 texts

Additional texts are a flat $0.03 per message above the included 500.

Pros

  • Simple and intuitive platform
  • Excellent deliverability
  • Very affordable pricing
  • API integrations

Cons

  • Lacks some advanced automations
  • Best suited for under 10k contacts

SlickText hits the sweet spot combining ease of use with the essential text automation capabilities most businesses need.

MessageMedia

MessageMedia provides enterprise-grade text automation catered for large businesses.

Key Features

  • Trigger-based automation rules
  • Two-way messaging
  • Media messaging (MMS)
  • CRM integrations
  • Conversational bots

Use Cases

Common MessageMedia uses:

  • Event reminders
  • Customer service bots
  • Content downloading
  • Appointment confirmations
  • Alert subscription management
  • Shipping delivery updates

Pricing

MessageMedia has two plans:

  • Basic – $49/month
  • Pro – $249/month

Pro supports much higher volumes along with additional professional services.

Pros

  • Scales to very large volumes
  • Flexible rules and automation triggers
  • Supports rich messaging (MMS)
  • Integrates APIs easily

Cons

  • Potential overkill for small businesses
  • Requires more technical expertise
  • Premium pricing at higher tiers

MessageMedia brings true enterprise-grade power and scale to automating text messaging.

JustCall

JustCall combines text automation capabilities with a cloud phone system.

Key Features

  • Drag-and-drop workflow builder
  • Two-way messaging
  • CRM, calendar, & voice integrations
  • Bulk messaging
  • SMS analytics dashboard

Use Cases

JustCall provides value for:

  • Multi-channel customer journeys
  • Customer service conversations
  • Bulk promotional blasts
  • Event & webinar reminders
  • Appointment confirmations

Pricing

Pricing starts at:

  • $19/month per user

Typical plans cost $35-$65/month depending on features. Volume discounts available.

Pros

  • Unified platform including voice
  • Strong third-party app integrations
  • Dashboards to optimize messaging

Cons

  • Steeper learning curve
  • Overkill if only needing text automation

JustCall brings the combined power of texting, calling, and CRM integrations together seamlessly.

Sender

Sender makes it easy to add text automation capabilities to your existing business system or software.

Key Features

  • Custom integration options
  • Drag-and-drop workflow builder
  • Text-enabled web forms & landing pages
  • Automated data triggers
  • Two-way conversational bots

Use Cases

Sender adds value for:

  • Transactional notifications
  • Appointment reminders
  • Alert subscription management
  • HR updates to remote teams
  • Quizzes and voting

Pricing

Sender has one straightforward plan:

  • $8.33/month includes 1,500 texts

Additional texts are a flat $0.005 per message.

Pros

  • Developer-friendly integrations
  • Affordable flat-rate pricing
  • Delivers globally
  • Easy-to-use workflows

Cons

  • Less out-of-box automations
  • Steeper learning curve for custom builds

If you have in-house development capabilities, Sender makes it easy to embed text automation anywhere.

DialMyCalls

DialMyCalls offers a proven SMS broadcasting solution trusted by over 40,000 organizations globally.

Key Features

  • One-time & recurring broadcasts
  • Trigger-based messaging
  • Contact lists and groups
  • Open/click reporting
  • Multi-user account options

Use Cases

Common examples where DialMyCalls provides value:

  • Event reminders
  • Store or office closure alerts
  • Emergency notifications
  • Appointment confirmations
  • Promotional broadcast blasts

Pricing

DialMyCalls has volume-based pricing:

  • $29/month includes 150 texts
  • $85/month includes 500 texts

Upgrades available for more contacts and texts.

Pros

  • Very simple interface
  • Scales to huge databases
  • Excellent long-term client reputation
  • Available two-way messaging

Cons

  • Broadcast-focused platform
  • Limited automation features

DialMyCalls can send an enormous number of SMS broadcasts reliably through an easy web interface.

Key Factors to Compare Text Automation Platforms

When evaluating text automation platforms, here are the most important factors to consider for your needs:

Features

Prioritize platforms that provide the specific types of automations, triggers, reports, contact management and other tools that best align to your anticipated use cases.

Integrations

If supporting certain apps or sending SMS updates based on actions in other systems, review which platform APIs and existing connectors enable the best integration options.

Deliverability

To maximize deliverability and response rates across all major mobile carriers, examine testing data and reviews on reliability.

Scalability

Understand expected future message volumes and subscriber growth to pick a solution capable of easily scaling up.

Pricing

Compare pricing models across shortcodes vs long codes and per-message costs of both transactional and promotional messages to accurately forecast total costs.

By carefully evaluating your text automation requirements against solution strengths in these areas, you can determine the optimal platform fit.

Conclusion

Text automation provides a powerful channel to engage customers in timely, relevant messaging at scale. Solutions like Omnisend, TextMagic, Textline, SlickText, MessageMedia, JustCall, Sender and DialMyCalls make it easy to configure triggers to send the right messages automatically 24/7.

From appointment reminders to order notifications to special offers and more, text automation delivers results. It enables more meaningful customer conversations, reduces costs of manual processes, and provides data to optimize messaging effectiveness over time.

Review your specific use cases and volumes to select the best-fit text automation platform today. The personalized, optimized nature of text interactions outperforms most other marketing channels. By automating mundane tasks, text automation let’s you focus on business growth while continuously engaging customers however they prefer to message.