SMS marketing FAQ
Pricing plans, TCPA compliance, carrier registration, onboarding, and the operational questions campaign managers and business owners actually ask on the first call. If yours isn't on the page, send us a note from the contact form.
Sign up with an email, import a CSV, and pick your send path. For the fastest start, buy a toll-free number. It sends once carrier verification is approved, which Twilio reviews in about three business days.
For any serious program, 10DLC registration is the recommended long-term path and runs in parallel. It's a one-time $75 TCR fee, handled during onboarding. Your first 100 SMS are free, no card required.
Toll-free is the quick-start: buy a number and submit carrier verification, which Twilio reviews in about three business days. Full throughput lands in 3 to 5 business days. It's the fastest path to first message.
10DLC is the long-term compliant route: a 10-digit local number that AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile have verified against your brand. Higher throughput ceilings, stronger deliverability, lower risk of carrier filtering. Recommended for any program sending at real volume. Both paths run in parallel during onboarding.
Yes. White-glove setup runs $299 to $799 one-time and covers 10DLC registration, brand vetting, list migration, number porting (where available), and first-send QA. Most accounts don't need it. Statewide races, multi-location operators, and agencies usually do.
Upload a CSV, map the columns (phone, first name, last name, tags, consent source), and hit import. Phone numbers get normalized automatically; duplicates are flagged before they write. You can tag on import by precinct, donor tier, location, or anything else that makes sense for your list.
Web form with an SMS opt-in checkbox, text-to-join keyword, QR code to a landing page, paper form at an event, or checkout prompt at point of sale. Every method needs clear disclosure of what the recipient is signing up for and visible opt-out instructions. CampaignCNX+ stores the consent source and timestamp on every contact.
Pay-as-you-go: $0.06/SMS, $0.15/MMS, no contract, credits never expire. Monthly plans: Basic $55/mo (1,000 SMS, ~$0.055 effective), Pro $225/mo (5,000 SMS, ~$0.045), Enterprise $695/mo (20,000 SMS, ~$0.035). Every new account gets 100 SMS free.
Under 1,000 SMS/month: stay on pay-as-you-go. Sending weekly: Basic pays for itself around 900 messages. Active campaign cycles or weekly retail sends: Pro. Statewide races, agencies, multi-location operators: Enterprise.
You keep sending. No hard caps, no mid-send shutoffs. Overage rate is the plan's own rate ($0.055 on Basic, $0.045 on Pro, $0.035 on Enterprise), not the pay-as-you-go rate. You'll see the overage cost on the review screen before every send.
Yes. Up, down, or to pay-as-you-go, no penalty, no sales call. Mid-cycle upgrades prorate.
Pay-as-you-go credits never expire. Monthly-plan included messages reset at the end of each cycle. The plans are sized so most accounts use them.
The unit we bill on. A standard SMS holds 160 characters per segment; 161 to 306 characters is 2 segments, 307 to 459 is 3. Emojis or special characters switch the message to Unicode encoding, which drops the per-segment limit to 70 characters. The composer shows live character and segment count before send.
Yes. Sign up and get 100 SMS on us, no card required. Enough for a real test send to a small list before you commit.
Yes, when you run it under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Requirements: prior express written consent before texting, a working opt-out (STOP reply), send windows between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. in the recipient's time zone, and clear sender identification.
Consent status is tracked on every contact. Opt-out keywords (STOP, UNSUBSCRIBE, QUIT, etc.) are honored immediately at the platform level. STOP language in your outbound messages is validated before the send goes out. You can't ship a non-compliant message. Quiet hours enforce time-zone-aware send windows automatically. Full audit trail per message. TCPA violations run $500 to $1,500 per message, so we default to strict.
Federal DNC registry lookup is available as an add-on ($0.015 per lookup, via DataZapp). Run it during import so you only pay for the numbers you verify. It's not automatic on every send. You opt in where it's worth the spend.
When a recipient replies STOP, UNSUBSCRIBE, QUIT, or similar keywords, they're marked opted-out instantly, get an automatic confirmation, and are filtered out of every future send across your account. No action required on your end.
If you're a 527 political organization (a candidate, party, PAC, or committee registered with the FEC or a state, local, or tribal election authority), yes. Since February 2026 the carriers require you to hold a Campaign Verify authorization before political text traffic is allowed on toll-free or short code; 10DLC has required it since 2021, and carriers can fine and block traffic sent without it. Campaign Verify is a non-partisan identity check matched against your FEC filing or your state's election authority. It runs about $95 per committee for the two-year election cycle, paid directly to Campaign Verify rather than to us, and the confirmation PIN is mailed to the contact on your public filing, so start it the day you decide to text, because it's the step that sets your timeline. It isn't something any vendor can do on your behalf. Once your token is issued we file the carrier registration and the verification for you. Non-political senders don't need it at all.
It's the recommended path for any program sending at real volume. Toll-free clears carrier verification fastest, but 10DLC gives you the throughput and deliverability that matter long-term. Both paths run in parallel during onboarding. You're not stuck waiting.
Throughput depends on your number type and carrier trust score: typically 1 to 75 messages per second on 10DLC, higher with a fully vetted brand. For high-volume pushes we can distribute sends across multiple numbers.
No account-level cap. Your ceiling is throughput (messages per second) and plan allotment, and there's no mid-send shutoff. Overage is billed at the plan rate and visible on the review screen before you hit send.
Yes. Schedule for any future date and time. Quiet-hours enforcement is always on, so messages only deliver inside the legal 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. window in each recipient's local time zone.
SMS is text-only, 160 characters per segment, $0.06 each on pay-as-you-go. MMS supports images and longer copy (up to 1,600 characters), $0.15 each on pay-as-you-go, dropping to $0.08 on Enterprise. Flyers, sale images, and rich layouts all count as MMS.
Yes. Two-way is an add-on ($12.49/mo) on pay-as-you-go, Basic, and Pro; included on Enterprise. Replies land in a unified inbox with full conversation history per contact.
Yes. Merge fields pull first name, last name, and any custom fields you've imported. The composer previews the output for a sample contact before send.
No. Numbers are provisioned inside the platform as part of 10DLC registration so we can guarantee the throughput, opt-out handling, and carrier compliance attached to them. Tell us the area code you want during setup.
Yes, available for developers integrating SMS into their own applications. Email us for API docs and credentials.
Pay-as-you-go and Basic include 1 seat, Pro includes 2, Enterprise includes 5. Extra seats are $25 per user per month, with bulk discounts above 5 extras.
CampaignCNX+ is the SMS piece. Alma is the website chatbot that answers visitor questions and qualifies leads. Beacon handles field operations: door-knocks, shift assignments, canvasser check-in. All three ship today and share one account and billing.
From the dashboard. No contracts, no cancellation call. Pay-as-you-go credits stay on the account and don't expire.
Still have questions
If the answer you're looking for isn't on this page, use the contact form. We respond from a real person within one business day, and urgent issues from active customers route through the dashboard for priority handling.
