“Cheapest” on SMS is a trap set with headline prices. The $25/mo sticker becomes $30 the moment a mandatory telecom fee lands, overage rates quietly stack, and the tool you picked to save money locks your subscribers behind an export you never tested. We ranked by real total cost after the upsell — fees, overage, minimums, all of it — and by whether you can walk away with your list and consent records intact. Postscript wins because its free starter charges pay-per-message ($0.015/SMS), so at low volume you pay only for what you send. Sakari wins once you're sending thousands. EZ Texting is the bait-and-switch to avoid.
A cheapest ranking has to price the whole bill, not the sticker: real total cost after overage and fees carries the most weight, followed by a genuine free or no-minimum entry, then hidden-fee transparency — telecom, carrier and seat add-ons are where the quoted price stops being the real one. We hold portability in the mix on principle: a cheap tool you outgrow shouldn't trap your subscribers or consent records when you leave. See the full rubric →
The genuinely cheapest way in: a free starter that bills pay-per-message, so with no platform floor you pay only for what you send. Cost scales with your sends, not a seat count, and subscribers plus consent records export cleanly. The one caveat — it's built for ecommerce, so a non-store use case leaves features on the table.
Once you're past a few thousand messages, Sakari's flat $25 Starter — 12,500 segments, roughly $0.0304 each in the US, with 90-day rollover — is the lowest real cost on the board. Rollover softens the waste that kills cheap credit plans.
Pure pay-as-you-go with no monthly minimum, so for irregular or very low volume nobody's cheaper. But 4.9¢ a segment is pricey at scale and two-way texting needs a $10/mo toll-free number — budget that before you call it the bargain.
Honest pricing and three seats included, but the entry tier is mid-market: $39 for 500 credits works out dearer per message than Postscript or Sakari, and overage at $0.055 adds up. Fair, not cheapest.
Cheap only if you already run Klaviyo email — the SMS credits ride on the same bill. As a standalone SMS play it's not the value pick; the free plan's 150 credits are a trial, not a program.
The headline says $25; the invoice says $30 once the mandatory $5 telecom fee lands, and credit economics run expensive above the base allotment. This is exactly the sticker-versus-real gap a cheapest list exists to expose. Read the line items.
Never cheap and never meant to be: custom enterprise pricing, quarterly minimums around $2k–$3k, and a 6–12 month auto-renewing contract. On a cheapest list it's here only to mark the ceiling.
Postscript's free starter bills pay-per-message ($0.015/SMS) with no platform floor, so at low volume you pay only for what you send. Sakari's flat $25 plan (12,500 segments) wins once you're sending thousands a month.
Is a $25/mo SMS plan really $25?
Not with EZ Texting — a mandatory $5 telecom fee makes the $25 Launch plan $30 before any overage. Always add carrier, telecom and seat fees to the sticker before you compare.
Cheapest option for very low volume?
TextMagic's pay-as-you-go at $0.049/SMS has no monthly minimum, so for irregular sending it's the least you can spend — but budget the $10/mo toll-free number two-way texting requires.
Will I keep my subscribers if I leave a cheap tool?
Yes on all of these — they export phone numbers and consent timestamps. Export the consent records, not just the numbers; that timestamped opt-in is your TCPA proof if a carrier or regulator asks.