ROI of SMS campaigns — list size, opt-out rate, delivery rate, conversion, and carrier fees.
2–3 sends per week is the sweet spot for retention. 1/week is underutilized. 5+/week tanks opt-in rate and blows up TCPA complaints.
Account for carrier fees (T-Mobile charges for A2P), and keep TCPA consent records. Unsolicited SMS fines are $500–$1,500 per message in the US.
Urgency, exclusivity, and short links. Keep under 160 chars. Include brand name in first 10 chars. Emojis boost CTR 20% but watch render on Android.
Join 1,200+ readers. One email per week. Unsubscribe anytime.
Ecom: 15–30x. B2B: 5–10x. DTC beauty/apparel hit 25x+ during sales.
MMS runs 3–5x the cost. Worth it for product drops and new collections where visuals convert.
Healthy 3–6% of checkout visitors. Pop-up + coupon hits 8–15%.
SMS marketing has been the best-kept secret in DTC for the last four years, and it's still underbuilt at most brands I audit. Open rates sit in the 95%+ range because a text message has no "unread state" the way an email does. CTRs commonly hit 15–30%, an order of magnitude above email. Postscript, Attentive, and Klaviyo SMS each report $40–$71 in attributed revenue per dollar spent across their DTC customer base, which is 5–10x what email typically produces. The catch: per-message cost is roughly 25–100x email, and the regulatory risk (TCPA) can be existential.
This tool factors in the four costs that actually matter for SMS ROI: platform fee (flat or per-contact), carrier fee (~$0.007–0.015 per SMS in the US, higher for MMS), opt-out cost (lost list value), and list-acquisition cost (the landing page and incentive that brought the subscriber in). Most "SMS ROI" calculators on the internet only count platform fees and overstate ROI by 40%+.
| Avg SMS conversion rate (US DTC) | 5–12% | Campaign-level, not click-through |
| Avg CTR on SMS (US DTC) | 15–28% | 5–10x email benchmark |
| Avg AOV from SMS campaigns | $62–$185 | Often higher than email |
| Postscript / Attentive platform cost | $0.015–$0.04 per SMS | Platform + carrier combined |
| Klaviyo SMS platform cost | $0.01–$0.025 per SMS | Cheaper but newer program |
| Opt-out rate per campaign | 1–3% | 3%+ means over-messaging |
| Typical revenue per subscriber/year | $35–$95 | After all costs |
| SMS program attributed % of total rev | 8–18% at mature brands | After 18 months of list-building |
SMS ROI is dominated by your list-acquisition cost per subscriber. The typical on-site pop-up with a "10% off first order" offer converts at 4–9% of site visitors, with a per-subscriber acquisition cost of $3–12 depending on your AOV and the discount. If you're paying $12/sub and earning $35/sub/year in SMS revenue, your first-year payback is poor but year-2 and beyond are pure profit (minus platform cost).
I push clients to run "two-step" pop-ups: email first, then SMS on a follow-up screen with a stronger incentive. This typically captures 15–30% of email subscribers to SMS and keeps the SMS list opt-in quality high. Single-step email+SMS combo pop-ups produce a bigger SMS list but with much worse conversion rates.
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act imposes $500–$1,500 per-message statutory damages for unauthorized SMS. Class-action firms actively hunt DTC brands with sloppy opt-in practices. I've personally seen two brands settle for $1M+ over TCPA violations — in both cases, the root cause was pre-checked opt-in boxes or insufficient disclosure at sign-up.
Non-negotiable compliance items for every SMS program:
The five flows that should exist in every DTC SMS program:
Campaign SMS on top of flows: 4–8 per month is the productive window. Under 4, you're not extracting list value; over 8, opt-out rate climbs past 3% and the list decays faster than you can rebuild it.
MMS (with image) costs roughly 3–5x SMS on platforms like Postscript. The extra cost is usually worth it for: new product launches, visual-heavy categories (apparel, cosmetics, home decor), and BFCM campaigns. Skip MMS for: shipping notifications, low-involvement reorder categories, B2B. The CTR lift from MMS is typically 15–40% — enough to justify the cost for visual categories, rarely enough for utility messages.
SMS and email should never be independent. The highest-ROI cadence I've seen is: SMS for time-sensitive and high-intent moments (abandoned cart hour-1, flash sale first 6 hours, shipping), email for everything educational, evergreen, or informational. If a customer gets both a flash sale email AND a flash sale SMS, open rate on the email drops 15–25% and opt-outs on the SMS rise.
Use the Email ROI and this SMS tool together to see the full retention channel ROI.
SMS lists decay faster than email lists. Disconnected numbers, number reassignments (carriers recycle after 45 days of inactivity), and silent opt-outs (people ignoring messages) all reduce effective list size. A typical DTC SMS list decays at 25–40% per year before new acquisition. If you're not adding at least 3% new subscribers per month, the list is net shrinking, and so is revenue from it.
Use the List Decay calculator (same math applies) to model steady-state list size required for your growth target.
Clean beauty skincare, AOV $94, gross margin 71%. Runs Postscript Professional at $2,800/mo base. Sends 6 campaigns + 4 automated flows per month, averaging 70K SMS and 12K MMS per campaign. Monthly send cost: $2,800 platform + ($0.02 × 70K × 6 × 0.85 SMS) + ($0.06 × 12K × 6 × 0.15 MMS) = roughly $10,300 all-in. Monthly attributed revenue at 9% conversion rate × 6 campaigns × 70K sends × $94 AOV × 0.15 dedup factor = roughly $530,000, but holdout testing puts incremental at 62%, so $329K truly incremental. Net ROI $329K / $10,300 = 32x on incrementals, 51x reported. List acquisition via two-step pop-up costs $6.50/sub; at $95 revenue-per-sub-per-year, payback hits month 5.
Attentive Enterprise contract $5,500/mo flat + $0.022 carrier+platform per SMS, $0.078 per MMS. Sends 8 campaigns per month (70% MMS for product imagery). Monthly cost: $5,500 + (230K × 8 × 0.30 SMS × $0.022) + (230K × 8 × 0.70 MMS × $0.078) = roughly $120,000/mo. Gross attributed revenue $1.8M/mo; incremental at 68% = $1.22M. ROI on incrementals 10.2x, gross 15x. Opt-out rate climbed to 3.4% in month 9 because of over-sending at BFCM — they cut December cadence to 6/mo and it normalized back to 1.9%. Learning: list decay at 38% annual means they need 7,300 new subscribers per month just to maintain size.
Monthly auto-ship product. Klaviyo Email+SMS at $600/mo base (100K email contacts, up to 150K SMS credits/mo included, overages $0.012/SMS). Sends only 3 campaigns/month + 4 flows — low cadence by design because the customer buys monthly regardless. Monthly cost roughly $600 platform + $350 carrier overage = $950. Attributed revenue $82K/mo; incremental at 45% (because retention flow already catches most of this) = $37K. ROI on incrementals 39x. Key play: winback SMS at day 35 post-churn produces a 14% reactivation rate at $0.80 per message — best-performing single message in the entire stack.
| Postscript Starter | $100 per month + usage | Up to 20K contacts |
| Postscript Growth | $500 per month + usage | Up to 100K contacts |
| Postscript Professional | $2,500+ per month + usage | Custom enterprise quote |
| Attentive (mid-market DTC) | $3,000–$6,000 per month | 50K–150K subscriber range |
| Attentive Enterprise | $6,000–$25,000+ per month | Custom, volume-based |
| Klaviyo Email+SMS bundle | $60–$1,500 per month | Scales with contact + send volume |
| Community (influencer-first) | $500–$5,000 per month | Leader-to-fan messaging |
| US carrier SMS fee | $0.007–$0.015 per message | AT&T/T-Mobile/Verizon passthrough |
| US carrier MMS fee | $0.03–$0.075 per message | 3–5x SMS cost |
Scale signals: opt-out rate under 2%, incremental ROI above 20x, revenue-per-subscriber-per-year above $60, and list growing net 3%+ per month. When all four hit, add a 7th campaign per month and test a second automated flow (browse-recovery or replenishment). Hold signals: opt-out 2–3%, ROI 10–20x, revenue-per-sub $35–$60 — stay at current cadence, invest in list acquisition rather than send frequency. Pause signals: opt-out above 3% for two consecutive months, revenue-per-sub under $30, or a material TCPA letter from any law firm. A pause is cheaper than a settlement; during a pause, audit opt-in records and compliance copy before restarting. Always read SMS performance alongside your Email ROI and List Decay numbers — cutting email cadence sometimes revives SMS response by 15–25% through reduced channel fatigue.
Calculators, trackers, and planners for creators, business, and wellness.
Explore all 250+ tools →