Text Marketing FAQs

EZ Texting is a web-based text message marketing platform that lets businesses send SMS and MMS campaigns to their contacts from any browser with no software to install and no technical setup. More than 230,000 businesses have used it to reach their audiences. You can import or collect contacts, sort them into lists, schedule campaigns, capture sign-ups through Keywords and web forms, and handle replies from a shared inbox. Explore the full range of EZ Texting features, or take a 5-minute video tour to see the platform in action.

A web browser and an internet connection. EZ Texting is fully web-based, so there is nothing to download or install — it runs on Mac, PC, or a phone. You will create an account, verify your phone number, register your sending number for A2P 10DLC, and then upload or start collecting contacts.

Most accounts send their first message within five minutes of registering. Signing up takes no credit card and includes a 14-day free trial with full feature access. The one step that can take longer is A2P 10DLC number registration, which carriers must approve — EZ Texting reports most approvals return within 24 hours, where some providers take up to three weeks.

Yes. EZ Texting offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card required. The trial includes unlimited contacts and access to the full feature set, so you can import a list, set up a Keyword, and send real campaigns before deciding on a plan.

Start your 14-day free trial

You can upload contacts from an Excel or CSV file, add them individually, or collect them automatically through a Keyword or a web sign-up form. Only upload numbers that have given you permission to text them. Uploaded lists without documented consent are the single most common source of compliance and deliverability trouble.

Yes. EZ Texting provides an HTML sign-up form you can embed on your website, landing pages, email templates, or social profiles. Web forms and Keywords are the two best ways to grow a list, because both create the documented opt-in record that carriers and the TCPA require.

Yes — group texting is what EZ Texting is built for. Import your contacts, sort them into lists or segments, then send a single message to the whole group. Each person receives an individual one-to-one text, so replies come back privately to your inbox instead of to everyone on the list.

No. EZ Texting determines carrier information automatically when a number is added.

EZ Texting plans start at $25 per month for Launch, $75 for Boost, and $125 for Scale, with Enterprise at $3,000 per month; annual billing reduces each. Per-message overage rates fall as plans grow, from $0.04 down to $0.01 per credit. Incoming messages are free on every plan. See the pricing page for current credit allowances.

A credit is EZ Texting's unit of sending: one SMS message sent to each contact costs 1 credit and one MMS costs 3.

Purchased credits expire 12 months after the purchase date. Credits included with a monthly plan reset at the end of each billing period, and monthly plans let unused credits roll over for one additional month.

1. Click Credits in the bottom-left corner to open the Account page.
2. Click Buy Anytime Credits in the Credits section.
3. Select a suggested amount or enter a custom number of credits.
4. Click Next: Payment Info and follow the instructions to finish

No. Receiving messages — replies, Keyword sign-ups, and inbound MMS — is free on every plan. You are only charged for what you send.

Yes. A credit is consumed the moment EZ Texting hands your message to the carrier gateway, and carriers do not refund messages they cannot deliver. The practical fix is list hygiene: remove invalid, landline, and long-inactive numbers so you are not paying to text numbers that can never receive.

SMS stands for Short Message Service — the standard for sending short text messages between mobile numbers. "SMS," "text message," "text," and "TXT" all describe the same thing. An SMS carries plain text only, up to 160 characters per message. Add an image or video and it becomes an MMS instead.

View SMS Glossary

One SMS message is 160 characters, including spaces, numbers, symbols, and punctuation. Longer messages still send — carriers split them into multiple segments and the recipient's phone reassembles them — but each segment is billed as a credit. Emoji and other Unicode characters reduce the limit to 70 characters per segment, so a single emoji can double the cost of a message.

Most texts arrive within seconds. If the recipient's phone is switched off or out of network coverage, carriers hold the message and keep retrying for up to 72 hours before abandoning it.

No provider can guarantee 100% delivery, because the final hop depends on the carrier, the recipient's device, and network conditions. Across EZ Texting's platform roughly 92% of messages are delivered. What moves you toward the top of that range is a registered A2P 10DLC number, documented opt-ins, and a list free of invalid numbers.

Almost certainly — every mobile phone sold in the U.S. in the past two decades supports SMS, and no app is required. Landlines and VoIP numbers are the exception: they generally cannot receive standard texts unless the provider has text-enabled them, which is why they show up as failures in campaign reports.

That depends on the mobile plan. Nearly all current U.S. plans include unlimited texting, but older and some pre-paid plans still bill per message. Because a small share of recipients may be charged, marketing messages should include the disclosure "Msg & data rates may apply."

A short code is a five- or six-digit number used to send and receive high-volume business texts — 858585, for example. Short codes deliver the highest throughput and best deliverability, but they cost the most and take weeks to provision, so most small and mid-sized businesses now use a registered 10DLC or toll-free number instead.

You can choose your sending number — a local 10DLC number, a toll-free number, or a dedicated short code. You cannot replace the number with a sender name: U.S. carriers deliver business texts from numbers, not alphanumeric sender IDs. Your business name appears if the recipient saves you as a contact, or automatically through RCS verified sender branding.

MMS stands for Multimedia Messaging Service — a text message that carries media rather than plain text alone. Where SMS is limited to 160 characters of text, MMS lets you send images, GIFs, short video, and audio alongside a longer body of copy. MMS costs 3 credits per message compared with 1 for SMS.

MMS supports common image, video, and audio formats. EZ Texting's limits are images up to 5 MB and video or audio up to 500 KB. Carriers compress media further in transit, so simple, high-contrast images with large text read far better on a phone screen than detailed graphics.

Yes. Inbound MMS arrives in your EZ Texting inbox as a reply or as a Keyword message, at no charge.

It depends on the job. MMS earns attention for coupons, menus, product shots, and event flyers, where the image is the message. Plain SMS is cheaper and better for reminders, alerts, and confirmations, where speed matters more than visuals. Across EZ Texting's platform about 21% of messages are MMS, so most businesses use it selectively rather than by default.

RCS (Rich Communication Services) is the modern upgrade to SMS and MMS. It supports up to 2,000 characters, tappable reply buttons, image carousels of up to 10 cards, read receipts, and a verified sender badge carrying your logo and brand color. Apple added RCS support in iOS 18, and messages fall back to SMS or MMS automatically when RCS is unavailable.

A2P 10DLC means "Application-to-Person" messaging sent from a 10-digit long code — in other words, business texting from a normal-looking phone number. Since September 2023, U.S. carriers require every business texting a +1 10DLC number to send through an approved A2P campaign. Registration is not optional: unregistered traffic gets blocked or heavily filtered.

Standard A2P 10DLC registration is free with EZ Texting, and most applications are approved within 24 hours — some providers take up to three weeks. High-Volume Vetted registration carries a one-time $90 fee, waived on the Scale plan. You will submit your business details, sample messages, and a description of how you collect opt-ins.

Brand registration verifies your business identity — legal name, EIN, address, and website. Campaign registration describes the messages you intend to send, including use case, sample copy, and opt-in method. Both must be approved before you can send, and your live messages need to match what you registered; content that drifts from the registered use case is a common cause of filtering.

Use a 10DLC local number for local presence and everyday business texting, a toll-free number for national reach and higher throughput without a short code's cost, and a dedicated short code for the highest volume and best deliverability. All three require registration or verification before you can send.

You need prior express written consent from each recipient before sending marketing texts, and you must keep a record of it. A valid opt-in identifies who is texting, describes what kind of messages they will receive, states that consent is not a condition of purchase, and notes that message and data rates may apply. Keywords and web sign-up forms capture all of this automatically. See EZ Texting's compliance guidance for detail.

Any recipient can reply STOP, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, or QUIT, and EZ Texting removes them from your list automatically. You must also honor an opt-out that arrives in plain language rather than a standard keyword. Include opt-out instructions in your marketing campaigns, and treat a rising opt-out rate as a content problem rather than a list problem.

Yes, when you have documented consent and honor opt-outs. Business texting in the U.S. is governed by the TCPA, CTIA guidelines, and individual carrier rules, with state laws adding requirements such as quiet hours. Because TCPA penalties are assessed per message, your consent records are your primary protection — which is why collecting opt-ins through Keywords and forms matters more than the size of your list. EZ Texting's guide to TCPA compliance covers the requirements.

This is general information, not legal advice. Consult counsel about your specific program.

A Keyword is a unique word or number — JOIN or SAVE20, for example — that people text to your short code or toll-free number to opt into your list. It turns any offline touchpoint into a sign-up mechanism: a window sign, a receipt, a package insert, a radio spot, or a stadium screen.

You claim a Keyword such as XYZ on a number like 858585 and advertise it as "Text XYZ to 858585." When someone texts it, they are added to the matching list and immediately receive the confirmation message you wrote — with no action needed on your end. That confirmation reply is also where you deliver the offer that earned the sign-up.

Yes, and they are underused: only about 56% of EZ Texting accounts have an active Keyword. A Keyword is the cheapest way to grow a list with clean, documented consent, because the subscriber sends the first message — which is exactly the opt-in record carriers and the TCPA want to see.

Yes. Enter a single mobile number instead of selecting a list. One-to-one texting behaves the same way as a campaign and lands in the same inbox, which makes it useful for follow-ups and support conversations.

Yes. Replies arrive in your EZ Texting inbox as long as they are sent within 12 hours of your message, and you can forward them to email or a mobile phone. Reply rates on mass texts are low by nature — under 2% across the platform — so treat every reply as a high-intent conversation worth answering individually.

The usual causes are a number that cannot receive SMS, such as a landline or VoIP line; a pre-paid balance too low to accept messages; a phone that is switched off or out of network; a mistyped number; or a contact who previously opted out. Carrier filtering is the other major cause — messages from unregistered numbers, or messages that look unsolicited, are blocked before they reach anyone.

Carriers filter business traffic that resembles spam. The most common triggers are sending from an unregistered number, message content that does not match your registered A2P campaign, public URL shorteners, all-caps or heavy punctuation, and a high opt-out rate. Completing your 10DLC registration, using a branded link, and keeping your list consented resolve most filtering issues.

Texts reach people where they already are. A text lands on the lock screen of a phone that is within arm's reach, needs no app to open, and does not compete with a crowded inbox or fight a spam filter. That makes SMS the stronger channel for anything time-sensitive — appointment reminders, alerts, order updates, and short-window offers — while email remains better for long-form content and newsletters. Most businesses run both.

Weekday mid-mornings and early afternoons perform best for most businesses, and Thursday is the single strongest send day across EZ Texting's platform. Just as important is when not to send: keep messages inside 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the recipient's local time zone, since federal rules set that window and several states are stricter.

When you create an EZ Texting account, we store your information on our secure database server. No one has access to your data (your personal information and your contacts). If you would like to share the data in your account with someone else, you may choose to provide them with your login information.

Our database server is co-located at a data center that is secured via multiple perimeter access systems and fire-proof heavy-duty doors. The data center is equipped with 24x7x365 live video surveillance and multiple level independent fire-suppression systems. The data center is staffed 24x7x365.

You do. EZ Texting never contacts the people on your lists and never uses your data for any other purpose without your consent. See the Privacy Policy for full details.

No. EZ Texting never sends advertisements to the contacts in your account.

Yes. Contact lists are held in strict confidence and are never shared, rented, or sold to third parties. Your list belongs to your account alone.

For identity verification. Confirming a working mobile number is how EZ Texting establishes that you are who you say you are, which keeps fraudulent accounts off the platform and protects deliverability for legitimate senders.