SMS Costs Per Message. Stop Spending It on Blanket 10% Off.
Unico Commerce, FounderSMS Costs Per Message. Stop Spending It on Blanket 10% Off.
Email forgives volume. SMS does not. Every send costs hard money per segment, burns scarce attention on a personal channel, and draws from a consent base that took months to build and one blast to erode. A blanket 10% off to the whole list is the most expensive way to learn that difference.
SMS is a sniper channel priced like a cannon. Aim it at hesitation it can actually clear — and keep everything else in cheaper, quieter channels.
Why SMS abuse compounds
Money per send. Unlike email, SMS bills by message and segment count. Large-list blasts carry real variable cost before a single conversion — a cost that must be added to the discount cost when pricing the campaign. Few teams do; most report SMS revenue gross of send cost.
Attention is finite and personal. The inbox tolerates daily flows. The message thread does not. Each low-value blast trains ignore-or-opt-out, shrinking the reachable base for the high-value moments (back-in-stock for a viewed SKU, cart about to expire, genuinely stuck price hesitation) where SMS actually outperforms.
Consent is the inventory. SMS consent requires clear opt-in, and regulators and carriers treat the channel accordingly. Complaints and opt-outs from over-messaging don't just lose one campaign's audience — they permanently remove high-intent subscribers from your fastest channel. List hygiene here is asset protection, not deliverability trivia.
The SMS-worthy filter
Send SMS only when three conditions hold: the shopper showed strong intent (cart, repeat views, configurator use), the message is time-sensitive or action-specific (expiring hold, restock of the viewed item, checkout blocker fix), and email already failed or is too slow for the moment. Everything else — inspiration, brand stories, sitewide percentages — belongs in email or on-site.
Segment ruthlessly: engaged clickers and cart-hesitators first; never full-list blasts except true storewide events with proven SMS lift. Cap frequency per subscriber per week regardless of how many flows they qualify for — overlapping flows are how "targeted" becomes "five texts in three days."
Prefer non-price content where possible: shipping relief for fee-stuck carts, stock and fit answers for consideration-stuck shoppers, payment-plan framing for budget-stuck baskets. When price enters, keep it scoped and single-use — a personal link, not a broadcast code that leaks from screenshots.
Measure net of send cost and opt-outs
Judge every SMS flow on contribution per eligible subscriber minus send cost, with a holdout, tracked over 30 days including opt-out drag. Report opt-out rate and 30-day revenue per remaining subscriber by source flow — the blast that "drove revenue" while doubling opt-outs borrowed from every future flow to pay for itself.
The takeaway
SMS is your most expensive attention with your strictest consent. Spend it accordingly.
High intent plus time sensitivity plus email-insufficiency — or don't send. Cap frequency, prefer non-price, scope every code, and price each flow net of send cost and opt-outs.
SMS driving sends but shrinking the list? Connect your Shopify store and Unico will restrict SMS to high-intent time-sensitive hesitation — capped, scoped, and measured net of cost and opt-outs.
