Summary First

For the busy small business owner!

• Any text marketing requires a one-time, detailed licensing process.
• Constant Contact is a great way to dip your toes into text marketing, but if it proves successful, you may soon wish to upgrade to a platform with more features, such as image support and more refined reporting. More on these platforms below.
• Small businesses offering services may be better suited to Constant Contact’s text services than retail businesses.
• With a short 160-character limit, we recommend using a landing page for details, a clear call to action, and fine print.

SMS – Short Message Service – a standard text message sent between mobile phones.

MMS – Multimedia Messaging Service – supports multimedia attachments in your text, such as photos, videos, GIFs, and audio, and allows longer message content.

Cost Before the Details

One-Time

There are so many variables in the one-time setup process, including a landing page template, that quoting the account setup here is not possible. For a quote to set up your Constant Contact account for SMS marketing, please set up a call with John.

Monthly

Constant Contact’s pricing, starting at $40 per month, is based on list size and the number of texts sent per month.

Each Launch

Each individual SMS campaign includes:

• Communications regarding offer development, content, best practices, fine print, edits, and approvals
• Writing copy for the text and landing page
• Adding text and images to the landing page template
• Testing
• Launching

This is also a detailed process, but it becomes more efficient with repetition. As we learn your voice, preferences, and approval patterns, each campaign becomes easier to produce and more cost-effective. Initially, a rough estimate is 45 minutes to one hour per text. Our current hourly rate is $155.

Final Notes on Cost

We do not bill for a basic report delivered to your email a few days following each launch. More in-depth reporting is billed at our usual hourly rate.

It is possible to skip the landing page. Doing so saves setup costs and lowers the price of each campaign. You can link to any web page, but it is very difficult to use only 160 characters while also including the fine print needed – such as expiration dates, promo codes, and restrictions – to protect your business. Texts with a landing page perform better, generate higher-quality contacts, and require less in-store customer service.

Constant Contact

Constant Contact SMS marketing is best viewed as a lower-cost, lower-complexity entry point. The pros are affordability, convenience, easy integration with an existing Constant Contact account, and enough basic functionality to test simple campaigns.

The cons are fewer features, more basic reporting, no true MMS capability, and a registration process that can be frustrating if your business information is not perfectly aligned.

For many small businesses, that may be enough. Constant Contact can be a good first step to see whether bulk SMS campaigns are effective for your audience. But if texting proves to be viable and important, you may eventually need to switch to a more costly service with stronger reporting, MMS, automation, two-way conversation tools, and deeper sales or customer management features.

Constant Contact vs. Other Services

Constant Contact costs much less than many larger competitors, but it also does less. Platforms such as Podium, SimpleTexting, EZ Texting, Text Request, and Twilio generally offer stronger automation, richer integrations, advanced reporting, two-way messaging tools, and MMS support.

Podium is built more as a customer communication and lead conversion platform, combining texting with reviews, AI-assisted follow-up, inbox tools, and sales-oriented workflows. That can be valuable, but it usually comes with a much higher monthly cost.

Pros and Cons

Cost and Features Compared

The biggest advantage is cost. If you already use Constant Contact for email marketing, adding SMS can be an inexpensive way to test whether your audience responds to text campaigns. Some plans include a starter message allotment, and smaller add-on tiers are available for lighter usage. That makes it attractive for businesses still building an opt-in mobile list or sending occasional promotions.

The downside is the limited feature set. Constant Contact’s reporting covers useful basics such as sends, successful deliveries, bounces, unsubscribes, and URL clicks. However, it is not as detailed as platforms built for broader customer communication and sales tracking.

Podium and other larger systems may provide deeper dashboards, reply tracking, lead management, team inbox features, review generation tools, AI-assisted responses, and stronger integrations.

Another major limitation is multimedia messaging:

• Constant Contact SMS is text-only. It is designed for plain text messages and links, not native image, video, GIF, or audio attachments.
• SMS is short by design. A standard SMS message is limited to 160 characters per segment. Longer messages can be sent, but they are split into multiple billable segments.
• MMS is different from SMS. MMS supports multimedia attachments such as photos, videos, GIFs, and audio, and allows longer message content.
• This matters for marketing. If your campaigns depend on sending product photos, event graphics, coupons, before-and-after images, or branded visual promotions directly inside the message, Constant Contact may feel limited.
• The workaround is linking. You can still link to a web page, image, video, landing page, or offer, but that is not the same as sending media directly in the message.
• Competitors may offer more. Larger SMS platforms often include MMS support, richer creative options, and more advanced campaign tools, usually at a higher monthly cost.

One-Time Approval Process

A commitment of time and patience.

One part of SMS marketing that often surprises business owners is the approval process. Before sending campaigns, businesses must register so carriers can verify that the sender is legitimate and compliant.

That means gathering legal business details, your EIN or tax ID when applicable, official business name, physical address, website or business page, privacy policy, terms information, and proof that contacts are opting in. In practical terms, expect to gather records such as your business license and EIN documentation so your submission matches official records.

The approval process can take up to seven business days or longer in resubmission situations. Small discrepancies can cause rejection, including differences between your legal business name, address, EIN records, website information, or other registration details.

A minor mismatch can mean correcting the information and submitting it again. Expect a time commitment of at least a couple of hours, especially if you need to gather documents, verify legal information, update your privacy policy, or troubleshoot a rejection.

Thank You

We’ll guide you through! We’ve mastered all these details so you don’t have to.

We hope all this information has helped.

Contacting us puts you under no obligation – set up a chat with John, and we can see if we’re a good fit to help you with text marketing, either SMS with Constant Contact or MMS with another platform.