Quick answer: To send bulk SMS you need a consented contact list, a registered sending number, and a platform that delivers to carriers on your behalf. In the United States, carriers block every message until A2P 10DLC registration is approved, which costs $20 in one-time fees. Budget roughly two to four cents per message after that.
Learning to send bulk SMS is mostly a sequencing problem, because the step that stops people is not writing the message, it is the registration gate that sits in front of the first send. Americans exchanged nearly 2.2 trillion SMS and MMS messages during 2024, according to CTIA’s 2025 Annual Survey, so the channel is crowded and carriers police it accordingly. Salesforce’s Tenth Edition State of Marketing, published February 2026 from a survey of nearly 4,500 marketers, found that 84 percent admit to running generic campaigns and only just over half can reliably reply to email and SMS. This guide covers what it costs, the five steps, the registration gate, and the compliance rules.
What It Costs to Send Bulk SMS
Most guides skip this. The table below uses SendHub’s published plan pricing as of September 2026. The effective cost per message is calculated by dividing the monthly price by the included message volume, and the recipient cap matters as much as the price, because it limits how many people one send can reach.
| Plan | Monthly | Messages included | Effective cost per message | Max recipients per send |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lite | $19 | 500 | $0.038 | 50 |
| Lite+ | $37 | 1,000 | $0.037 | 100 |
| Starter | $52 | 2,000 | $0.026 | 150 |
| Basic | $100 | 4,000 | $0.025 | 150 |
| Custom | Quoted | Custom | Quoted | Custom |
Paying annually lowers the effective rate. Basic at $1,000 a year works out near $0.021 per message. Three costs sit outside the plan price and catch people out.
Registration is separate and comes first. A2P 10DLC costs a one-time $5 brand fee plus a $15 campaign fee, and approval is required before you can use the free trial.
Long messages cost more than one message. A standard SMS carries 160 GSM-7 characters. Go over and the message splits into segments, each billed separately, so a 200-character text costs double.
Some destinations carry surcharges. Messages to Canadian numbers add $0.008 per SMS segment, Puerto Rico adds $0.02, and Guam adds $0.075, all billed in arrears.
How to Send Bulk SMS in Five Steps
1. Build a consented list. Collect opt-in through sign-up forms, text-to-join keywords, or checkout confirmation. Importing a list bought elsewhere, or assuming email consent covers texting, is the fastest route to a complaint. The double opt-in method documents consent at the point of capture.
2. Choose your number type. A registered 10-digit long code suits most businesses. Toll-free texting fits higher-volume transactional sending, and short codes serve enterprise throughput at higher setup cost.
3. Segment before you send. One message to the whole list is the fastest way to raise opt-outs. Segmenting by behavior and lifecycle keeps volume steady while each person receives fewer, more relevant messages.
4. Write, personalize, schedule. Stay under 160 characters, name your business, lead with the value, and close with one action. Schedule for the recipient’s local time zone.
5. Measure and adjust. Track delivery, replies, and opt-outs per campaign rather than per month, then compare against your own trailing average.
The $20 Step Before You Can Send Bulk SMS
This is the part that surprises people. Voice and messaging are provisioned separately in the United States, and carriers will not accept application-to-person traffic on a 10-digit number until A2P 10DLC registration is approved. Registration ties your brand and your campaign to a declared use case.
Brand registration costs $5 once. This identifies your business to the carriers.
Campaign registration costs $15 once. This declares what you intend to send.
Approval gates everything. Until AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and the rest approve the registration, no traffic reaches their customers, including trial sends.
Drift gets you filtered. Sending content that does not match the registered use case triggers filtering, which looks like a deliverability problem but is a registration problem.
Bulk SMS Compliance: TCPA and 10DLC Requirements
Every business sending bulk SMS in the United States operates under the TCPA. Marketing texts sent using an automated system require prior express written consent, and recipients may revoke it at any time by any reasonable method. The FCC’s telemarketing and robocall rules set out how consent and revocation are treated. Penalties are assessed per message, which is why exposure scales badly at bulk volume. This is factual guidance, not legal advice.
Checklist for every campaign:
- Document written opt-in before any number joins a marketing list
- Identify your business by name in every message
- Process STOP immediately and suppress that contact from all future sends
- Keep consent audit logs in case of a dispute
- Complete brand and campaign registration before the first send
Bulk SMS Templates You Can Copy
Each of the three below identifies the sender, carries one action, and includes an opt-out, all under 160 characters.
Retail flash sale: Hi [First Name], [Brand] here. Our 24-hour flash sale starts now. Save 30% sitewide: [Link]. Reply STOP to opt out.
Appointment reminder: Hi [First Name], [Practice] here. Your appointment is tomorrow at [Time]. Reply YES to confirm or call [Number] to reschedule. Reply STOP to opt out.
New listing alert: Hi [First Name], [Agent] from [Brokerage]. A listing matching your search just went live in [Area]. Want details? Reply YES. Reply STOP to opt out.
How SendHub Handles Bulk SMS
SendHub runs the sending, registration and consent layers together, so the bulk SMS service is usable without a developer.
- Mass texting to your full list from one browser dashboard
- Scheduled messaging with time zone adjustment for one-time and recurring sends
- Merge fields to insert names, dates and order details at scale
- Groups and unlimited keywords for segmentation and text-to-join opt-in
- Analytics and reporting to track delivery, replies and opt-outs per campaign
- Contact database holding consent records and audit logs per contact
Frequently Asked Questions
Roughly two to four cents per message on published plans, plus $20 in one-time registration fees. However, long messages split into segments and cost more.
Yes, for 10-digit US numbers. Otherwise carriers filter or block the traffic regardless of message quality.
It varies by carrier and by how complete your submission is. Therefore, register before you plan your first campaign rather than alongside it.
Yes. Specifically, the TCPA requires prior express written consent for marketing texts, documented before the number joins your list.
That depends on your plan’s recipient cap and your number type. Meanwhile, short codes support far higher throughput than 10DLC.
160 characters in GSM-7. Beyond that, the message splits into billed segments, which raises cost.
Yes. Because merge fields pull names and order details, each recipient sees something written rather than broadcast.
They are suppressed from future sends immediately. Furthermore, honoring STOP is both a TCPA requirement and a carrier rule.
Yes. For example, Canadian numbers add $0.008 per SMS segment, billed in arrears.
Two to four promotional messages a month suits most lists. However, transactional messages are not subject to the same fatigue.
