Web-based Texting Services
November 10, 2014 7:28 AM Subscribe
I'm looking for recommendations for low-cost (or no-cost) web-based texting services for relatively light use.
Early next year, I'll be at a gaming convention, and among other things we'll be running demos at our booth. Some of these demos will be scheduled (with sign-ups at the convention), with limited seating available.
In the hopes of decreasing no-shows, I'd like to offer people the option of leaving a phone number when they sign-up, so we can text them 15 minutes prior to the start time with a reminder. Hand-typing these reminders into a phone seems like an awful lot of effort, though, and I'd also kinda prefer that any reply-to be to the company email address, versus my personal cell.
Please recommend to me free or low-cost web-based texting services that you've used successfully. (It's honestly hard to tell how reputable they are, from my searching thus far). We're talking maybe 120-150 texts over the course of 3 days, so even if it's only free for low volume use, that should work. Thanks so much!
Early next year, I'll be at a gaming convention, and among other things we'll be running demos at our booth. Some of these demos will be scheduled (with sign-ups at the convention), with limited seating available.
In the hopes of decreasing no-shows, I'd like to offer people the option of leaving a phone number when they sign-up, so we can text them 15 minutes prior to the start time with a reminder. Hand-typing these reminders into a phone seems like an awful lot of effort, though, and I'd also kinda prefer that any reply-to be to the company email address, versus my personal cell.
Please recommend to me free or low-cost web-based texting services that you've used successfully. (It's honestly hard to tell how reputable they are, from my searching thus far). We're talking maybe 120-150 texts over the course of 3 days, so even if it's only free for low volume use, that should work. Thanks so much!
You don't say what phone/platform you are using. If it's an Android phone, I recommend Mighty Text. I use it at work. I've never sent that many texts in a day, but I have done maybe 30 or 40 with no problem. It only complains when you send a ton in rapid succession, but it still sends them.
I use the free version. The paid app is $40/year, I think. It's not really worth it to me, but the features might be useful to you, especially the bulk messages, templates and scheduler.
posted by zorseshoes at 8:10 AM on November 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
I use the free version. The paid app is $40/year, I think. It's not really worth it to me, but the features might be useful to you, especially the bulk messages, templates and scheduler.
posted by zorseshoes at 8:10 AM on November 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
Oh, I just saw the bit about the reply-to. I'm not sure this is what you want for that function.
posted by zorseshoes at 8:13 AM on November 10, 2014
posted by zorseshoes at 8:13 AM on November 10, 2014
I'd also kinda prefer that any reply-to be to the company email address
You could just email directly via each carrier's email-to-SMS gateway. I imagine someone out there offers a generic gateway where you wouldn't need to know the carrier for each attendee but I don't have a recommendation for that.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 8:39 AM on November 10, 2014
You could just email directly via each carrier's email-to-SMS gateway. I imagine someone out there offers a generic gateway where you wouldn't need to know the carrier for each attendee but I don't have a recommendation for that.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 8:39 AM on November 10, 2014
Response by poster: Android is the preferred platform, if there needs to be a specific platform (I assume some options would be platform-neutral).
My note about reply-to is probably a little too cute on my part. The main point is, I don't want to have my personal cell number attached to the messages. Some of the services I saw when researching this initially seemed to imply they would include your email address with the message (which is fine by me, I can use a company email address). A company-specific (but free) phone number would work fine too.
posted by tocts at 8:50 AM on November 10, 2014
My note about reply-to is probably a little too cute on my part. The main point is, I don't want to have my personal cell number attached to the messages. Some of the services I saw when researching this initially seemed to imply they would include your email address with the message (which is fine by me, I can use a company email address). A company-specific (but free) phone number would work fine too.
posted by tocts at 8:50 AM on November 10, 2014
I've seen Skype SMS used for this exact use case. There was a (small) cost involved, but it worked well.
posted by :-) at 8:57 AM on November 10, 2014
posted by :-) at 8:57 AM on November 10, 2014
You could just e-mail the phone directly from the corporate account. You'd have to ask what carrier they're on, though, as each carrier uses a different email address format. This was linked above by NSAID.
posted by tckma at 10:18 AM on November 10, 2014
posted by tckma at 10:18 AM on November 10, 2014
If you can swing a bit of developer effort, Twilio was made for this. Pair it with a single-dyno heroku instance running sinatra or rails or whatever, and the computing resources can be had for a couple of bucks.
posted by Alterscape at 12:11 AM on November 11, 2014
posted by Alterscape at 12:11 AM on November 11, 2014
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posted by trivia genius at 7:45 AM on November 10, 2014 [2 favorites]