SMS as your channel - guide

SMS is the most direct channel in your marketing mix. Messages land straight on your audience's phone screen, and with open rates above 90%, they're almost guaranteed to be read. That makes SMS ideal for time-sensitive, high-impact communications — but it also means you need to use it thoughtfully.

SMS works best alongside your other channels. It's not a replacement for email — it's the sharp, personal complement that cuts through when timing and immediacy matter. Used well, it strengthens your entire communication strategy. Used carelessly, it feels intrusive.

This guide walks you through the complete journey: setting up your account, building your audience, creating your first campaign, and managing your credits.

Before you create your first SMS in Apsis One, there are a few foundational pieces to put in place. Think of these as your SMS checklist.

Every Apsis One account with SMS functionality starts with 10,000 credits included in the initial package. Credits are consumed each time an SMS is sent, with the cost per message varying by the recipient's country. The full country pricing table is availalble in SMS Credits: Calculation and Pricing).

You can check your remaining credit balance in two places:

Credits don't expire, so if you're not sending high volumes right away, your starting balance will be waiting for you. Once you've spent your initial credits, you'll need to order more.

You can't send SMS without consent. In Apsis One, consent is managed through Subscriptions.

What to do:

Good to know: A Profile can have consent for multiple Subscriptions and multiple channels (email and SMS). The Subscription you select when creating an SMS activity determines which consented Profiles are eligible to receive it.

For an SMS to be delivered, the recipient's Profile must have a valid mobile phone number stored in the phone number attribute used for SMS.

Make sure that:

There are several ways to add Profiles with SMS consent to your Audience:

File Import: Upload a file (CSV or XLSX) with your subscribers' data, including phone numbers and consent status. The File Import Wizard lets you map columns to attributes, add tags, and assign Profiles to Subscriptions in one go.

Forms Tool: Create sign-up forms that collect phone numbers and SMS consent directly from your audience. This is the best approach for ongoing, organic list growth — every Profile who signs up through the form is automatically added with the right consent.

Integrations and API: If you're using a CRM (such as Tribe or other supported integrations), or any system connected to Apsis One, Profile data including phone numbers and consent can sync automatically. This keeps your Audience up to date without manual imports.

Manually: You can also add or update individual Profiles directly in the Audience section - useful for one-off additions but not practical at scale.

Some countries accept custom sender names (like your brand name) out of the box, while others require you to register your sender name before you can send.

Check the SMS Supported Countries article to see whether registration is needed for the countries you're targeting. If it is, contact Apsis support, they'll help you through the registration process.

Important: If you send to a country that requires registration without having registered, the SMS will remain pending for up to 48 hours and then expire. Those recipients will show as bounced in your SMS Report.

Your sender name should be:

Tip: Choose a sender name your recipients will recognise. Your brand name is usually the best choice.

Once your checklist is complete - credits, subscription with consent, phone numbers, and sender name - you're ready to build your first SMS campaign.

This is where every character counts — literally.

Character limits and credit impact:

What to include:

Before moving on:

The Overview screen gives you a final look at everything: message content, settings, recipients, and cost. Review it carefully, then click Schedule to send or Save as draft to come back later.

Respect the channel. SMS lands on someone's personal device, often with a notification sound. Sending at 11pm or blasting three messages in a week will get you unsubscribes.

Experiment and analyse. Check your SMS Reports after each send. Look at delivered rates, click rates, and unsubscribes. Adjust your timing and frequency based on what the data tells you.

Use Frequency settings. The Send To step lets you automatically skip Profiles who received an SMS recently. Use this to prevent fatigue.

SMS is at its strongest when it works alongside email and Marketing Automation:

The cost of an SMS campaign is calculated automatically:

Recipients × Credits per Country × Number of SMS = Campaign Cost

That's why keeping messages concise directly impacts your budget.

Example with multiple countries:

See the full country pricing table in SMS Credits: Calculation and Pricing.

Remember: Data tags expand to real values at send time, which may push your message over 160 characters. Special characters and emojis reduce the character limit to 70 per SMS, potentially tripling credit costs. Check SMS: Content and Characters for details.

Credits are calculated and reserved when you schedule an SMS activity, not when it's sent. Your balance can change between scheduling and sending if new recipients are added to a Segment or another SMS activity uses credits in the meantime.

Your campaigns won't be blocked. If your balance doesn't cover a sending, the SMS is still delivered in full and your balance goes negative. You'll be invoiced for the overdraft. When you next purchase credits, the negative balance is deducted automatically.

You can export your sent SMS data to track credit usage over time. The export includes columns for actual cost and Section, making it easy to allocate costs internally across teams or departments.

There are two ways to add credits to your account:

Option 1: From the platform Go to the SMS start page → click Buy More Credits → follow the prompts.

Option 2: By email Send your request to customerservice.apsis@efficy.com

Choose what you need:

Always include in your request:

The real power of SMS in Apsis One comes when you integrate it into automated flows: