Postscript is the largest challenger to Attentive in the eCommerce SMS (text message) marketing world, and it’s our recommended tool for SMS marketing. We recommend Postscript because it makes it incredibly easy to collect contacts, create targeted campaigns, support two-way conversations, and integrate with your existing marketing stack - all through an intuitive interface with stellar customer service. Postscript also excels in the less exciting aspects of SMS marketing like regulatory compliance. Since text message marketing is more highly regulated than other marketing channels, it’s critical that your SMS marketing tool keeps you in compliance. With Postscript, you can rest assured that you are always in compliance.
Read our full guide on: SMS Marketing Tools 💬
Best for: Medium ($10M+ revenue) and Enterprise ($50M+ revenue) size companies
Postscript is our recommended SMS marketing platform for most eCommerce businesses.
Postscript was founded in 2018 by StackCommerce alumni Adam Turner and Alex Beller who took the company through YC in the Winter class of 2019. They have built a best-in-class SMS marketing tool that executes well every step of the way from SMS collection to segmented campaign sends.
List Growth Tools
Step one in building a successful SMS marketing channel is to build your opt-in list, and Postscript provides the tools to do it. Don’t worry, if you’re switching from a competitor, importing an existing SMS list is easy (Postscript will also verify the list is compliant). Postscript offers desktop and mobile popups that can collect both email and SMS and are optimized for conversion. Their pre-built templates offer enough customization to feel on brand and don't require any custom coding. They also offer SMS collection options after checkout which we love. The opt-in rate on checkout collection is much higher (typically 20%) and the checkout page is often underutilized real estate in eCommerce.
Segmenting
Postscript has developed tools for hyper segmented SMS sends. Other companies are optimized for generic SMS campaigns to your entire list which won't convert as well and cost you additional money to send non-targeted messages. Postscript integrates well with Shopify and Klaviyo so you can pull in data from those apps to target your sends (e.g., customers who have spent over $100 that you have not sent a promotional email in the last month). You can also segment based on SMS activity (e.g., send only to those on your list who clicked on a text mentioning XYZ product).
Two-way Messaging
Postscript was built to support two-way text conversations. While the US is far behind Asia in conversational commerce, if Asia is the guide, then conversational commerce is going to be a growing channel and not just a buzzword. Postscript houses all of the SMS conversations within the Responses tab so you can see the text history and purchase history with every customer conversation.
Customer Support
Postscript customers almost unanimously mentioned their strong customer support. As the smaller challenger to Attentive, we think Postscript has focused on this area as a differentiator. Their team is extremely knowledgeable about all things SMS and customers (especially larger companies) can expect hands on customer support.
Regulatory Compliance
SMS marketing is much more highly regulated than email or paid marketing channels, and it's critical that your company doesn’t run afoul of these regulations. In 1991, Congress passed the "Telephone Consumer Protection Act" or TCPA to reduce the number of spam calls. The act also covers text messages and allows for statutory damages of up to $500 per violation and up to $1,500 per violation if it was willful or knowing. In 2018, Uber settled a TCPA lawsuit alleging they sent automated text messages to individuals without their consent for $20M. Yikes! This is why it's critical that Postscript is on top of all of the regulations and will ensure that your business is compliant. We spoke with multiple companies who were using other SMS vendors and only found out that they were not in compliance when they switched to Postscript, and Postscript reps identified compliance issues with their SMS programs (😬).
Integrations
Postscript has integrations with nearly all of our recommended tools. Link it to Shopify our recommended eCommerce platform, Gorgias our recommended Customer Support Platform, Klaviyo our recommended Email Marketing Platform, and Okendo our recommended Review Tool. Linking to Postscript can make all of these tools better. For example, you could send your Okendo review requests through Postscript to increase collection rates.
Reporting
Like many marketing platforms, Postscripts native reporting will over attribute sales to their channel. Many customers we spoke with used Google Analytics as their source of truth for attribution. Reporting in Postscript is more intuitive and better than other SMS platforms but has room for improvement especially around attribution.
International
Postscript’s focus area is the US and Canadian markets. For businesses with large international presences, you might want to consider alternatives for those markets or for the entire SMS platform.
AB Testing
Postscript offers AB testing for SMS, but we would like to see this feature improve over time. Historically Postscript customers were unable to AB test campaign flows although Postscript has recently rolled out this feature. We would also like to see AB test reporting improvements.
Postscript offers four pricing tiers. The free plan will cost $0.015 per SMS and $0.045 per MMS (texts with photos or video). More expensive monthly plans will lead to lower per SMS and MMS fees and come with more support. As always, whisper 'Head West' at checkout for a special discount.
What is Postscript SMS?
Postscript is an SMS (text message) marketing platform designed specifically for eCommerce businesses. Here's a quick overview:
What are the advantages to Postscript?
What are the disadvantages to Postscript?
Is Postscript open source?
No, Postscript has an API but is not an open source software.
How many customers does Postscript have?
Postscript has 12,993 customers as of October 2023 according to Store Leads data.
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