EZ Texting Review

Why EZ Texting Is Best for Advanced Features

EZ Texting is our best pick for advanced features because it includes tools that are uncommon or nonexistent among other SMS marketing platforms. For starters, EZ Texting’s native Shutterstock integration really impressed us. No other text message marketing platform we reviewed lets you search for and insert high-quality stock images directly into your messages. EZ Texting also includes web sign-up forms and a link shortener, which are uncommon among the text message marketing platforms we analyzed.

In addition, high-tier EZ Texting customers can access the company’s open API to develop any third-party integrations they might need. Many competitors lack this feature, though some offer other approaches to custom integrations. Moreover, EZ Texting is the only platform we reviewed that includes links to compliance review documents and built-in compliance checks when you send mass messages.

Usability

EZ Texting lives up to its name. The advanced features are simple to use, the user interface is crisp and clean, and every tool lacks needless complications.

When you first start with EZ Texting, the platform will ask you how you’d like to use it and how much previous text message marketing experience you have, and it will give you tips on where to begin. After choosing your starting point, you’ll see a video explaining the features, along with a link to compliance guidelines. Then, EZ Texting will show you why and how to use each tool. You’ll also see how your messages will look to recipients.

After this introduction, you’ll see the EZ Texting dashboard, which places everything you need right at your fingertips. The fundamentals are in the central module, with both these and a few other tools on the left side. You can’t customize this dashboard, but you shouldn’t need to; for example, EZ Texting has one of the most user-friendly inboxes we saw in our research. It closely resembles iMessage, so iPhone and Mac users should immediately feel at home.

You can access EZ Texting’s integrations from the left side. There, you’ll see the brand’s native integrations with Constant Contact, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Squarespace, Shutterstock and Zapier. The latter brand holds the vast majority of EZ Texting’s integrations. These tools can make it easy to sync your contacts and automate your messaging.

Features

Mass Messaging Campaigns and Outbox

EZ Texting’s text message marketing campaigns tool stands out because it shows you how your message will appear on your customers’ phone screens. With the outbox tool, you can quickly see several key delivery and engagement statistics. The campaigns tool also includes templates and drip campaign features that you can use to reach your customers with additional messages.

Unified Inbox

Virtually every text message marketing platform offers an inbox that collates all of your sent and received messages. EZ Texting stood out for having one of the most unified inboxes of the platforms we reviewed. Each person who responds to your messages appears in your inbox, which is par for the course. When you click the person’s name, however, you can see your entire messaging history with them, minus the first text of a campaign. Your inbox will resemble iMessage, so you might find it intuitive.

Native Shutterstock Integration

EZ Texting is the only text message marketing platform we reviewed that integrates with Shutterstock or any other stock photography platform. This integration always appears when you draft text messages so that you can easily insert high-quality stock images into your messages. You can modify these images and add text to them before they go into your messages. After you send your message, you can use the image again in future campaigns. We were especially impressed with this feature.

Web Sign-Up Forms

EZ Texting is one of just a few text message marketing platforms we reviewed that lets you create a web sign-up form. You can share this form on Facebook or Twitter or store it in a QR code. Alternatively, you can create a sign-up form designed to be embedded on your website. In either case, this feature is relatively advanced. It can help you grow your text messaging list, and if you keep up with these new subscribers, you can use it to improve customer loyalty. [Related article: 3 Ways to Offer a Customer Loyalty Program]

Source: EZ Texting

Link Shortener

Not all SMS marketing platforms support links, but EZ Texting not only supports links but also gives you a tool to shorten them. The latter is especially important, as regular-length links can quickly take you over the short character limit of an SMS message.

EZ Texting’s link-shortening feature is accessible from the tools module on the left side of the dashboard. Once you shorten the link, the tool will show a button that generates a new message with the link. You can then send this message, as you can with any message, to one person or a whole group.

Open API

EZ Texting has only six native integrations, including Zapier. As such, most of your integrations will come through Zapier rather than existing natively in EZ Texting. However, high-tier EZ Texting plans include access to EZ Texting’s API. That means your software development team (or a freelancer you hire) can build custom integrations.

This feature is advanced and relatively uncommon, though it still puts the development burden on you. If you’re interested in a text message marketing platform that will build you free custom integrations in-house, check out our full review of SimpleTexting.

Cost

You can test out EZ Texting with a 14-day free trial. Thereafter, you’ll need to pay for one of four EZ Texting plans. All EZ Texting plans include 200 credits; each SMS message costs one credit, and each MMS message uses three. Additional “anytime” credits cost up to 4 cents. Depending on how many credits you buy per month, these credits run between $9.90 and $274.40 in total. These prices make EZ Texting among the most expensive platforms we reviewed.

EZ Texting has four pricing plans:

• Value 
  • $19 per month if you pay annually; $24 per month if you pay monthly
  • One user, one keyword and one textable number
  • No MMS messages or advanced features and analytics
• Essentials
  • $29 per month if you pay annually; $36 per month if you pay monthly
  • Two users, three keywords and two textable numbers
• Premium
  • $49 per month if you pay annually; $61 per month if you pay monthly
  • Three users, six keywords and three textable numbers
• Custom
  • $299 per month if you pay annually; $374 per month if you pay monthly
  • Custom number of maximum users and textable numbers
  • Unlimited keywords

EZ Texting’s credit pricing is described below. We found that this information is presented somewhat confusingly on EZ Texting’s website. The website also buries an important piece of information: Included credits expire after 30 days, and anytime credits expire after 12 months. That makes EZ Texting messages significantly more expensive and time-sensitive than those of most other text message marketing platforms.

• First 200 credits per month: Included
• Next 300 credits, up to 500 credits per month: 3.3 cents per credit, or up to $16.50 per month
• Next 1,000 credits, up to 1,500 credits per month: 3.1 cents per credit, or up to $31 per month
• Next 1,000 credits, up to 2,500 credits per month: 3 cents per credit, or up to $30 per month
• Next 2,500 credits, up to 5,000 credits per month: 2.9 cents per credit, or up to $72.50 per month
• Next 5,000 credits, up to 10,000 credits per month: 2.8 cents per credit, or up to $140 per month

If you needed 10,000 credits per month on the Custom plan, you’d pay $374 + $140 = $514 per month. This price is unusually high. If that’s a dealbreaker, read our full review of Textedly for a deep dive into one of the most affordable text message marketing platforms. With that app, $500 can get you 42,000 messages per month – more than four times what EZ Texting gives you for that price.

Source: EZ Texting

In addition to its high prices, EZ Texting charges extra for certain add-ons. Whereas Textedly charges these fees once for a lifetime of access, EZ Texting tacks on these fees monthly. The good news is that your business can probably get away with not using these add-ons, which include the following.

• High-volume number: $25 per month. This feature gives you a verified local phone number with more reliable delivery and faster sending speeds.
• Additional numbers: $25 per number per month. You can choose local 10DLC numbers or toll-free numbers. You can also add texting capabilities to a landline, which not all platforms allow.
• Additional users: $20 per user per month. Each user gets a unique, secure login with custom permission levels.
• Additional keywords: $25 per keyword per month. Each keyword includes all of the same functions as the keywords included with your account.

Setup

EZ Texting has one of the easiest setup processes of all the text message marketing platforms we reviewed. When you first start using EZ Texting, you’ll indicate how you plan to use it. You’ll also answer some questions about your previous experience, and EZ Texting will use your answers to determine which videos and tips to give you. These resources make the setup even easier than it is for other SMS platforms, which are generally also fairly easy to implement.

Whenever you use an EZ Texting tool for the first time, you’ll see a brief explanation of why and how to use it. That’s true for fundamentals, such as the outbox, and advanced features, such as the sign-up forms. These instructions lead to a seamless setup for every EZ Texting tool. They also hasten the process; getting situated shouldn’t take more than a few minutes. You might need slightly more time to upload your contacts, migrate other data, and set up add-ons and integrations. But it’s still a fast process, and it involves no extra fees. All of this is pretty standard across the industry.

Customer Service

Compared with some other text message marketing services, EZ Texting’s customer service left us wanting more. We do like how easily you can find EZ Texting’s customer service number from the help button at the top right of the dashboard. However, EZ Texting’s customer support team is unavailable as often as those of other services.

EZ Texting’s customer service hours are Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET. During these hours, you can reach the customer service team via phone or live chat. However, other brands are reachable on Saturdays and, in some cases, Sundays. A few brands’ total number of available weekly customer service hours is more than double those of EZ Texting. Either way, you can always reach out via email or browse the answers to frequently asked questions.

Beyond its limited availability, EZ Texting has somewhat of a reputation for poor customer service. In our research, we encountered reviews saying that account reps have installed add-ons that customers never requested. Other reviews have said that account reps often try to push customers into paying for more services. That said, some reviews have praised the customer support reps as highly knowledgeable, and you won’t pay extra to reach them.

Drawbacks

No matter which price tier you select, your account will include only 200 credits per month. That translates to 200 SMS messages or 66 MMS messages. You’ll have to pay for each additional credit. That could translate to over $500 for one-fourth the number of messages that certain competitors offer at similar prices.

The EZ Texting credits that your account includes expire after 30 days. Any additional anytime credits you buy last a full year. The pricing page on EZ Texting’s website is somewhat unclear about this credit model. Some customers have said they were never made aware that their anytime credits would expire after a year, leading to unexpected financial losses.

EZ Texting customer support is less frequently available compared with other services we reviewed and may be subpar. The company doesn’t provide weekend customer service, and its weekday availability is average. Additionally, EZ Texting was the only text message marketing service we researched that tried to upsell customers.

Methodology

To review EZ Texting, we first sat down for a guided demo with company representatives. We then signed up for a free trial and tested the tool ourselves. We did the same for another four brands we reviewed. For these text message marketing services and an additional eight, we looked into customer reviews, pricing plans, features for each plan and customer service options.

Bottom Line

We recommend EZ Texting for …

• Small businesses seeking advanced text message marketing features.
• Small businesses looking for an SMS marketing tool with an especially fast setup.
• Small businesses whose teams want to see why and how to use each feature.

We don’t recommend EZ Texting for …

• Small businesses looking for an inexpensive text message marketing platform.
• Small businesses that need hands-on, readily available customer service.