SMS Campaign Budget Planner
Plan your monthly SMS spend across welcome, booking, reminder, and promo campaigns. See what revenue it should drive.
SMS marketing for service businesses is way more than 'send a coupon now and then.' It's a stack of automated touchpoints: welcome, booked-job confirms, day-before reminders, on-the-way alerts, post-job follow-ups, maintenance reminders, and the occasional promo. This planner runs the math on each layer so you know what to budget and what revenue to expect. Built around Smarfle's flat $0.03/SMS rate (vs Twilio's $0.0083 + carrier fees that bundle to $0.013-0.025 in practice).
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Used for welcome SMS volume.
Used for booking confirmation + reminder + on-the-way SMS volume.
Typical: 4 (confirm + day-before reminder + on-the-way + post-job thank-you).
HVAC: 2 (spring/fall). Plumbing: 1. Cleaning recurring: 0 (handled by booking SMS). Pest: 4.
Sent to entire active customer list. 0-2 is typical for service businesses.
Smarfle: $0.03 (flat, includes carrier fees). Twilio direct: ~$0.013-0.025 in practice (after fees). Most other CRMs: $0.04-0.08.
Industry typical: 5-12% of recipients click + book.
SMS Campaign Budget Planner
Calculated October 9, 2026
- Active customers (recently serviced)
- 200
- New customers per month
- 12
- Jobs scheduled per month
- 80
- SMS messages sent per job
- 4
- Maintenance reminders per customer per year
- 2
- Promotional campaigns per month
- 1
- SMS cost per message
- $0.03
- Promo campaign response rate (%)
- 7%
- Average job value from campaign-driven booking
- $280
Your results
Monthly SMS cost
$16.96
Total spend across welcome, booking, reminder, promo SMS
Send all of this from one inbox
Smarfle's Bulk SMS Campaigns + Maintenance Reminders + Workflow Automation cover every SMS layer above at a flat $0.03/msg. No setup fees, no monthly minimums, no Twilio bill to manage.
Free for 14 days, no credit card
How this calculation works
Service business SMS isn't one campaign, it's a stack: 1. Welcome SMS (1 per new customer): "Welcome to ABC HVAC. Here's our calendar link, our office hours, and a $25 first-job credit." 2. Job-related SMS (4 per job typical): - Confirmation: "Your tune-up is booked for Tue 9am" - Day-before reminder: "Reminder: tune-up tomorrow at 9am" - On-the-way: "Tech Sarah is en route, ETA 25 min" - Post-job: "Tune-up complete. Click to leave us a Google review" 3. Maintenance reminders (1-4 per customer per year): "Your spring HVAC tune-up is due. Tap to book." 4. Promo campaigns (0-2 per month): "Spring special: 20% off any furnace tune-up booked by April 15th." Most service businesses budget for category 4 alone and ignore 1-3 entirely, missing 80% of SMS marketing's ROI. The "Same volume direct via Twilio (no CRM)" line shows what your raw Twilio bill would be without Smarfle's wrapper. Twilio direct is cheaper per-msg ($0.013 effective) but you're managing API keys, opt-out compliance, A2P 10DLC registration ($15 + $10/month TCR), bill reconciliation, etc. Most owners decide the $0.017/msg premium for Smarfle handling all of that is worth it.
Real scenarios
Find the persona closest to yours, then click to load those numbers into the calculator.
Mid-size HVAC, 200 customers
200 active, 80 jobs/mo, 4 SMS per job, 2 promos/month.
Total ~512 SMS/month at $15.36. Promo revenue alone ~$3,920/month. Net: SMS pays for itself ~250x over.
Cleaning company, recurring book
Lots of jobs, fewer maintenance reminders (recurring schedule covers it).
Job-related SMS is the bulk of the spend. Promo monthly is small but lift is meaningful for occasional deep cleans.
Solo plumber, 100 customers
Small book, low SMS volume.
Total spend ~$10/month. Promo response ~6 bookings = ~$2K extra revenue. ROI is the easy part; reliability is the value-add.
Smarfle
Run this in your business, not just in a calculator
These Smarfle features close the loop on what this tool surfaces. Built for local service businesses, used by HVAC, plumbing, electrical, cleaning, lawn care, and 40+ other trades.
Bulk SMS Campaigns
Send promos + reminders to filtered audiences (status, tag, branch). Merge fields, delivery tracking, opt-out compliance built in.
Learn moreMaintenance Reminders
Auto-text customers based on their last service date. HVAC tune-up reminders, water heater flush, lawn renewal.
Learn moreWorkflow Automation
Trigger SMS on WO complete, day-before of next visit, missed call, abandoned cart. Set the trigger once.
Learn moreFrequently asked questions
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Go deeper: industry research & statistics, service pricing guides, and CRM by industry.
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