Recart vs SimpleTexting
An independent, review-free comparison compiled by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Both products are profiled in full, and neither can pay for placement here.
The short answer
Editorial assessmentRecart compared with SimpleTexting
SimpleTexting is a general business texting platform with a shared inbox, three included seats, published rollover, and credit pricing from $39. Recart is an ecommerce revenue platform with no inbox and a $299 floor. They barely compete: the honest split is that SimpleTexting is what you buy to talk to customers and Recart is what you buy to sell to them, and a Shopify brand that needs both will end up with two vendors.
Choose Recart if
Shopify direct-to-consumer brands doing enough revenue that SMS is expected to be a named channel with its own number, particularly those whose subscriber list is the bottleneck rather than their campaign copy, and merchants who want a strategist included rather than hiring or contracting one.
Choose SimpleTexting if
Small and mid-sized US and Canadian businesses that want a straightforward, well-supported texting platform for appointment reminders, promotions, alerts, and two-way customer conversations, especially teams of three to five who value rolling credits and included seats over ecommerce or CRM depth.
Side by side
13 attributes| Attribute | Recart | SimpleTexting |
|---|---|---|
| Category | SMS | SMS |
| Starting price | $299 per month on a twelve-month commitment (free trial) | $39 per month for 500 credits, or $398.40 per year with annual billing (free trial) |
| Pricing model | Commitment-based monthly subscription with bundled message allotments per tier and overage at published per-message rates, with shorter commitment terms priced higher. | Credit-based monthly subscription, quoted by monthly credit volume. Credits are consumed per message segment. Three user seats included, additional seats and numbers charged separately, carrier fees passed through at cost. |
| Free plan | No | No |
| Free trial | No free trial published; onboarding includes a free account setup and SMS audit | Free trial with no credit card required, plus a 30-day money-back guarantee |
| Best for | Shopify direct-to-consumer brands doing enough revenue that SMS is expected to be a named channel with its own number, particularly those whose subscriber list is the bottleneck rather than their campaign copy, and merchants who want a strategist included rather than hiring or contracting one. | Small and mid-sized US and Canadian businesses that want a straightforward, well-supported texting platform for appointment reminders, promotions, alerts, and two-way customer conversations, especially teams of three to five who value rolling credits and included seats over ecommerce or CRM depth. |
| Setup time | Days to a working setup once the Shopify app is installed and the strategist has run the audit, but one to three weeks of calendar time before you can send at volume, because A2P 10DLC registration or toll-free verification sits in the middle and neither is under the vendor's control. | An account and a local number can be live the same day. Realistically you are gated by carrier registration: A2P 10DLC brand and campaign approval takes roughly one to four weeks, toll-free verification up to a week, and a short code six to eight weeks. Start registration immediately and build lists while you wait. |
| Learning curve | Low, deliberately. The flow templates are pre-built from tested patterns, the popups are configured rather than designed, and the included strategist absorbs most of the strategic decisions a first-time SMS marketer would otherwise get wrong. | Genuinely low. The interface is the plainest in this category and a non-technical front-desk employee can send a campaign in fifteen minutes. Drip campaigns and segmentation take an afternoon. The only conceptual hurdle is credit accounting, and specifically the fact that an emoji can double or triple the cost of a message. |
| Platforms | Shopify app, Web application | Web application, iOS and Android apps, US and Canadian SMS and MMS, Local, toll-free, and short code numbers |
| Compliance | TCPA consent workflows, A2P 10DLC brand and campaign registration, Toll-free verification, Automatic opt-out handling | TCPA-aligned consent capture with recorded opt-in source, CTIA messaging principles, A2P 10DLC brand and campaign registration submitted on your behalf, Toll-free verification, Automatic STOP and opt-out suppression |
| Founded | 2015 | 2010 |
| Headquarters | Budapest, Hungary | Miami Beach, Florida, United States (originally founded in New York) |
| Ownership | Venture-backed | Owned by Sinch AB, the Swedish CPaaS group, following acquisition by MessageMedia in November 2020 |
Strengths and limitations
Recart
Strengths
- OneClick opt-in is a genuine technical differentiator, not a marketing claim about a standard popup, and list growth is the bottleneck for most Shopify brands rather than campaign copy.
- Per-message cost of roughly $0.012 to $0.015 all in is close to CPaaS rates and dramatically cheaper than general SMS platform credit pricing.
- A dedicated SMS strategist and a setup audit are included in the subscription rather than sold as professional services, which for a small marketing team substitutes for a specialist hire.
- Revenue attribution against Shopify order data rather than click-through, which is the only metric that justifies spending on the channel.
Limitations
- Shopify only. No WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento, or headless support, which eliminates it outright for a large share of ecommerce.
- The $299 floor on a twelve-month commitment means $3,588 of contracted spend before messages, with no free trial and no cheap way to test the fit.
- Shorter commitment terms are priced higher, so genuine month-to-month flexibility is either unavailable or expensive.
- No published rollover policy for unused bundled messages, which matters when you are committing to a year of allotments.
SimpleTexting
Strengths
- Credits roll over on monthly plans, so a business with a lumpy sending pattern does not forfeit what it paid for at the end of every month.
- Three user seats included on every plan before the $20 per seat charge starts, which is more generous than most competitors and matters for a front desk with rotating staff.
- Free inbound SMS makes genuinely two-way conversation economically viable rather than something you ration.
- Features are not gated by tier. You buy volume, not capability, which means plan selection is arithmetic instead of a feature-matrix negotiation.
Limitations
- Per-credit economics are poor at volume. At entry pricing you are paying multiples of what per-message platforms charge, and the 5.5 cent overage rate punishes miscalculation.
- No ecommerce data model at all, so revenue attribution, cart triggers, and product-level personalization simply do not exist.
- CRM integration runs mostly through Zapier rather than native object sync, which is a meaningful gap next to Salesmsg or Sakari for a sales team.
- Number porting away has been publicly documented as slow and obstructive, in one case requiring an FCC complaint and taking three weeks. That is a real switching cost you should price in before choosing a number.
Pricing compared
Recart
Commitment-based monthly subscription with bundled message allotments per tier and overage at published per-message rates, with shorter commitment terms priced higher.
- Starter$299
- Pro$499
- Scale$999
- EnterpriseCustom
Judged per message, Recart is priced well: about $0.012 to $0.015 all in for a US segment, which is close to raw CPaaS cost and a fraction of what a general SMS platform charges per credit, and the allotments at each tier are sized so that a brand actually using the channel is not constantly in overage. Judged as a commitment, it is a serious decision. $299 a month for twelve months is $3,588 contracted before you send anything, and there is no free trial and no month-to-month equivalent at the published rate. What tips the arithmetic is the two things you are not paying for separately: the strategist, which would cost more than the plan as an agency retainer, and the OneClick opt-in machinery, which is the only genuinely proprietary thing in the product. If SMS is going to be a named revenue channel for a Shopify brand and the list is the bottleneck, this is well-priced and the commitment is defensible. If SMS is an experiment, a $29 general platform costs a hundredth as much to find out whether your customers will engage at all, and you can move here once the answer is yes.
SimpleTexting
Credit-based monthly subscription, quoted by monthly credit volume. Credits are consumed per message segment. Three user seats included, additional seats and numbers charged separately, carrier fees passed through at cost.
- 500 credits$39
- Higher credit tiersScales with volume
- Annual billing20 percent off
SimpleTexting is priced as a business tool rather than a telecom commodity, and whether that is good value depends entirely on volume. At 500 credits for $39, you are paying roughly 7.8 cents a credit, which is five times what a pay-as-you-go platform charges per message and eight times what an ecommerce platform charges at scale. What you are actually buying is the shared inbox, three included seats, the automation layer, the support, and the fact that unused credits roll over. For a practice or a studio sending a few hundred reminders a month and holding real conversations, that is a fair trade and the total bill stays under $50. For anyone sending tens of thousands of messages, the credit model becomes the most expensive way to buy SMS in this category and you should be looking at per-message pricing instead. The rollover policy and the three included seats are the two structural details that make it competitive at the small end, and they are genuinely better than most rivals offer.
Editorial verdict on each
Recart
Recart is the ecommerce SMS platform to look at when your list is the problem. OneClick opt-in is the only genuinely proprietary technology in this batch, the flows and attribution are competent DTC standard, and bundling a strategist into a $299 plan quietly replaces an agency retainer that would cost more than the software. Per message it is priced close to raw carrier cost, which means the plan fee buys software and service rather than marked-up transport. Two constraints decide whether it belongs on your shortlist. It is Shopify only, absolutely, which removes it from consideration for a large share of ecommerce. And the published price assumes a twelve-month commitment with no free trial, so the real entry decision is $3,588 of contracted spend on a channel you may not yet have proven. If SMS already works for your Shopify brand and growing the subscriber base is where the revenue is being left, this is a well-priced and well-focused purchase. If you are still finding out whether your customers want your texts, spend $29 on a general platform first and come back when you know.
Read the full Recart profileSimpleTexting
SimpleTexting is the sensible default for a small business that wants to text customers and has no interest in becoming a telecom expert. Fifteen years in market, a clean interface a receptionist can use unaided, phone support on every plan, three seats included, free inbound messages, and credits that actually roll over add up to a product that does not fight you. Sinch ownership gives it real carrier infrastructure without an enterprise sales motion. The limits are equally clear. Per-credit economics are poor at volume, there is no ecommerce data model, CRM integration is Zapier-shaped rather than native, and the publicly documented difficulty of porting a number away is a genuine switching cost that deserves weight in the decision. Buy it if you are a practice, a studio, a school, an agency, or a local retailer sending hundreds to low thousands of messages a month with a small team working the replies. Look elsewhere if you are a Shopify store, a CRM-driven sales team, or a high-volume sender chasing the lowest rate per segment.
Read the full SimpleTexting profileRecart profile last reviewed 2026-08-22; SimpleTexting last reviewed 2026-08-22. Pricing is compiled from public sources and can change without notice. See our methodology.