Best Shopify SMS Marketing Apps in 2026 [183,189-Store Study]

TL;DR:

• Only 2.07% of Shopify stores have a dedicated SMS marketing app. That's 3,801 out of 183,189 stores we scanned.
• Postscript SMS leads at 1.23% adoption (2,255 stores). Attentive is second at 0.88% (1,617 stores). No other SMS app registers above 0.01%.
• 95.5% of stores with email marketing still have no SMS. Among Klaviyo users, only 6.7% have added an SMS tool. Among Mailchimp users, just 1.9%.
• Attentive dominates enterprise. At the 200K-1M traffic tier, Attentive has 11.4% penetration vs. Postscript's 5.7%. At 1M-5M, Attentive reaches 21.6%.
• Postscript owns the mid-market. Below 50K monthly visitors, Postscript holds 0.84% adoption vs. Attentive's 0.22%, a nearly 4:1 lead.
• SMS users are better-qualified prospects: 89.2 avg lead score vs. 65.7, 4.6 apps vs. 1.7, and 60% are on Shopify Plus vs. 14% of non-SMS stores.
• Beauty leads SMS adoption at 3.63%. Automotive and Electronics trail below 1%.

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Every "best SMS marketing apps for Shopify" article follows the same script. A vendor writes it, ranks themselves first, cites their own customers' ROI numbers, and calls it objective.

Omnisend publishes a list where Omnisend wins. TxtCart publishes a list where TxtCart wins. Attentive's agency partners recommend Attentive. Postscript's Shopify integration page says Postscript.

What none of them show you: what Shopify stores actually install. Not vendor-claimed customer counts. Not cherry-picked case studies. Actual adoption data across a representative dataset.

We scanned 183,189 Shopify stores and checked every one for SMS marketing app installations. The results are the first independent, data-backed picture of the Shopify SMS market. And the headline finding is stark: almost nobody uses SMS yet.

How We Collected This Data

We detect installed apps by scanning each store's public-facing code: JavaScript globals, script URLs, DOM elements, and tracking pixels. Our scanner identifies 72+ apps across categories like email marketing, reviews, loyalty, support, and more.

Dataset details:

Important caveats:

• We detect apps with client-side footprints. Apps that operate entirely server-side (like Shopify's native SMS features within Shopify Email) may not appear in our data.
• Klaviyo offers built-in SMS alongside email, but since Klaviyo installs primarily as an email marketing tool, we count it separately in the email marketing analysis. The same applies to Omnisend.
• SMSBump was sunset by Yotpo in August 2025, with customers migrated to Omnisend. Our data still detects legacy SMSBump scripts on some stores that haven't fully migrated.
• Adoption percentages are based on detectable installs, not active usage or revenue attribution.

The State of SMS on Shopify: Only 2% Have an App

The most striking finding is how early the SMS market still is.

Compare this to email marketing adoption, where 38% of stores run an email app. SMS adoption is 18x lower than email. The industry talks about SMS as a mature channel, but on Shopify, adoption tells a different story.

That 97.93% gap represents the addressable market for SMS vendors, agencies pitching SMS services, and consultants building marketing stacks. If you sell to Shopify stores and SMS is part of your offering, nearly every store is a prospect.

SMS App Market Share: Postscript vs. Attentive

Only two apps register meaningful adoption numbers. The rest of the market is effectively invisible in our data.

Postscript holds 59% of the detectable SMS market (2,255 of 3,801 stores). Attentive holds 43% (1,617 of 3,801). The percentages exceed 100% because some stores run both apps simultaneously. No other SMS-specific app, including Recart, SMSBump, Sendlane, or Firepush, registered above a handful of installations in our dataset.

This is a two-player market. Everything else either lacks the Shopify integration depth to show up in detections, or has too few installs to be statistically meaningful.

Why Only Two Apps Show Up

Several "SMS apps" frequently recommended in listicles don't appear in our data for specific reasons:

• TxtCart, Emotive, OneText: These either lack client-side script signatures our scanner detects or have negligible Shopify adoption.
• SMSBump/Yotpo SMS: Yotpo shut down their SMS product in August 2025 and migrated customers to Omnisend. Legacy scripts may still appear but new installs have stopped.
• Klaviyo SMS and Omnisend SMS: Both platforms bundle SMS within their email apps. When a store runs Klaviyo, we count it as an email marketing tool because that's its primary category. The same for Omnisend. This means our SMS numbers are conservative: the true number of stores with some SMS capability is higher when counting multi-channel platforms.

Postscript vs. Attentive: How They Split the Market

The overall numbers hide an important pattern. Postscript and Attentive serve fundamentally different segments, and the data makes this clear when you look at traffic tiers.

SMS Adoption by Traffic Tier

SMS adoption scales directly with store size. Stores with over 1M monthly visitors are 23x more likely to have an SMS app than stores under 50K visitors. This is the steepest adoption curve of any app category we track, steeper than reviews, loyalty, or support.

Market Share by Traffic Tier

The crossover happens at the 50K-200K tier. Below that, Postscript has nearly 4x Attentive's penetration. Above it, Attentive pulls away decisively.

What this means for choosing an SMS app:

• Growing stores (under 200K visitors): Postscript is the default choice. Its Shopify-native integration, lower entry pricing, and focus on mid-market brands make it the natural starting point. The data confirms this: it's where the majority of sub-200K SMS adopters land.
• Scaling stores (200K+ visitors): Attentive dominates. At the 200K-1M tier, Attentive's adoption is 2x Postscript's. At 1M-5M, it's 8x. Stores at this scale likely need Attentive's enterprise features: advanced segmentation, AI-powered copy, dedicated account management.

This aligns with what practitioners report. Commerce Caffeine's comparison recommends Postscript for stores doing $10K-$250K/month and Attentive for $250K+. Our data shows real-world adoption following exactly that pattern.

The SMS Gap: 95% of Email Users Don't Have SMS

If you're selling SMS services to Shopify stores, the biggest opportunity isn't competing with other SMS vendors. It's converting email-only stores to email-plus-SMS.

95.5% of stores with an email marketing app have no dedicated SMS tool. That's 58,500 stores that already invest in customer communication but haven't added the channel with 98% open rates and 20-35% click-through rates.

SMS Adoption by Email Platform

Not all email ecosystems adopt SMS equally.

Note: Stores may appear under multiple email platforms if they run more than one, so rows don't sum to the overall email+SMS total.

Klaviyo users are 3.5x more likely to have a separate SMS app than Mailchimp users. This makes sense: Klaviyo positions itself as the hub of a DTC marketing stack, and stores that choose Klaviyo tend to be more sophisticated and more willing to add specialized tools. Mailchimp users skew toward smaller, simpler setups.

But even among Klaviyo's 36,251 stores, 93.3% have no dedicated SMS app. That's 33,840 Klaviyo stores without Postscript, Attentive, or any other SMS-specific tool. Some of these use Klaviyo's built-in SMS (which we can't separately detect), but many likely don't use SMS at all.

Prospecting angle: If you're an agency that implements SMS for Shopify brands, filtering for "Klaviyo stores without Attentive or Postscript" in the StoreInspect dashboard gives you the most qualified prospect list available. These stores already invest in marketing infrastructure and have the budget for additional channels.

Which Email Apps Do SMS Users Pair With?

The co-installation data reveals clear preferences.

Attentive Users (1,617 stores)

Postscript SMS Users (2,255 stores)

Klaviyo is the dominant email partner for both SMS apps, but the intensity differs. 74.2% of Attentive stores run Klaviyo, compared to 56.1% of Postscript stores. This reflects Attentive's enterprise positioning: stores that can afford Attentive (which requires annual contracts and has higher minimums) also tend to choose Klaviyo over cheaper alternatives.

Postscript shows a more diverse email ecosystem. Its users are more likely to pair with Mailchimp (14.6% vs 9.8% for Attentive) or Omnisend (6.4% vs 2.9%). This matches Postscript's broader market: it serves a wider range of store sizes and budgets.

SMS Adoption by Store Category

Not every niche adopts SMS at the same rate. The data shows clear leaders and laggards.

Note: Individual app percentages may sum above the category total because some stores run both Postscript and Attentive.

Beauty leads at 3.63%. This makes sense: beauty brands depend on repeat purchases, product launches, and flash sales, all of which SMS handles well. Beauty also has the highest email marketing adoption at 50%, so it's a category that already invests heavily in direct customer communication.

Baby & Kids is the only category where Attentive leads Postscript. At 1.39% vs 1.01%, Attentive's slight edge suggests that baby/kids brands skew larger and more established, fitting Attentive's enterprise profile. Sports & Fitness and Outdoor & Adventure show similar patterns where Attentive and Postscript are neck-and-neck.

Food & Beverage underperforms relative to its email adoption. In our email marketing study, food and beverage stores showed 44.7% email adoption, yet only 1.86% have a dedicated SMS app. That's one of the widest email-to-SMS gaps. If SMS works for any product type, it's consumables with regular repurchase cycles. This category is ripe for SMS expansion.

SMS Adoption: Shopify Plus vs. Standard

Shopify Plus stores are 8.8x more likely to have an SMS app than standard stores. This is the widest Plus-vs-standard gap of any app category we track. For context, email marketing shows a Plus premium of about 1.7x, and reviews about 1.5x.

The implication: SMS is still a premium-tier feature in the Shopify ecosystem. Stores that invest in Plus (at $2,300/month minimum) are also willing to invest in SMS marketing. Standard plan stores, many of which are smaller and more cost-sensitive, have barely begun adopting SMS.

Are SMS Stores Better Prospects?

If you sell services to Shopify stores, SMS adoption is a strong qualifying signal. Stores with SMS apps look different from the average store across every metric we track.

SMS stores run 2.7x more apps, track 74% more pixels, and score 36% higher on our lead fit score. They're the most sophisticated segment in the Shopify ecosystem. An SMS install signals a store that takes marketing seriously, invests in its tech stack, and has budget.

If you're building prospect lists, filtering for stores with Postscript or Attentive gives you a pre-qualified list of brands that are already investing in customer communication infrastructure.

The Best SMS Marketing Apps for Shopify: Our Rankings

Based on adoption data, market positioning, and co-installation patterns, here are the SMS options ranked by use case.

1. Postscript SMS: Best for Growing Shopify Stores

Postscript is the most-installed dedicated SMS app on Shopify with 2,255 detected stores. It owns the mid-market: stores under 200K monthly visitors choose Postscript over Attentive by nearly 4:1.

Why stores choose Postscript:

• Native Shopify integration (available directly in the Shopify App Store)
• Lower entry pricing than Attentive (pay-as-you-go starting around $25/month plus per-message costs)
• Strong Klaviyo integration (56.1% of Postscript users also run Klaviyo)
• Shopify-specific features: abandoned cart recovery, back-in-stock alerts, shipping notifications
• Self-serve onboarding without requiring an annual contract

Best for: Stores with under 200K monthly visitors, brands on standard Shopify plans, teams that want SMS alongside (not replacing) their existing email platform.

Co-installation profile: 56% pair with Klaviyo, 15% with Mailchimp, 6% with Omnisend.

2. Attentive: Best for Enterprise Shopify Stores

Attentive has 1,617 detected stores and dominates at scale. Above 200K monthly visitors, it holds 2x Postscript's market share. At 1M+, it's essentially the only SMS platform in the data.

Why stores choose Attentive:

• Enterprise-grade features: AI copywriting, advanced segmentation, dedicated account management
• Used by major DTC brands (Attentive reports 8,000+ global brands and $500M+ ARR)
• Deepest analytics and attribution capabilities
• 74.2% of Attentive users pair with Klaviyo, the most email-concentrated SMS audience

Best for: Stores with 200K+ monthly visitors, Shopify Plus brands, stores with dedicated marketing teams who can leverage advanced features.

Trade-offs to consider: Attentive typically requires annual contracts and has been criticized for list portability restrictions. Multiple DTC practitioners have raised concerns about difficulty migrating subscriber lists if you switch providers. The higher minimums also put it out of reach for smaller stores.

3. Klaviyo SMS: Best for All-in-One Simplicity

Klaviyo isn't a dedicated SMS app, but its built-in SMS features make it the path of least resistance for stores already using Klaviyo for email. Since Klaviyo appears on 36,251 stores in our database, its potential SMS reach is massive, even if we can't measure separate SMS activation from our external scans.

Why stores choose Klaviyo SMS:

• Zero additional integration: if you use Klaviyo for email, SMS is one toggle away
• Unified customer profiles: email and SMS data in a single view
• Lower per-message cost than standalone SMS platforms
• No additional vendor relationship or contract to manage

Best for: Stores already on Klaviyo that want to add SMS without adding complexity. Especially effective for stores that don't need Postscript or Attentive's advanced SMS-specific features.

Trade-off: Klaviyo's SMS is secondary to its email product. Dedicated SMS platforms like Postscript and Attentive offer deeper SMS-specific features: conversational commerce, advanced compliance tools, and SMS-native campaign builders.

4. Omnisend SMS: Best for Multi-Channel Consolidation

Omnisend offers email, SMS, and push notifications in a single platform. With 5,520 detected stores, it's the third most popular email/SMS platform, though most of those installs are primarily for email.

After Yotpo sunset its SMS product in August 2025, Omnisend absorbed many former SMSBump customers as the designated migration partner. This likely boosted its SMS user count, though we can't distinguish email-only vs. email+SMS Omnisend users in our data.

Best for: Stores that want one platform for email, SMS, and push notifications. Budget-conscious brands that don't want to pay for a separate SMS tool.

5. Recart, Firepush, Sendlane: Niche Alternatives

These apps appear in listicles but show negligible adoption in our dataset (under 10 stores each for detectable installs). This doesn't necessarily mean they're bad products. It means that at scale, Shopify stores overwhelmingly choose Postscript or Attentive when they want dedicated SMS, or use Klaviyo/Omnisend's built-in SMS when they want simplicity.

Comparison Table: Postscript vs. Attentive vs. Klaviyo SMS vs. Omnisend

How to Choose: A Decision Framework

Based on what the data shows about real adoption patterns:

Choose Postscript if:

• Your store gets under 200K monthly visitors
• You want Shopify App Store installation (simple setup)
• You prefer pay-as-you-go pricing without annual commitments
• You already use Klaviyo or Mailchimp for email and want a dedicated SMS layer

Choose Attentive if:

• Your store gets 200K+ monthly visitors consistently
• You're on Shopify Plus
• You have a dedicated marketing team that can leverage advanced segmentation
• You can commit to an annual contract and higher minimum spend

Choose Klaviyo SMS if:

• You already use Klaviyo for email
• You want to test SMS without adding another vendor
• Simplicity matters more than SMS-specific depth
• You have a small team and can't manage multiple marketing platforms

Choose Omnisend SMS if:

• You want email + SMS + push in one platform
• You're migrating from SMSBump/Yotpo SMS
• Budget is a primary constraint
• You prefer all-in-one over best-of-breed

Prospecting Opportunities for Agencies and SaaS Sellers

The SMS gap creates specific, actionable prospecting angles for people who sell to Shopify stores.

Angle 1: Email Users Without SMS

58,500 stores have email marketing but no dedicated SMS app. Filter your StoreInspect searches by:

• Has Klaviyo or Mailchimp (email app detected)
• Does NOT have Postscript or Attentive
• Traffic tier: 50K+ (stores with budget and audience)

This gives you stores that already invest in marketing, have an audience to text, and haven't adopted SMS yet. Personalize your outreach around the email-to-SMS expansion opportunity.

Angle 2: High-Traffic Stores Without SMS

At the 200K-1M traffic tier, only 16.3% have SMS. That means 83.7% of high-traffic stores, the ones with large audiences and real revenue, haven't adopted SMS. These are the highest-value prospects for Attentive and Postscript implementations.

Angle 3: Category-Specific Gaps

Food & Beverage has 44.7% email adoption but just 1.86% SMS adoption, one of the widest gaps. Consumable brands with regular repurchase cycles are the strongest fit for SMS, yet barely any use it. Similar logic applies to Pets (1.62% SMS), Beauty leads but still has 96.4% headroom, and Health & Wellness at 3.17%.

Angle 4: Postscript-to-Attentive Upgrade

Stores on Postscript that cross the 200K visitor threshold are natural upgrade candidates for Attentive. Our data shows the market naturally shifts at this tier. If you're an Attentive partner agency, filtering for Postscript stores with high traffic gives you a warm lead list.

Attentive Pixel Detection

Beyond app installs, we also detect the Attentive tracking pixel via script signatures. Our pixel detection found:

• 1,720 stores with the Attentive pixel installed (0.94% of all stores)

This slightly exceeds the 1,617 stores detected via app signatures, suggesting some stores run the Attentive pixel through custom integration or tag managers without the standard app install pattern.

How SMS Fits Into the Shopify Tech Stack

SMS doesn't exist in isolation. It's part of a broader marketing tech stack that typically includes email, reviews, loyalty, and support tools. Our tech stack by growth stage analysis shows that SMS is one of the last tools stores add, typically after establishing email marketing, review collection, and sometimes loyalty programs.

The typical adoption sequence based on our data:

1. Email marketing (38% overall adoption): Klaviyo, Mailchimp, or Omnisend
2. Reviews (22% adoption): Judge.me, Yotpo, or Loox
3. Loyalty (8% adoption): Smile.io or Yotpo Loyalty
4. Support (7% adoption): Gorgias or Tidio
5. SMS (2% adoption): Postscript or Attentive

SMS users, with an average of 4.6 installed apps, have typically built out the earlier layers before adding SMS. This makes SMS adoption a strong signal of store maturity and marketing sophistication.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best SMS marketing app for Shopify?

Based on our analysis of 183,189 stores, Postscript SMS is the most popular dedicated SMS app with 2,255 detected installs. For stores under 200K monthly visitors, Postscript leads adoption by a wide margin. For enterprise stores above 200K visitors, Attentive dominates. Klaviyo offers built-in SMS that may be sufficient for stores already on the platform.

How many Shopify stores use SMS marketing?

Only 2.07% of Shopify stores (3,801 out of 183,189) have a dedicated SMS marketing app installed. This number is likely somewhat higher when counting stores using Klaviyo's or Omnisend's built-in SMS features, but the overall adoption rate remains below 5%, making it the least adopted marketing channel on Shopify.

Is Postscript or Attentive better for Shopify?

It depends on your store size. Our data shows Postscript leads among stores under 200K monthly visitors (0.84% vs 0.22% at the sub-50K tier). Attentive dominates above 200K visitors (11.37% vs 5.69% at 200K-1M). The crossover point is roughly 50K-200K monthly visitors, where both apps have similar adoption rates.

Does Shopify have built-in SMS marketing?

Shopify offers basic SMS capabilities through Shopify Email and checkout notifications, but these are limited compared to dedicated SMS platforms. For marketing campaigns, abandoned cart recovery, and subscriber list management, most stores use a third-party SMS app like Postscript, Attentive, or the SMS features built into Klaviyo.

How much does SMS marketing cost for Shopify stores?

Pricing varies by platform. Postscript offers pay-as-you-go pricing starting around $25/month plus per-message costs (typically $0.01-0.05 per SMS). Attentive requires annual contracts with higher minimums, typically starting at $500+/month. Klaviyo includes SMS in its pricing plans with per-message costs. Omnisend bundles SMS credits into its email plans.

Is SMS marketing worth it for ecommerce?

Industry data suggests SMS marketing generates $20-$40 in revenue per $1 spent, with 98% open rates and 20-35% click-through rates. However, our data shows only 2.07% of Shopify stores have adopted dedicated SMS, suggesting most merchants haven't found it essential yet. The stores that do use SMS tend to be larger, more sophisticated, and better-resourced: their average lead fit score is 89 vs. 66 for non-SMS stores.

What is the best free SMS marketing app for Shopify?

There are no widely adopted free SMS marketing apps on Shopify. SMS is inherently pay-per-message since carriers charge for delivery. Postscript offers the lowest entry point among popular options with pay-as-you-go pricing. Klaviyo includes some SMS credits in its free tier, making it the closest to "free" SMS for stores already using the platform.

Should I use Klaviyo SMS or a separate SMS app?

If you already use Klaviyo for email and want to test SMS with minimal setup, Klaviyo's built-in SMS is the fastest path. Our data shows 6.7% of Klaviyo stores also run a dedicated SMS app (Postscript or Attentive), suggesting that most stores either stick with Klaviyo's SMS or don't use SMS at all. Add a dedicated SMS app when you need advanced features like conversational commerce, AI-generated copy, or SMS-specific campaign builders.

Which Shopify niches use SMS marketing the most?

Beauty leads SMS adoption at 3.63%, followed by Health & Wellness at 3.17% and Fashion at 2.79%. Categories with regular repurchase cycles and strong brand loyalty tend to adopt SMS first. Automotive (0.95%) and Electronics (1.03%) trail, likely because their purchase cycles are longer and less suited to SMS-driven urgency.

Do Shopify Plus stores use SMS more than standard stores?

Yes, dramatically. 8.49% of Shopify Plus stores have a dedicated SMS app, compared to 0.97% of standard stores, an 8.8x difference. This is the widest Plus-to-standard gap of any app category we track, making SMS adoption a strong indicator of store maturity and investment level.

What happened to SMSBump on Shopify?

Yotpo, which had acquired SMSBump, shut down its SMS product in August 2025 and migrated customers to Omnisend as the designated partner. Legacy SMSBump scripts still appear on some stores, but new installations have stopped. Stores that previously used SMSBump have largely moved to Omnisend, Postscript, or Attentive.

Key Findings Summary