You’ve set up your Shopify store. You’re getting traffic. At some point, every growing brand hits the same question: where should I invest my marketing budget, email or SMS?
Both channels are strong in their own way. Both give you direct access to your audience, without relying on changing algorithms. But they don’t work the same way. They have different costs, different strengths, and they perform differently depending on your brand, your customers, and your goals.
So it’s not really about choosing one over the other. It’s about understanding when to use each, and how they can work together.
Let’s break it down.
Why Email Marketing Still Matters on Shopify
Email has been at the core of eCommerce marketing for more than twenty years, and there’s a reason it’s stuck around. It continues to deliver some of the highest returns for Shopify brands, with most benchmarks showing anywhere from $36 to $42 earned for every dollar spent.
What Email Does Best
Volume and Depth
Email gives you space to actually communicate. You can walk someone through a story, highlight an entire product range, add video previews, link to blog content, and include multiple calls to action in one message. For brands that sell more complex or considered products like furniture, skincare routines, or B2B tools, this matters. Customers can take their time, go through the details, and make a more informed decision.
Segmentation and Personalisation at Scale
Shopify connects easily with tools like Klaviyo, Omnisend, and Shopify Email. With these, you can group your audience based on what they’ve bought, what they’ve browsed, where they’re located, or how engaged they are. Someone who already bought running shoes shouldn’t get the same message as someone who just looked at them and left. That level of targeting is what drives real results.
Automation That Runs on Autopilot
Welcome emails, abandoned cart reminders, post-purchase follow-ups, win-back campaigns, birthday offers, these are the quiet drivers of revenue for most successful Shopify stores. Once they’re set up, they keep running in the background around the clock, without extra effort or cost for every send.
Cost Efficiency
Most email platforms charge a monthly fee based on how many subscribers you have, not how many emails you send. So if you have a list of 20,000 people, you might be paying somewhere between $150 and $300 a month while sending as many campaigns as you want. That makes email especially cost-effective when you’re working with a large audience.
Where Email Falls Short
Email doesn’t reach everyone. On average, only about 20 to 40 percent of your list will open any given campaign, which means a large chunk of your audience never even sees it. Between crowded inboxes, spam filters, and emails getting buried in the promotions tab, it’s easy for messages to get missed.
This becomes a real problem when timing matters. If you’re running a short flash sale or restocking a product that sells out quickly, email alone often isn’t fast or direct enough to get the message across in time.
Why SMS Marketing Is Gaining Ground on Shopify
SMS feels like the newer player, but it’s quickly proving its value. The numbers speak for themselves. Open rates usually fall somewhere between 85 and 98 percent, and most messages are read within just a few minutes of being received.
There’s no algorithm to fight against and no spam folder to worry about. It’s a direct line straight to your customer’s phone, which makes it one of the fastest ways to get their attention.
What SMS Does Best
Immediacy and Urgency
SMS is easily the fastest way to reach your customers. A message about a flash sale, a limited-time offer, or a restock goes straight to their phone and gets seen almost right away. When timing is tight, SMS makes sure people actually get the message while it still matters.
High-Intent Audiences
People don’t hand over their phone numbers lightly. If someone signs up for your SMS list, it usually means they really want to hear from you. That’s why SMS subscribers tend to be more engaged and more likely to spend compared to the average customer.
Transactional Trust
Texts for things like shipping confirmations, order updates, and delivery alerts feel normal to customers. In fact, they expect it. These messages help build trust and cut down on support questions, which quietly improves the overall customer experience.
Conversational Commerce
SMS also gives you a chance to have actual conversations. With tools like Postscript, Attentive, or Yotpo SMS, customers can reply to your messages. They might ask about sizing, check availability, or get product suggestions. That kind of back-and-forth, in real time, often leads to higher conversions, especially for brands in fashion and beauty.
Where SMS Falls Short
The biggest downside of SMS is the cost. Unlike email, where you pay a flat monthly fee, SMS is usually charged per message. In the US, that can range from $0.01 to $0.05 per text, and it’s often higher for international audiences. If you’re sending a campaign to 50,000 subscribers, that can quickly add up to anywhere between $500 and $2,500 for a single send.
There’s also the issue of consent and regulations. SMS marketing is tightly controlled, with laws like TCPA in the US and GDPR in Europe. You need clear permission before messaging someone, and if they choose to opt out, you have to respect that right away. Getting this wrong can lead to serious legal trouble and damage your brand’s reputation.
On top of that, people are less forgiving with texts. If messages start to feel intrusive, they’ll unsubscribe quickly. And once someone opts out of SMS, it’s much harder to win them back compared to email.
Head-to-Head: Key Metrics Compared
| Metric | SMS | |
| Average Open Rate | 20–40% | 85–98% |
| Average CTR | 2–5% | 10–20% |
| Cost Per Send | Low (flat monthly fee) | Higher (per message) |
| Best Use Case | Nurturing, storytelling, automation | Flash sales, alerts, urgency |
| List Build Difficulty | Moderate | Higher (more trust required) |
| Regulatory Risk | Moderate | Higher |
| Personalisation Depth | Very High | Moderate |
| Automation Capability | Excellent | Good |
The Real Answer: Use Both, in a Strategic Way
The stores that generate the most revenue on Shopify aren’t choosing between email and SMS. They’re using both, in a way that plays to the strengths of each channel.
Use Email for things like:
• Welcome flows and educational content
• Product launches where you want to tell a full story
• Loyalty program updates and post-purchase follow-ups
• Browse abandonment and re-engagement campaigns
Use SMS for things like:
• Cart abandonment, especially for higher-value carts
• Flash sales and time-sensitive offers
• Back-in-stock alerts and shipping updates
• VIP promotions and event reminders
When you use them together like this, each channel supports the other instead of competing for attention.
Choosing the Right Tools on Shopify
For Email:
- Klaviyo — Gold standard for data-driven Shopify stores, with deep segmentation and predictive analytics.
- Omnisend — Bundles email and SMS in one platform; ideal for a unified view.
- Shopify Email — Solid starting point for early-stage stores that want simplicity without extra cost.
For SMS:
- Postscript — Purpose-built for Shopify with strong compliance tools and segmentation.
- Attentive — Best for larger brands with bigger budgets and enterprise needs.
- Yotpo SMS — Integrates neatly with Yotpo’s reviews and loyalty ecosystem.
Key Takeaway
If you’re just getting started and need to pick one, go with email. It’s easier to see returns early on, it’s more forgiving to learn, and the automation side of it helps you build a steady revenue base without increasing your costs each time you send a campaign.
Once your store is bringing in consistent sales and you’ve built a solid list, usually around 1,000 or more engaged subscribers, that’s a good time to add SMS. Use it for the moments that really need speed and attention. If you handle it carefully and don’t overdo it, it can become one of your strongest revenue drivers.
The brands that do well with both aren’t doing more for the sake of it. They’re using each channel where it makes the most sense, reaching the right customer at the right time. That’s what separates stores that are growing from the ones that are truly scaling.
If you’re looking to put this into action, we can help. As Shopify experts and a Plus Partner, we work with brands to turn strategies like this into real, measurable growth.
