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SMS ROI Calculator

Your SMS list is leverage. Quantify it.

Open rates of 98% don't lie. SMS converts 7 to 10x better than email per send. The trade-off is per-message cost and the STOP-rate cliff. This calculator quantifies both sides.

98%
Avg SMS open rate
90s
Median time-to-read
7-10x
Conversion vs. email per send
6/mo
Cadence cliff threshold
Estimated Monthly SMS Profit
$0
Net of carrier send cost. List opt-in assumed A2P 10DLC compliant.
0
Sends / Month
$0.00
Profit per send
$0
Annual run rate
Ecommerce DTC

Sets sensible defaults for the five inputs below. Override anything.

18,000

Mobile numbers opted-in to your A2P 10DLC registered list. Cleaned of STOPs and hard bounces.

Industry: 10k-25k
6

Broadcasts per subscriber per month. 4 to 6 is the sweet spot for most lists. Above 8 the cliff bites.

Industry: 4-6 /mo
14%

% of recipients who tap the link. SMS CTR runs 10 to 20x higher than email because the message is in-frame.

Industry: 10-18%
6%

% of clicks that convert to a paid order or booked appointment. Usually 2 to 8% for ecom, higher for service businesses.

Industry: 3-8%
$85 / $0.015
AOV $85
Per send $0.015

Average order value drives revenue. Per-message cost (carrier + provider) varies with your A2P trust score.

AOV: $50-150 · Cost: $0.012-0.020
Revenue per Send
$0.71
Gross revenue produced by one message to one subscriber.
Profit per Send
$0.70
Net of per-message carrier cost. The core unit economic.
Monthly Send Cost
$1,620
Total carrier and provider fees at your current cadence.
Annual Profit Run Rate
$0
Current monthly profit x 12. Excludes any list-growth compounding.
Send Cadence Optimizer (profit by frequency)
Profit curve Optimal cadence STOP-rate cliff
Optimal Cadence 5 / mo
Best send cadence for your list: 5 sends / month. That's where profit-per-month peaks before opt-out attrition starts eating your subscriber base faster than new growth.
A2P
A2P 10DLC Compliance, the part that determines whether you ship. Required to send commercial SMS to US numbers
Carrier Registration Required
Your brand and every campaign must be registered with The Campaign Registry (TCR) and approved by the major US carriers. Unregistered traffic is filtered, throttled, or hard-blocked. Allow 5 to 14 business days. Nirvani handles the filing.
Required Opt-In Language
Every opt-in form needs explicit consent, message frequency disclosure ("msg frequency varies"), msg/data rates language, STOP and HELP instructions, and a link to a public SMS privacy policy. No pre-checked boxes. No bundled consent with email.
Per-Message Cost Varies
Carrier filter score is set by content, consent quality, and historical opt-out rate. A high trust score gets you $0.005 to $0.012 per send. A flagged brand pays $0.025 to $0.04 and gets throttled on top. The trust score is the moat.
How You Stack Against Your Industry
Industry median You
Click-through rate % of recipients tapping the link
14%
Click-to-order conversion % of clickers who purchase
6%
Profit per send Net of carrier cost (higher is better)
$0.71
Profit per subscriber Monthly value of an opted-in number
$4.20
Send frequency Broadcasts per subscriber per month
6 /mo
Sensitivity: which lever moves SMS profit the most?
Modeled against your current inputs
Operator Playbook
1 Register A2P 10DLC before you collect a single number. Brand + campaign approval is the gate. Send unregistered, watch your delivery rate slip to 30% and your trust score get permanently dinged. File first, scrape later.
2 Segment ruthlessly. Broadcasts are a tax on the relationship. A list of 18,000 sent 6 broadcasts a month is one campaign. The same list sent 2 broadcasts plus 4 segmented flows (browse abandon, post-purchase, win-back, VIP) usually nets 2.5x the profit and a third the STOP rate.
3 Build the opt-in page like a conversion landing page. A clean SMS opt-in with a first-purchase discount, transparent expectations (4 msgs/mo, STOP to opt out), and a single CTA beats a checkout-bundled checkbox 4x on opt-in rate and 6x on first-90-day LTV.
4 Monitor STOP-rate weekly. The cliff is real. Healthy lists run 0.3 to 0.6% STOP per send. Above 1.2% is the danger zone, above 2% means carriers will start throttling and your trust score (and per-message cost) start sliding the wrong way. Treat STOP rate like cardiac telemetry.
5 Two-way SMS is where the margin is. One-way broadcasts are direct response. Two-way conversations are sales. The agent on the other end (human or AI) closing the inbound replies often 2 to 4x the broadcast revenue with zero extra send volume.

Free Detailed Report

Get the full SMS audit by email & SMS.

We'll send you a 5-page PDF with your numbers, your industry benchmarks, the three specific cadence and segmentation levers most likely to move your ratio, an A2P 10DLC opt-in template, and a 30-minute strategy slot with the founder if you want one.

This calculator is about A2P, so this consent block is doubly meaningful You're sharing a mobile number with a tool that calculates SMS ROI. We treat your number with the same A2P 10DLC discipline we recommend on this page: single explicit opt-in, single confirmation text, one PDF delivery, optional follow-up only if you ask for the strategy call. STOP works instantly.
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Your SMS audit is on the way.

Check your email for your personalized report (and spam if needed). We'll use your number for follow-up from Nirvani when relevant. Sammy will personally reach out within 24 hours if you flagged the strategy-call option.

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How this calculator works

What formulas drive the numbers?
Five layers, all visible. monthlySends = subscribers x sendsPerMonth. From there: clicks = sends x CTR, orders = clicks x conversion, revenue = orders x AOV, sendCost = sends x perMessageCost. Monthly profit is revenue minus send cost. Profit per send is monthly profit divided by monthly sends, which is the only unit metric you should actually optimize against.
What are the actual A2P 10DLC requirements?
To send commercial SMS to US numbers on a 10DLC long code, you need three things. (1) Brand registration with The Campaign Registry, including legal entity, EIN, vertical, website, and stock ticker if public. (2) Campaign registration, which means describing the use case, sample messages, opt-in flow, and opt-in language. (3) Compliant opt-in pages with explicit consent (no pre-checked boxes), message frequency disclosure, msg/data rates language, STOP and HELP instructions, and a link to a public SMS privacy policy. Carriers also require that marketing consent be unbundled from terms of service and email consent. Missing any of this and your traffic gets filtered.
Why does the profit curve cliff after 6 to 8 sends per month?
Two compounding effects. (1) STOP-rate acceleration: every send above the 6/month line roughly doubles the per-send opt-out rate. Lose 0.5% of subscribers per send, that's 3% per month at 6 sends but compounds to 9% at 12 sends. (2) Click-through fatigue: CTR drops 8 to 12% on each marginal send within the same month. Together they flip the curve from revenue-positive to revenue-negative right around the 8-send mark for most lists. Segmented flows don't count against this budget. Broadcasts do.
How do you handle per-message cost variance?
The calculator takes a per-message cost as input because the answer depends on your trust score, your provider, your message segment length (160 chars = 1 segment, longer messages cost 2 or 3), and the carrier mix in your list. Nirvani's blended cost for our customers is currently $0.013 to $0.018 per send including MMS. If you're paying above $0.025 your trust score needs remediation before you scale sends. Per-message cost can swing total profit by 30% without any change in send volume.
Should I include flows (browse abandon, win-back) in this calculation?
No. This calculator models broadcasts only. Triggered flows have completely different economics (much higher CTR and CVR, near-zero opt-out drag) because they're sent at the moment of intent. Flows usually generate 35 to 55% of SMS revenue from less than 15% of sends. Model broadcasts here for honest comparison, layer flows on top in your detailed report.
How accurate are the industry benchmarks?
Defaults blend public SMS benchmark reports (Postscript State of SMS, Attentive Benchmarks Report, Klaviyo SMS Index) with Nirvani's own deploy data across 200+ A2P 10DLC registered campaigns. They're medians, not means. Your numbers will vary by region, niche, and list source quality. If your actuals beat the benchmarks, your actuals are the truth. Benchmarks only set the slider defaults.