Whitelabel SMS Providers are not created equal - review

Hello everyone,

I just spent the past two weeks researching many different Whitelabel SMS Providers, and I have learned a lot. Not all Whitelabel programs are created equal. The one thing I learned is you have to look at what it will cost you 6 months down the road, when you have 30 or 40 businesses under your belt. Upfront costs will lure you in to a price trap and all kinds of surprises. Let me tell you what I found:

Trumpia - Bad experience. The people that run this company are technology dealers. They acted like I was wasting there time. I looked at the platform, and I liked it, but the cost to get started was way to high. They seem to think that everyone has $$$ to dish out and buy large quantities of credits that you may have to sit on for a few months... and if you don;t sell them, then they still win. The platform and features are nice, and it seems to be user friendly, but the staff are not... so, I passed.

Lime Cellular - The people here are nice, and the platform is user friendly. They have many features and it seems as though the people running it are keeping up with the times - mobile and social integration... but they have a few gotcha's. Pricing is easy on the eyes for all levels of doing business when starting up, but the long run will cost ya. I will explain better below. However, out of all the companies that I checked out, this one came in second. One thing that was disappointing is NO BILLING for the entry level system. You have to bill your clients on your own.

First Place: Avid Mobile - Mark was very helpful from day one. Very straight forward and answered all of my questions and concerns. To get started with Avid, it costs just a bit more only for the first month, but there business model is very well though out. You DO NOT need to buy any credits. You only get billed for what you use. This was a wonderful feature. This way, I am not paying for 5000 credits, if I only needed 2500, I didnt just throw 2500 worth of "paid for" credits down the drain. They also do not charge you for Keywords, and trust me, you will be using way more than 5 keywords on a client. Its really nice to have unlimited keywords to use, but even better, is their billing system allows you to charge for them. One thing I do not like about the Avid system however, is they don't seem to provide a client login screen that allows your clients to login without the AvidMobile logo when you are on the entry level program - Tier 1, as its called. I created an iFrame and embedded the login form but it displays the AvidMobile Logo. They provide a custom URL for each of your clients, but the link in the browser says Avidmobile... so that simply wont work either. So, white label seems to not be so white label for the entry level program, unless I missed something. I do have a support ticket entered on this, and if I find this feature to be different than what I am reporting here, I will make an edit. And, the billing - it seems that you have to use a 3rd party service (not paypal) to do your billing. So, it would seem that I will be doing all of my billing through my own software because the company they use - WOW! Way to much! Other than this, I was impressed by the level of support this company provides and everyone that I have spoken to seems to be interested in helping you succeed, AS THEY SHOULD! because obviously, if I am succeeding and making money then so are they.

So, here is what it comes down to: Price and Profit---

I am going to base both of these off of the premise that I have 5 clients, each using 3000 credits per month and each with 10 vanity keywords on the entry level system, with Premium Mobile Websites creator enabled. Anything above 5 clients, and you should go ahead and move up to the next level so you can get credits cheaper.

Lime Cellular: Base Price: $187/Month Includes 5000 Credits
Purchase of 10,000 more credits: $190 ($.019 each)
Purchase of 25 additional keywords: $50
Purchase of 5 accounts: $20 ($4 for each account)
Total Operating Expense: $447.00 on the Entry Level Program

AvidMobile: Base Price: $116/Month
Purchase of 15000 credits: $255 ($.017 Each)
All Keywords are included: $0
Purchase of 5 accounts: $20 ($4 for each account)
Total Operating Expense: $391.00 on the Entry Level Program

Now, I don't know about you... but that's a savings of $56! Sure, I know that Lime can argue that you should be on the Premium Tier... but that's just under $500... so still, where would the savings be!

So, these figures may change at anytime, and I believe they all represent the correct amounts at the time of this posting. I got the prices from the emails sent from each company.

Now, I am not taking anything away from Lime Cellular - they have a nice platform and great features, but I just found that no matter how I sliced it, I could not beat the prices of AvidMobile.

One thing I was really dispappointed about with both companies is neither provides a whitelabel demo that you can show clients before you buy into the package. The only reason I wanted this was because I really wanted to show it to some of my existing clients for my email marketing, and see what kind of a response I got. I wanted to see what the market was going to be like before I spent any money buying something that I was not going to be able to sell. Well, I can say... ALL of my customers are very interested! I just bought the entry level program and in just 3 hours, I have 2 clients PAYING!

I want to also say that I DO NOT WORK FOR OR REPRESENT either Lime Cellular or Avid Mobile! But I will say, don;t just take my word for it! If you are going into business - you should do your homework, because if you are not willing to do a little research and investigating on your own, then you simply should not be in business.

Please, I welcome comments and corrections, and please tell me what you found. This report is simply my opinion and the facts as I perceive them.

EDIT: One additional thing I want to mention - If you move up to the Premium tier at Lime Cellular, you can reduce your price to $297 and that will include 15,000 credits and the Premium Mobile Websites. This would be less than Avid. However, If I moved up the the next tier at Avid, it would cost me less for text credits also. I do not have the pricing for Avid at the next level, so I can not compare them... I can only state the price level that I am at now, and the cost of starting up on the entry level programs. Maybe someone can provide some insight as to what it would cost on the Premium levels using the same details as I used about.

Either way, Lime seems to be a technology company - meaning that they sell based on offering a lot of bells and whistles, some of which most of my customers will never use. Avid seems to be more of a sales company, and to state the obvious again, I really do not care how much technology you have, if you can't sell it.. who cares. Both companies are great companies, and either would be a fine choice... but I went with Avid because of the level of support I was given.