To sell text messaging successfully to clients, you need to design text message service options that make sense alongside your existing pricing model. The most important thing to remember when building your text message pricing structure is the end goal: to create stickier clients who rely on your Klaviyo expertise across both email and text messaging.
As you consider different pricing models, be conscious of your team's expertise with Klaviyo. For example, as your team's Klaviyo knowledge grows and they can complete deliverables faster, a model that only charges based on time to completion may not accurately reflect the market value of your team’s expertise.
1 | Learn and test text message strategies by offering text messaging for free to certain clients.
Before you set your text message pricing structure, you need to know how much it will cost your team in both time and effort. If you have never offered text message services before, we recommend offering these services for free to a few of your best email clients. Pitch it to them as a risk-free revenue generation opportunity, and set a test period for them to use the service. During this test period, your team will implement and manage text messages for them at no cost for a limited time. With a handful of clients willing to test this experience with you, have your team log every task they complete related to text messaging in Klaviyo:
- Notate or record all conversations with your clients to gauge their interests and hesitations regarding text messaging.
- Ask for frequent feedback so you can understand the ideal text message experience for your customers.
- After a few months of tracking and research, you’ll be able to price text messaging for your agency with confidence.
2 | Evaluate your pricing options.
a. Charge a flat fee for text message implementation.
Hourly rates, or time and materials (T&M) contracts, are the most basic way to charge a client for a service. The client agrees to a specific rate of dollars per hour, and then you provide a quote based on how long you expect a project to take. Some clients may want to control their own text message marketing channel, and simply want help getting set up. You may consider creating a text message implementation package and position it as a way to help your clients get text messaging up and running.
Help them with the “heavy lifting” of things like:
- Selecting the right SMS plan and sending number.
- Verifying that all necessary compliance language is included or updated.
- Setting up their text message list and migrating contacts from another text message provider (if applicable).
- Setting up the core text message Welcome Series flow needed for text message list growth.
By following our text message implementation checklist, your team should be able to replicate this business process across many clients within a reasonably standard amount of time. Based on the number of hours and team members it takes to complete the steps, you can decide on a flat fee for text message implementation.
If a client is seeking further strategic guidance around text message use cases and deploying text messaging alongside email, you’ll want to upsell the client into a different pricing package that better reflects your team’s strategic expertise.
b. Sell text messaging as an add-on service.
You may choose to position text message management as an add-on service to your existing packages. This is a relatively simple way to offer a new service without too much pricing complexity. Add text message management as a flat rate to any existing contract.
The downside of this approach is that it does not encourage text message growth, meaning it could shortchange you over the long-term since the cost does not increase based on your text message expertise, or value provided to the client. Additionally, you may see decreasing returns over time as accounts expand their text message strategy while your monthly rate stays flat.
c. Roll text messaging into your existing retainer model and create a new “tier”.
Retainer pricing is one of the most popular models that many agencies use to provide ongoing support to clients. This method is easily scalable and grows with your agency, since you’ll receive a predictable income payment each month for each retainer client. You may already have some sort of tier-based retainer system in which you charge a pre-negotiated monthly fee to the client in exchange for a set number of deliverables or billable hours.
Consider adding a new pricing tier (or a few new tiers) that bundles text message campaigns, flows, and reporting in with email service for a monthly fee. This is the most intuitive way to offer multichannel services to clients since they’re paying one lump sum per month based on total deliverables. The channels you use within the client’s account or the way you allocate team resources can vary month to month, depending on goals and initiatives.
3 | Use our pricing and packaging workbook to help you.
Need help getting started with your text message pricing and packaging? Download our pricing and packaging workbook and use it to craft your new pricing options.