Adding SMS to your business phone number

Business SMS allows you to send and receive text messages using your professional phone number. At LastWorker, inbound SMS messages are free to receive. Outbound messages cost $0.03 per segment. You can manage these conversations through a shared inbox alongside your email and live chat. This system ensures your personal number stays private while providing customers a fast way to reach you.

I have spent eighteen years in the trenches of service businesses. I remember the dental practice I worked with where we had eleven front desks. Each desk had a phone, but only one of those phones was usually the main line. When a patient wanted to change an appointment, they called. If the line was busy, they left a voicemail. I have watched good leads die in a voicemail box because the staff simply could not return the calls fast enough.

The problem was not the staff. The problem was the medium. A phone call is a synchronized event. Two people must be available at the exact same second to have a conversation. Texting is different. It is asynchronous. A patient can text about a cleaning while they are sitting in a meeting, and a receptionist can reply between checking in other patients.

Why do customers prefer texting over calling?

Most people do not want to talk on the phone anymore. I saw this shift clearly during my time managing a two-location restaurant group. On a Friday night, the phones would ring off the hook with people asking for the wait time or trying to change a reservation. Each call took at least sixty seconds. By the time the host answered, checked the book, and confirmed the details, a line had formed at the front door.

If those people could have sent a text, the host could have looked at the screen, typed a quick reply, and kept the line moving. It is less intrusive for the customer and more efficient for the business. Customers like it because it is low friction. They can send a message and go about their day. They do not have to sit on hold listening to elevator music.

In my experience, the response rate for a text message is significantly higher than for an email or a voicemail. When I was writing phone scripts at 2am for our dental office, I was trying to find the perfect words to get people to call us back. The reality is that the words mattered less than the method. A simple "Are you still coming in at 3pm?" via text gets an almost immediate "Yes" or "No."

How much does business SMS actually cost?

Pricing for business tools is usually a maze of tiers and seat counts. I have looked at twelve different tools in this market, and most of them want a monthly commitment before you send a single message. Front charges $25 per seat per month. Zendesk starts at $19 per agent. If you have a team of five people, you are paying $95 to $125 every month just for the right to log in.

LastWorker does not have a subscription fee or a per-seat fee. You can have unlimited teammates in the shared inbox for free. The costs are tied to what you actually use. A business phone number costs $1 per month. Inbound SMS messages are free. Outbound SMS messages cost $0.03 per segment.

This model is much closer to how I prefer to run a business. I do not like paying for "seats" that might only get used a few times a week. I would rather pay for the actual messages we send to our customers. If we have a slow month and send fewer texts, our bill reflects that. It is predictable and fair.

What exactly is a text message segment?

I had to learn what a segment was the hard way. Most people assume that one text message equals one charge. That is not how the global carrier system works. A segment is a technical unit of measurement. One segment is typically 160 characters. If you write a long message that is 161 characters, the carrier counts that as two segments.

There is another detail that often trips people up: special characters. Standard English letters use a specific type of encoding. If you use a single emoji, like a "thumbs up" or a "smiley face," the encoding for the entire message changes. This drops the character limit per segment from 160 down to about 70.

I once worked with a shop owner who sent a very long, emoji-filled update to his entire customer list. He was surprised when his bill was higher than expected. It is because that one message was actually four or five segments. At $0.03 per segment, a long text might cost $0.09 or $0.12. It is still cheap, but it is important to understand the math behind it.

Why is inbound SMS free?

Many providers charge for both incoming and outgoing messages. They see every bit of data as a chance to add a fee. We decided to make inbound SMS free because we do not think you should be penalized when a customer reaches out to you.

When I was running operations, I wanted as many leads as possible. If a hundred people text the business to ask about services, that is a good thing. You shouldn't have to worry about the cost of receiving those inquiries. You only pay the $0.03 when you decide to send a message back. This keeps the cost of lead generation low.

In eight of the twelve tools I reviewed, there is some form of a free tier, but they usually come with heavy restrictions. Zoho Desk’s free version does not even include live chat. HubSpot limits you to two users. By keeping our core tools free and only charging for the actual carrier costs of SMS and phone calls, we allow businesses to scale without hitting a pricing wall.

Can I use AI to answer my text messages?

AI is off by default at LastWorker. I am a firm believer that a human should be in control of the conversation unless there is a very good reason otherwise. In the dental practice, I wouldn't have wanted an AI trying to diagnose a toothache over text. However, for a simple question like "What is your address?" or "What are your hours?", an AI can be very helpful.

If you choose to turn AI on for a channel, it costs $0.04 per generated reply. This only applies if the AI actually writes a response. If a human jumps in and answers the text, there is no AI charge. You are just paying the $0.03 for the outbound segment.

This allows you to use automation where it makes sense. If you get the same five questions every day, the AI can handle them for four cents a piece. That is much cheaper than paying a staff member to type the same sentence for the thousandth time. But the choice is always yours. Nothing is generated or charged unless you specifically enable it.

How do I manage texts without a per-seat fee?

The standard way software companies make money is by charging for "seats." This was always a point of friction for me. In my dental practice with eleven front desks, I had people who only worked two days a week. I had part-time students and full-time managers. Paying $25 a month for every single person who might need to glance at a customer message adds up fast.

With LastWorker, the shared inbox is free. You can add every person on your team. You can add the owner, the manager, the receptionists, and the technicians. There is no credit card required to start using the shared inbox, contacts, tickets, or the knowledge base.

When a text message comes in, it appears in that shared inbox. Anyone on the team can see it and respond. This prevents the "silo" problem where one person has all the information on their personal cell phone. I have seen employees leave a company and take all their customer conversations with them because they were texting from their own device. Using a business number for $1 a month keeps all that data inside the business where it belongs.

Is two-way texting right for every business?

I have to be honest: texting is not a cure-all. There are times when you need to pick up the phone. If a customer is angry about a billing error, a text can sometimes feel cold or dismissive. If you are discussing a complex project that requires a lot of nuance, a phone call is usually faster than sending twenty texts back and forth.

But for the vast majority of daily interactions, SMS is the superior tool. It is the best way to confirm appointments, send quick updates, or answer simple questions. I have watched businesses grow simply because they made it easier for people to talk to them.

The shops I worked with that adopted texting saw an immediate drop in "no-shows." We would send a text reminder twenty-four hours before an appointment. Because it was on their phone, people actually saw it. They didn't have to listen to a voicemail. They just tapped "Reply" and confirmed.

Setting this up shouldn't be expensive or complicated. You get a number for a dollar. You pay three cents to send a message. You receive messages for free. That is the kind of math that makes sense when you are trying to run a profitable business.