SMS vs MMS vs iMessage: What's the Difference?

Text messaging has continued to increase in popularity. Mobile users in the United States sent 2.2 trillion SMS or MMS messages during 2020, up from 1.5 trillion messages in 2017, according to Pew Research.

Not only are mobile phone users sending messages, your customers like to receive text messages from businesses as well. Consider the following SMS marketing statistics:

Read on to learn more about your options—SMS vs MMS vs iMessage—and how you can meet your customer’s needs when you start sending text messages to them.

SMS is another term for text message. What does SMS mean? The letters in this acronym stand for Short Message Service. SMS is one of the oldest messaging technologies and was first offered in the 1980’s. This is what is commonly referred to as texting.

MMS stands for Multimedia Messaging Service. MMS messaging allows you to dress up your text messages with file types like GIF, PNG, JPG, MP3, and MP4. This service is currently supported by all numbers in the United States, but inconsistently in other countries. It’s best to verify if MMS is supported in the country where your audience resides before sending MMS messages, so you don’t waste time and money.

Although SMS and MMS are both text message formats, there are several differences between SMS vs MMS messaging. These include:

There are a variety of messaging apps including iMessage, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and WeChat. All these messages rely on the internet, instead of a cellular network, to send their messages. And the recipient must have the same app downloaded and activated on their phone to receive the message.

One exception to this is iMessage, the standard iPhone messaging application. When an iPhone user sends a message from their iMessage app to an Android phone user, the message is automatically converted to SMS. And SMS messages sent from an Android phone to an iPhone are received as SMS through the cellular service as well.

iPhone users may ask this question when they receive SMS messages from an Android device. The SMS is an indication that the message was received over the cellular network instead of over Wi-Fi.

When sending message from an iPhone, the mobile user has the option to send their messages as SMS or as iMessage. If both options are enabled on the device, the phone typically defaults to iMessage unless it’s not on Wi-Fi. Then some mobile plan data is used.

Due to the differences between SMS vs MMS, there may be times when you’re creating an SMS message and realize you need the additional character count or want to include media in your message. This is when you might choose to switch from SMS to MMS.

The process may vary slightly based on the phone and messaging app you are using. With an Android smartphone, take the following steps to switch an undelivered message from SMS to MMS:

When sending text messages for your business, it’s best to select a messaging service offering both SMS and MMS along with the ability to effortlessly switch between the two as needed.

Not only is personal text messaging increasing in popularity, but business-to-consumer (B2C) text messaging is on the rise too. Global business messaging traffic hit 2.7 trillion in 2020, up 10% from 2019, according to Juniper Research. And the same report showed that 98% of all mobile business messaging would be SMS in 2020.

What types of messages do consumers want to receive from businesses? Being a successful entrepreneur or small business owner requires that you understand how to effectively reach and communicate with customers. The top three SMS text message types customers say they want to receive are: updates on their shipping & tracking for products (75%), order status and confirmations (65%), and scheduling reminders (46%). If any of these are relevant to your business, this is where you’ll want to focus your messaging efforts as you get started.

Before you kick off a text marketing campaign, be sure to review our Business Text Messaging Guide, to learn about the do’s and dont’s of business text messaging. As an added bonus, you can help ensure your communications are always seen as professional by checking out and following the advice in our article on business etiquette.

Now that you know the basic differences between SMS and MMS, and which types of messages customers want to receive, you should also understand how to choose between SMS vs MMS when sending marketing messages.

The benefits of using SMS messages for small business marketing include:

The disadvantages of SMS messages for business include:

The advantages of using MMS messages for business include:

The downsides of MMS for business messaging are:

Businesses are using SMS for various types of customer communication. These include marketing, customer support, and transactional messages. To help you determine whether to use MMS vs SMS for business, here are some examples of how each of these are being used by businesses.

SMS uses include:

MMS message uses include:

As you can see, when greater engagement is needed or the message needs to be longer, MMS is often used. But when it is a simple direct communication with a customer, SMS is preferred. The main consideration when selecting the best message format for communicating with your customers are the preferences of your target audience.

Text messaging continues to increase in popularity for both personal and business communications. Now that you know the differences between SMS vs MMS vs iMessage, you’re ready to start sending SMS for business. Refer to the examples above and consider your target audience’s preferences when deciding which type of message to use—SMS vs MMS.

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