SMS and WhatsApp marketing platforms
Asked as “SMS marketing platform”, and as “text message and WhatsApp marketing tool”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B software company. 52 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, six models each. Added to the September 2026 Edition; its answers are read by the distilled judge (ai-indexes-judge-qwen3-14b), not the claude-opus-5 judge of the earlier categories: how the two compare.
Standing · first-choice share
17%
Contested · Salesmsg 13%
17Customer.io13Salesmsg10Brevo60others
17% of first choices, contested.
The standing
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all six models, for a mid-market B2B software company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrantSince September 2026
Show the four products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
The floor is 12 points of share, measured: how far the models move a leader on their own when the same questions are asked twice with nothing changed. A larger change is movement; a smaller one is noise, and both are shown. How the floor is measured
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its product page.
Recommended versus criticized
Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.
Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
01S02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative30%
Key
01Customer.io17%
Customer.io17%02Salesmsg13%
03Brevo10%
Brevo10%04Textedly10%
Textedly10%05Twilio6%
Twilio6%06EZ Texting6%
EZ Texting6%07SimpleTexting4%
SimpleTexting4%08SlickText4%
SlickText4%09WATI4%
WATI4%10TextMagic4%
TextMagic4%11Bird2%
Bird2%12Sinch2%
Sinch2%13Respond.io2%
Respond.io2%14Klaviyo SMS0%
Klaviyo SMS0%15Attentive0%
Attentive0%16Omnisend0%
Omnisend0%17Postscript0%
Postscript0%What they warned about
A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
Klaviyo SMS16%
4 of 25 labels negative · 4 of 6 models
“Excellent for running unified segments across email and SMS campaigns, though WhatsApp integration is more recent.” MiniMax M2.5, paraphrase prompt
Postscript25%
3 of 12 labels negative · 3 of 6 models · 2 hard negative
“Frequent 2024–2026 reviews cite undelivered messages while charging, $500/mo platform fees... support declines, auto-renew traps, and refund denials.” Grok 4.20, negative prompt
WhatsApp100%
2 of 2 labels negative · 2 of 6 models · 2 hard negative
“unofficial or modified WhatsApp apps (such as GBWhatsApp, WhatsApp Plus, or automation scripts on the consumer app)” Muse Glimmer 30B, negative prompt
Whatso
100%
2 of 2 labels negative · 2 of 6 models · 2 hard negative
“This platform has received reviews describing "worst support & fraud" with support that is "NEVER AVAILABLE"” Claude Haiku 4.5, negative prompt
What they cite
Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: fourteen of the six in this edition.
Sites the answers cite
79 of 84 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 14 of 6 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 1152 links across 278 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.
vendor site · Salesmessage38 answers · 45 citations · 13 models
30 answers · 39 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Sinch27 answers · 29 citations · 12 models
vendor site · Sender27 answers · 27 citations · 11 models
vendor site · Twilio24 answers · 37 citations · 10 models
24 answers · 34 citations · 11 models
21 answers · 22 citations · 12 models
vendor site · Attentive20 answers · 22 citations · 11 models
vendor site · Infobip20 answers · 20 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Guideflow19 answers · 19 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Zapier18 answers · 18 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Rework17 answers · 22 citations · 9 models
Pages the answers cite
The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.
33 answers · 11 models
26 answers · 11 models
25 answers · 11 models
22 answers · 9 models
18 answers · 9 models
18 answers · 9 models
17 answers · 9 models
17 answers · 9 models
15 answers · 8 models
15 answers · 10 models
Search against answers
Each company's standing in the answers beside its site's footprint in Google search, one row a site: the products the models named on it with their shares, and the share they add up to; monthly searches on Google, and DataForSEO's estimate of AI search demand (modeled from search signals, directional, not a count of queries to any assistant), for the most-searched of the company's and its products' names (the name is in each row's hover text); estimated monthly organic visits to the site; and its best position in Google's top ten for “best sms marketing platform”, “sms marketing platform”. US estimates from DataForSEO and Google's Ads Transparency Center. A small company's site, or a mid-sized company's site for its flagship, is marked company; a product on a large parent's site (Google, Microsoft) has no site figures. A column with no figures for this category is left out, and an empty cell means none were seen, not none exist. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
| Company and products | Share | Own site cited | Name searches, Google | AI search demand, est. | Organic visits | Paid search a month, est. | Google ads, last 30 days | Best Google position |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Customer.io customer.io | 17% | 187 | 2,900 | 174 | 15,750 | $6,920 | 112 | |
| Salesmsg | 13% | 2,400 | 4 | |||||
| Brevo brevo.com | 10% | 386 | 40,500 | 327 | 81,741 | $17,847 | 106 | |
| Textedly textedly.com | 10% | 79 | 8,100 | 46 | 155,557 | $3 | 45 | |
| Twilio twilio.com | 6% | 153 | 135,000 | 4,343 | 1,028,633 | $935 | 113 | |
| EZ Texting eztexting.com | 6% | 61 | 14,800 | 190 | 50,414 | $123 | 90 | |
| Heymarket heymarket.com | 6% | 12 | 1 | |||||
| Textla textla.com | 6% | 13 | ||||||
| SimpleTexting simpletexting.com | 4% | 116 | 18,100 | 66 | 110,549 | $1,355 | 76 | |
| SlickText slicktext.com | 4% | 88 | 5,400 | 49 | 168,404 | $20 | 34 | 3 |
Google's top ten for the two searches hold 14 sites; 4 of them are among the sites the models cited here (g2.com, guideflow.com, salesmessage.com, zapier.com). The first result for “best sms marketing platform” is zapier.com.
How they answered
Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.ShowHide
How they answered
Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ShowHideModelDirect“What is the best SMS marketing platform for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which text message and WhatsApp marketing tool would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top SMS and WhatsApp marketing platforms and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best SMS marketing platform for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating an SMS marketing platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which SMS and WhatsApp marketing platforms should I avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Opus 5no first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Claude Opus 4.8no first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
GPT-6 Astrano first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
GPT-5.6 Solno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.1 Prono first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Perplexity Sonar Prono first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against
The record
One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Zero rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
| Prompt | Model | Version string | Time (UTC) | Searched | Sources | Latency |
|---|
Normalization in this category
Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.
ShowHide
Category-scoped readings
HubSpot read as HubSpot Marketing Hub
HubSpot (SMS tools) read as HubSpot Marketing Hub
Klaviyo read as Klaviyo SMS
Klaviyo (SMS add-on) read as Klaviyo SMS
Unresolved, counted raw
Ameyo
BulkSMS
CW (Customer Wellness)
Charles
Emotive.io
Engage
GB WhatsApp
GBWhatsApp
GetItSMS.com
Getgabs
HubSpot SMS
HubSpot's own SMS
HubSpot’s WhatsApp Connect
Indigitall
Kaleyra
Klavyio
MailCon
Nexmo (Vonage)
NovoChat
Puppeteer-based tools
Route Mobile
Saasyto.com
Salesforce Mobile Studio
TimelinesAI
Trengo
Twilio
Twilio_Sms_Messaging
TxtImpact
Upland Mobile Commons
WA-Online
WA-Web
WAppblaster
Whale WA Sender
Whapi
WhatsApp Bulk Sender
Yotpo SMS
Yotpo SMSBump
whatsapp-web.js
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.