TextMagic Review

Detailed Reviews

Do you want to send bulk messages to your colleagues? Or you are a company that wants to send service updates to your customers via SMS?

In both these scenarios, it is challenging to do such things via local service providers. On top of that, most phones do not support bulk messaging.

To resolve our issues, we need to use a tool known as Bulk SMS service. With this tool, we can not only send messages to tons of people but also organize them accordingly and schedule them accordingly.

Pros:

• Easy to send messages just like you send from your phones.
• Allows sending simple message, text to speech, and voice broadcast from one place.
• Bulk messaging using lists of many contacts.
• Advanced scheduling options to send messages as you want.
• Chat type interface for following up messages and surveys.
• Template button to add message template and select them to send messages quickly.
• Lookup services for mobile numbers and Emails.
• Report generation to view the campaign and generate leads from messages.
• Available on web, OS, and mobile apps.

Cons:

• Confusing pricing method and high charges per message.
• Limited Integrations.
• Does not give support in many Asian and African countries.
• The attachment method uses a cloud URL and so no MMS service.
• Needs better export formats and UI.
• The desktop interface is not that competitive compared to mobile and cloud version.
• The reports are cluttered on cloud as well as in the exported CSV format.

Overview

Among such services, we have come across one of the products called TextMagic. Headquartered in Harju, Estonia; this company was founded in 2001 with a view to ease the businesses in organizing their SMS services.

Currently, this company has its operation from the UK. They have given support for over 200 countries where you can send SMS. Not only that, but users can also create their own phone number and use call forwarding to avoid spams.

There are many additional features added by TextMagic other than mere Bulk SMS. Let’s examine them and then see the true worth of this tool.

Where to start?

Before we start pointing for features in TextMagic, we need to make sure to grasp its functions and procedure to use it. To do that, we need an account and then use all features.

Head to the main website of TextMagic and go to login button. They gave given a generous trial version for free as well as pro users to test all features in it.

There is an area limit for the trial version, and so you will need to check if your country and area are supported or not. This is a significant restriction on the reach of software which needs to be patched by the developers.

If you are unable to use it from your area, you can use a VPN to change the area and then register for a free trial. Once you do that, you will be asked to select features wanted in your account.

By default, the trial mode comes with some base credits and all features unlocked. On the main screen, users can see a list of all features given by TextMagic.

Modify the account settings if necessary. To register a new mobile number, you need some credits in your account, and that won’t be possible for free users. They can give free numbers, but then it will get more misuse from malicious users.

There are also reports section which we will discuss later in this review. From the looks, it seems like a novice-friendly UI, but let’s see features for advanced users and businesses in it.

Features

When it comes to opening with the messaging services, we need to take care of using correct number and settings involved in it.

There are other sub-features involved in TextMagic like chats, email messaging, lookup services, templates generation, and so on. For this, we will examine them one by one separately.

Let Us Compose Some Messages!

The main aim of bulk SMS software is to compose multiple messages and then send them to many people at a time. In TextMagic, go to the main panel and use Compose Button. There are three core fields to be filled here. They are To, From and Message.

This format is same in all message services. In the To Field, you will need to input phone numbers of people you want the messages to be shown. You can add as many as recipients here.

Use a comma to separate each recipient. There is an option to directly use contact list from right. Another option is the List Button. What is this List Button option for?

Well, one of the main goals of bulk SMS services is to manage to send multiple emails to different persons, and that includes multiple clients, each ranging in different criteria.

In this list by default, you can see names like customers, partners, team 1, team 2, and so on. You can manually add other list or edit existing ones too. This makes it easy to send messages to specified crowd and avoid blunders.

There is also a Recent Button near this field. It is used to add recent contacts. Being common in mobile messaging, there is nothing new here.

The next one is From Button. As name hints, it is used to input message source or say sender’s address. This part is also bit detailed as they have given many options to choose from.

Initially, users need to choose a phone number from the list of given numbers. You can choose from the shared numbers or an individual number. Select either the individual number you registered on or choose from any of the shared numbers.

There is a small button as Senders’ Settings next to this field. In this page, users can manually select and buy a number for use. Select the shared numbers from the given list. Then comes the main part, and that is typing the message.

For starters, you will need to first type some message into this field. Apart from usual messages, you can insert some more things like preset templates, tags, and files.

In Preset Templates, select the preset templates to repeat same message again to multiple contacts. We will review templates section in detail later on.

Next comes Insert Tags. As we see tags on social media like hashtags, we can also input some message related tags here. The main items of these tabs are first name, last name, company name, phone, and Email.

There is a fixed format for tags here. Users can add some tags on it as they like. The only condition is that they must be enclosed in curly braces {…}. This is the identifier for tags. Next part is attaching files. Well, attaching some files to the message is also easy.

In the attach file option, users can attach limited file types viz., .jpg, png, gif, pdf, txt, csv, doc, docx, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx, and vcf format.

Contrary to usual MMS that we receive in phones, TextMagic uses a direct link to connect these files across it. On receiver’s end, you will see a TextMagic download link. Click on this link, and you will see a download page. Certain other things like emojis cannot be sent from here unless you have used them in templates.

Lastly, there is a Schedule Messages Button, which can send all these bulk SMS at a designated time. There is a preview tab here which will show how the message looks.

In this preview, details like sender’s number, i.e., your account number, receiver’s number, message details, and cost of the message will be shown. Every detail except the cost are visible to the receiver.

There are two more message type supported by TextMagic in this section. They are Text To Speech and Voice Broadcast. Both are quite different but have one thing in common, i.e., they are sent via phone calls.

In Text To Speech Messages, the written message will be delivered in form of a phone call. The message will be converted to speech format, and receivers will listen to it. If they do not pick it, it will be canceled. An excellent way to annoy some friends!

The Voice Broadcast also has same feature except that you add mp3 files to it instead. Once the receivers pick the call, they will listen to the audio. If no one picks the call, it will be left as a voice message in their inbox. There was only one con in this service.

The problem was that it did not work for service providers that have activated DND services. This was not region restriction but from operator side. DND blocks all incoming calls and messages that are listed under spam category by service providers. This makes it dreadful using TextMagic to contact someone.

Now, the DND thing is entirely region-based, but we suppose TextMagic can figure out something to bypass that block and send messages even via DND filter or just use numbers in collaboration with service providers.

Other than this, we did not encounter any issue with any of mentioned features. The text to speech also needs a voice mail feature. Apart from that, the voice broadcast method needs to send both a text message with an mp3 file and a voice call too.

Lastly, there was one thing that was a minor rip-off you can find in it. This was the per SMS cost applied while using the service.

The base cost of the service was $0.00025 per character and additional 0.059 for adding each contact into the bulk list. For assumption, let us say that you are sending bulk marketing messages. Once the limit of 160 characters is passed, you get charged further till next 160 characters.

This was a bummer because if you leave at 200 characters, you will still be charged 0.080 regardless. So the redundant charge of 120 characters left is a potential loss to the us. Even for messages like Hello There, you will have a loss of leftover 149 characters anyways.

The total character limit is 918 at a time, which is feasible in most scenarios. This limited the usage of app whereas other top products like SendinBlue, Bitrix, etc. had better plan structure than TextMagic. This base plan rates change with different countries, and so things can become more costly for some regions.

Nevertheless, since the functionalities are way too basic and most of the functions are working, we would say that it is still workable. However, it will be more manageable if they design a non-credit based system where each subscription allows X number of messages with some predefined character limit, without per message costs.

Let Us Do Some Chit-Chat!

This is one of the top features of TextMagic, making life easier for its customers. Unlike traditional chat windows, this chat option is used as a message inbox.

Users can directly see messages received and reply it. Users can access it on the left side navigation menu. Hit Chat button there, and it will open a list of previous messages sent by you in form of a chat window.

In this window, you can see the sent and received messages, be it in a simple format or in voice call method. Similar to the messages window, users can add more contacts and then directly converse with them. Options like inserting templates, tags, files, schedule, and preview are also present here.

On top of the chat window, users can use some options like calls, message search, notifications, and general settings for that chat. In the settings menu, users can add notes, filter via date, history, contacts, and also print, block, or delete the selected chat contact.

Click on the new chat button to begin messaging. This will prompt you to add the recipient number there.

Although a nice feature, it still has same worry as before. The number is usually under blacklist of service providers for DND, and that’s why you cannot chat with someone who has DND activated. Another thing is that you will drop the credits even if the message delivery fails. Classic bummer, isn’t it?

Other than that, this feature seemed more of a fancy look to the standard compose and send messaging service.

How do I add Contacts in it?

This is the main query in minds of many readers here currently. One of the main things every bulk SMS provider need is a robust contact manager. No matter how much they charge per message, without a place to add, remove, and edit these contacts, the product will be taken as inferior.

In the Contacts Menu on left navigation bar, you can access several items like a list of contacts, categories list, custom fields, import/export contacts, and blocked.

In the first menu, Lists is used to group all single contacts in different classes. These groups can be for customers, marketers, investors, support team, etc. Making such groups eases contact management and assists readily while sending messages.

Users can choose to make a list private too. Doing so, other team members or subgroups cannot access them. They have given a direct option to send messages from here. Another option present here is adding contacts via export button.

In the export menu, you can choose from list of contacts from files like csv, xls, xlsx or use the SalesForce integration to import from there. There is also a search button to filter the required contact from there directly.

The next item be My Contacts. Same selections and features are given in here too. Only difference is that this can become way too tedious for some people to explore like for thousands of contacts. Using the filter or Search button can ease your trouble a bit.

The third item, Custom Fields, is also valuable sometimes. It can be used to add tags. These tags can be later on used while sending messages. Some example, you can add tags of your business clients, important persons, or urgent ones here. Directly insert them in single or bulk messages. You can also create personal tags for your lover.

Lastly, Import and Blocked are the items familiar like in mobile phonebook. As we conversed earlier, the import function uses a fixed set of format to import contacts. However, there is no mention of how to organize the excel sheets. There are no sample files for same too.

They must also add a feature to import contacts from files like .vcf, vCard, etc. They have given a share button which only allows sub-accounts to access them. Exporting contacts is a common feature, even on phonebook apps.

Scheduling Messages And Reviewing Message History

One of the most convenient ways of sending bulk messages at a designated time is using scheduled messaging. What does this message scheduling means?

As it is evident from the name, Message Scheduling is used to send messages on the desired time. In TextMagic, you can use the Scheduled Option to do this. This setup is same as in the compose message tab.

Users just need to add contacts number from the list or contact book. Fill other details like senders’ number, main message, add templates or tags, and attach files.

In the time selection tab, add date and time of delivery. There is a time zone button for receiver’s time. Then there a repeat button too. From there, select daily, hourly, weekly, monthly, or yearly repeat functions. You can customize them all.

You can preview these settings in calendar too. Once again, the choice is yours to select either plain text messages, text to speech or voice broadcasts.

Let us check what this History Tab does? With so many messages sent and received, it can become quite draining to review them again. If you are sending thousands of messages every day, imagine reviewing each of them!

The message history report is very minimal in TextMagic. In history menu, users can see a list of sent messages, received messages, forwarded calls, and general calls. They have a date filter in case you use date of conversation to sort things. Use the search button directly to find the messages from inner content.

In first tab, users can view sent messages. You can also download the data in csv or xlsx format. If a message is not sent, use the resend button. Select the message and directly save the message template from here.

Only thing we feel could have made better is listing messages properly. In current form, if you have sent over a hundred messages, all will be shown in a different format. Messages with same tags, numbers, etc. are not grouped here. Even with search button, things can be nasty to search in case of bulk messages.

Same options is Receive messages option. This section also has same issue of not grouping items. Next was Call Forwarding history. In here, users can see the numbers which used call forwarding. Similar to this, the last option too keeps records for all non-forwarded calls.

This was end of past history session. Many things need to be added here compared to other tools like SendinBlue, Bitrix, etc. The setup is too simple to justify the high costing.

Message Templates

To send so many bulk messages one by one, or writing certain sets of messages repeatedly is a tedious task. This thing we experience while drafting emails too. If we need to send many emails of same subject and same content, we use a preset template to do so.

Similarly, TextMagic also has given Templates Tab. In this section, users can add multiple message templates. There is no limit to adding a number of templates. TextMagic has already given many templates as a sample form.

To add a new template, just add a template name, and message details into it. You can also add tags to it. However, there is no provision to add other items as in the compose menu.

This can make things bit complicated if you need to attach files again to a message after choosing a template.

These templates can be directly shared with the sub-accounts. There is no sorting via tags and no provision to add them to separate folders.

As said before, TextMagic has not offered anything extra other than an elementary setup. They have a lot of potential to improve in this section which we hope TextMagic will do in future.

Lookup Phones And Emails

Lookup services have now become very common among most applications that are somehow connected to telecom stuff. TextMagic also has given lookup services for phones and emails.

There are two primary tabs here. One is Carrier Lookup, and the other is Email Lookup. Carrier lookup is issued to check the details of a phone number. This can either be a landline, fax, mobile sim, or so on.

In the carrier lookup, there are options viz. single lookup, bulk lookup, and lookup history. In the first option, you can lookup only single numbers. Just enter the number and select a region, i.e., number initials.

Hit the go button, and then it will display details of the number. There are some key details you can see in that number. These details include validity of the number, international and national code, time zone, country, phone type, carrier name, country code, and network code.

All these details are enough to get some identity of the number. Contrary to many apps in this field, they can also add GPS pointer for that number. For bulk lookup, use the bulk lookup button.

For bulk lookup, you can use the preset csv or xlsx file or add numbers manually. After you are done, the results are stored in xlsx file. There is no option to view them on webpage itself.

There is one big issue with the exported result file here. They have not organized result files properly. The fields like name of carrier, country, area code, etc. are all distorted. It can be a mess reading the file for 100s of phone lookups.

They need to improve this thing too. Then comes the Email lookup service. In the Email Lookup, you can view regular details for any mail like online status, deliverability, disposable status, type of service, domain name, and other such details.

The bulk service is same as before. Now compared to carrier lookup, a bulk report from Email lookup was way much better and arranged correctly. They should have implemented phone reports like this.

Once again we got to see a mediocre setup from TextMagic. Nothing was too impressive in it.

Other Services

They have given a separate section for listing out all the service included in the package. In this list, admins can set up various things as per their standards.

The first choice is the sender settings. In this section, the admins need to choose from several phone numbers and choose one to be displayed as the sender’s number while sending messages. In this list, there are many country locations to choose from.

In this menu, except USA, France, and Canada, the numbers of all other countries are shared numbers. Choose the one you like and then move to next section. There is a buy button in front of every number that you can use to purchase one.

Then there is Email to SMS service too in this section. This function is used to send messages via email to any phone number. Admins need to send emails to TextMagic Email ID shown here. Once you send the mail to this ID, it will be redirected to the prescribed mobile number. The general format they use for mail is [email protected].

Only registered accounts can use this mail ID and so don’t try using it randomly. Similarly, Distribution List is used to send all the emails received to given mail address to the list of numbers assigned. This is like CEO sending messages to top subordinates at a time. Mails sent to given mail ID as above format will automatically send the message to selected list of contacts via a distribution list.

Then there are API and Integrations settings in the UI. There is a voice settings section to select the language and voice for text to speech messages. They have added two-factor authentications too in here. However, this TFA is different.

This TFA is used to verify the API integration and not for making fake accounts. Below this, they have given a section to add some automation to your setup.

In Automation Rules, you can add automation like sending auto-replies, etc. In this menu, select the option Create New Rule. From here, admin male new rules for various conditions. This can be triggered by use of keywords. These keywords can be added in the keywords section.

After that, you need to select a keyword for a given rule. Add the list of contacts where the action message will be delivered. The action message can be in form of simple text, text to speech or voice broadcast. Select the country region you need to be affected by the keyword message.

For example, there’s going to be a flood in LA. All you need to do is to add flood, storm, etc. keyword to it. Add the text message containing the contact list of disaster management guys, instruction for safety, etc. in the action message. Set up the region as USA. Add the list of contacts.

After that, once you send a mail to the alert number with keyword flood, USA, etc., it will trigger the message, and people in contact list will receive the message automatically. A remarkable feature, isn’t it?

You can see the logs of the sent messages and actions from here itself. This system is preferable for customer support teams and help organizations.

Apart from this, there is also an automatic survey option that can be created by admins. Like usual surveys we do in real life, we can also automate these surveys using TextMagic.

To do it, use the SMS Surveys from the service menu. In survey section, you can create new surveys. In these surveys, the format is similar to what we follow. We send a message to customer, they reply it, we send another message and so on.

This is kind of automated question-answer thing via SMS. You can edit the question, add more question too. There are response types too like yes or no. We can chain the messages based on it.

Similar to above surveys, users can also add forms to their sites. They just need to embed generated code into the body section of the page, and it will display the form on lower right side. Once you have filled this form on their site, the details will be sent to your phone.

You can directly reply to the input number. It is overwhelming to see they hid these amazing features in here. Both SMS surveys, automated messages, and form are worth their own section in the navigation bar.

And with this, we put an end to all the possible features in TextMagic. We have tested these features accurately, and we would say that TextMagic has done a fantastic job of maintaining them. All of them are working as intended. The setup looks very basic but can do some wonders in correct hands.

After exploring these features, it is time to see the records and reports of what we have done until now.

Reports

Reports are a common thing in most of the cloud services nowadays. From general site building, time tracers, project management, etc. to even marketing like email marketing and then Bulk SMS here. These reports give us a fair idea of how we are benefitted from these services.

There is a separate Reporting Tab given by TextMagic here. In this reports tab, there are multiple reports generated by TextMagic. You can see an overview of all activities, or go for individual stuff like messages, calls, statements, audits, sub-accounts, and numbers.

The 1^st option overview tab is helpful to see entire work progress in one go. In this report, main items shown are messages sent, received, delivery rate, reply rate, payments, SMS costs, and product usages.

There are two pie charts, one for delivery rate and other for product usage. The delivery pie chart shows results based on messages delivered, failed, rejected, or sent. The next chart for product usage has divided stuff based on used services of TextMagic.

This includes online service, APIs, Email to SMS, messengers, chats, iOS, Android, and their desktop app. All these data is more than enough to make an excellent brief report of your account.

The next tab here is the Messages Report. In this tab, you can see the point graph made by them. The lower X-axis has the dates while the top Y-axis has number of messages sent.

There is also a drop-down menu to generate a graph for other items from messages like received messages, delivery rates, reply rates, and costs. The data can be downloaded using the download button. This is it in the message reports.

The next reports are on calls. These call-records are based on call forwarding that we did earlier. You can see the list of incoming calls, outgoing calls, etc. in this report. This feature is mostly useful if you have bought a virtual number and helps to manage calls via that number.

Next part is the Account Statements. Select the account you need to generate a report for. In this report, you can see details based on date, credit, debit, type of transaction, description, and balance at that point. Users can also export reports from here.

The account report is elementary to read. In the type zone, you can see the transaction category used like email lookup, sent messages, carrier lookup, calls, etc. In this way, you can look at records on how the inbound credit was used.

There is then an audit log system too. As we see it in most companies, auditing is used to track the activities done in your account. Similar to that, TextMagic also tracks all the activities you do via that account and puts it in the audit list.

In this section, you can see many categories like Email lookup, back office, account, carrier lookup, templates, contacts, SMS chat, web SMS, Errors, and settings. All these options show that they have tried to include even smallest of activity concerned with the account.

There is only one issue here, and that is a bit annoying. Well, with so much of data at your disposal, you cannot export these data on your device. With most of products giving tons of formats to be chosen for exporting the data, this seems pretty backward.

After this, you can see the Sub-Accounts section. In here, users can see account data of main as well as sub-accounts. Only admins can access this section. In the accounts list, admins can view normal user profile, permissions, audit logs, sent, and received messages.

Admins can modify or delete accounts from here too. Then there are notification settings too. In this section, you can see the notifications for balance alerts, incoming message alerts, and other alerts related to the account.

These alerts are general alerts like low balance alerts, incoming SMS or other alerts, weekly report, monthly report, failed delivery, and so on. The last section is the My Data Tab.

Just like earlier report, this section seems to be redundant unless they add something diverse. These details are very mediocre and include details on total SMS, calls, sub-accounts, retention period, etc. There is only one useful thing here, and that is delete all button, for removing all messages and contacts.

Ending this section, we can conclude that some part is adequately detailed, and some part is redundant. They need to add much better value to this section by adding more visual-graphic details to it.

User Interface and Integrations

We hope that you’ve read both feature list and report section before coming here. Both of the items are quite detailed, but the main question is remaining. Are these features easily accessible or not? Can someone like without any prior knowledge learn and use it fluently?

To answer that, we need to check the UI of application. The above-discussed section is all part of web UI and desktop UI. So, the app on desktop is same for native OS app and on website too. Some settings are extra in web setup, but they are just general account settings.

On mobile setup, you will find things very much simpler. There is one issue, however. The app is area restricted, and so you will not be able to see it so easily in play store without VPN.

You can directly use an apk file to install it. After that, just login into your account. The setup is way too novice-friendly in a mobile app. Most of the features of cloud application are given in here too.

Given the reach of their services, and combined with such stress-free UI, they made life relaxed for their customers looking to send bulk messages. The pricing may seem bit high to some, but TextMagic has worked their worth here.

Integrations

When it comes to integrations, there is very little scope to add things in here. However, some specific integration can be added to improve the working of this application. For that, TextMagic has given some useful integrations.

The main integrations given by TextMagic are SugarCRM, SalesForce, Pipedrive, Google Calendar, and Survey Anyplace. All these are helpful in various tasks like creating leads, creating people lists, SMS notifications, and survey management.

Other than this, there is no other option given in integrations. Most bulk SMS apps have similar integrations, so there is nothing to compare here.

Conclusion

We have dug entire setup to see if there are any more features left in. With that, we are ending our review here. We hope that you have read the given review first before jumping to conclusions.

The product seems very lackluster but is capable of doing many good stuff. The only issue we found was that they had arranged things in a bit confusing manner. Some of the useful and unique features are supposed to be put in the main menu rather than the backbench.

Other than that, the pricing system seemed a bit lackluster. They were charging credits overly for each message, and return was also low for them. They need to update the per message charge scheme to accommodate unlimited messages.

The biggest con is limited reach of the application. Although supported in most mainstream regions, many regions from Asia, Africa are still not supported. We hope that they increase it later on.

Regardless, the service is worth it if you need to use only basic bulk SMS features, for more features you can use SendinBlue, Bitrix, etc.