SMS Open Rates and Read Rates: What Nonprofits Should Know

SMS open rates vs. SMS read rates

Many SMS marketers commonly confuse SMS open rates and SMS read rates. In email marketing, the two terms are defined as follows:

• Email read: The total number of people that open an email marketing message.
• Email open: The number of people that open an email marketing message with images automatically enabled. In most cases the open rate for email marketing will be less than the read rate.

In SMS marketing, though, open rates and read rates are defined differently:

• SMS read: The total number of people that see an SMS message, including a preview of the message on a lock screen or notification banner.
• SMS open: When the recipient actually opens the message app and views the full text of the SMS message.

There is a significant difference between read and open rates with SMS marketing and email marketing. In email, many messages are "delivered" but never opened. In SMS, the gap between read and open is much smaller because text notifications are highly visible on mobile devices. The vast majority of texts are both seen and opened, which is why SMS consistently delivers open rates far above any other marketing channel.

What is SMS marketing?

SMS marketing is when an organization sends one SMS message to thousands or even millions of supporters who have signed up to receive SMS messages. For nonprofits, this means fundraising appeals, event alerts, impact updates, and time-sensitive calls to action delivered directly to supporters' phones.

SMS marketing is incredibly effective because, while emails can sit unopened in an inbox for hours — or worse, get sent directly to the trash folder — 78% of consumers say that SMS is the fastest way to reach them. In fact, 90% of text messages are read within just 3 minutes. That makes SMS marketing a perfect channel for nonprofits and marketers who have a time-sensitive promotion, giving day appeal, or alert to share.

The reach of mobile messaging continues to grow. According to the Pew Research Center, 97% of Americans now own a smartphone, making SMS one of the most universally accessible communication channels available to nonprofits. Unlike app-based messaging or social media — which require users to download specific software or maintain accounts — SMS works on every phone, on every carrier, with no additional setup required from the recipient.

Why are SMS open rates so high?

The main reason SMS open rates are so high is that SMS marketing requires a strict opt-in from supporters before you can message them. How strict? It is actually federal law that requires organizations to get an opt-in from a consumer prior to sending them an SMS message.

The federal law is called the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), and it gives consumers the right to claim damages of up to $1,500 per message if they did not opt in. Because every subscriber actively chose to hear from you, your SMS audience is fundamentally more engaged than an email list built from purchased contacts or passive sign-ups.

Beyond the opt-in requirement, several other factors drive SMS open rates above 99%:

• Notification visibility: Text messages trigger a push notification on the recipient's phone. Most people check their phones dozens of times a day, so texts are seen almost immediately.
• No spam folder: Unlike email, texts are not filtered into promotions tabs or junk folders. Carrier filtering can reduce deliverability for non-compliant senders, which is another reason to use a reputable platform and dedicated short codes.
• Brevity: Texts are short. They take seconds to read. There is no friction to opening and scanning a 160-character message compared to a lengthy email.
• Habitual phone checking: Research from Asurion found that Americans check their phones approximately 96 times per day — roughly once every 10 minutes during waking hours. Each check creates an opportunity for your text to be seen, which is why the time-to-read for SMS is measured in minutes rather than hours.

How open rates are measured (and why SMS is different)

It is worth understanding how open rates are actually tracked, because the methodology differs significantly between email and SMS — and the difference explains why SMS numbers look so much better.

Email open rates are measured using a tracking pixel: a tiny, invisible image embedded in the email body. When a recipient opens the email and their client loads images, the pixel fires and registers an "open." This method has well-known limitations. Many email clients block images by default, Apple Mail Privacy Protection pre-fetches content regardless of whether the user reads the email, and some corporate firewalls strip tracking pixels entirely. The result is that email open rates are inherently imprecise — they can both overcount (Apple pre-fetch) and undercount (blocked images) actual readership.

SMS, by contrast, does not use tracking pixels. The 98-99% open rate figure comes from the nature of the medium itself: text messages are delivered directly to a notification layer that is virtually impossible to ignore. There is no intermediary filter, no promotions tab, and no algorithmic ranking deciding whether to show the message. The "open rate" is effectively the deliverability rate — if a text is delivered, it is almost certainly seen. Industry bodies like Gartner have cited SMS open rates of 98% in their research, reinforcing the channel's position as the most reliable way to put a message in front of a person.

SMS vs. email: how the channels compare

The performance gap between SMS and email is significant:

• SMS open rates are reported at 98–99% across industry sources — far above any other channel.
• Email open rates for nonprofits average around 25–40%, depending on the benchmark and methodology.
• SMS read speed: 90% of texts are read within 3 minutes of delivery. Email may sit unopened for hours or days.
• SMS click-through rates vary widely by message type and audience, but typically range from 5–10% — well above email CTR averages.

These numbers do not mean SMS should replace email. They mean SMS excels at a specific job: getting an urgent, short message seen and acted on quickly. Email is better for longer-form content, detailed reporting, and messages that do not require immediate action. The two channels are complementary. See direct mail vs. mobile marketing for the broader multichannel picture.

In practice, the strongest nonprofit communication strategies use SMS and email together. A common pattern is to lead with an email that provides context, storytelling, and detailed information about a campaign, and then follow up with a text message that drives urgency: "Last chance — your gift will be matched until midnight. Tap here to give." The email builds the case; the text drives the conversion. Organizations that layer SMS on top of an existing email program typically see overall campaign revenue increase, because the text reaches supporters who never opened the email.

SMS marketing click-through rates

SMS open rates are very different from SMS click-through rates. Open rates measure when someone opens an SMS message. Click-through rates are calculated by dividing the number of people that clicked on a hyperlink in a message by the number of people that received that SMS message.

For example, if you send an SMS message to 10 people and 3 of them click on the link in the SMS message, the click-through rate would be 30%. While SMS click-through rates vary widely depending on the audience and message content, the average SMS marketing click-through rate is somewhere in the 5–10% range. For nonprofits, well-timed giving appeals and event reminders tend to drive click-through rates toward the higher end of that range.

Several factors influence click-through rates beyond the message content itself. Link placement matters — links positioned after a clear value proposition ("Your $25 feeds a family for a week") consistently outperform links placed at the beginning of a message. Link format also matters: branded short links that display a recognizable domain earn more clicks than generic shortened URLs, because supporters trust links from domains they recognize. And message length plays a role — shorter messages with a single, focused call to action tend to generate higher click-through rates than longer messages with multiple asks.

What affects SMS open rates over time

While SMS open rates start high, they can decline if organizations do not manage their texting programs carefully. The most common reasons for declining open rates include:

• Over-messaging: Sending too frequently — especially without varying content types — leads to message fatigue. Supporters stop engaging with or even reading messages that feel repetitive. The recommended cadence for most nonprofit SMS programs is two to six messages per month, depending on the campaign calendar and audience preferences.
• Ask-heavy content mix: Programs that only send donation requests without mixing in impact updates, gratitude, and engagement content see faster opt-out rates and declining engagement. A healthy content ratio is roughly one fundraising ask for every two to three non-ask messages.
• List decay: Phone numbers change more frequently than email addresses. If you are not regularly cleaning invalid or disconnected numbers from your list, your deliverability — and by extension your effective open rate — will decline.
• Platform changes: Operating system updates (like Apple's iOS 26 filtering of unknown senders) can affect how messages are displayed and whether they appear in the primary inbox. Staying current with platform changes and maintaining strong engagement signals protects your visibility.

How to increase SMS open rates

High open rates are a starting advantage, not a guarantee of results. Below are strategies to maximize the open rates and overall performance of your SMS messages:

1. Only text opted-in supporters. The most important strategy is to only send SMS messages to supporters who opted in to receive them. This is not just a legal requirement under the TCPA — it is the reason open rates are high in the first place. A clean, consented list is your most valuable asset.
2. Make each SMS visually unique. If each of your SMS messages looks the same, you will eventually start to see a decrease in open rates as supporters will not be enticed to open the messages. Mix SMS and MMS, vary your calls to action, and use images and GIFs when appropriate.
3. Make each SMS message valuable. If supporters start to realize that there is no value in the messages you are sending them, they will eventually stop opening your messages — or worse, unsubscribe. Balance fundraising asks with engagement, impact updates, and appreciation.
4. Use a dedicated SMS short code. In the United States, SMS short codes have very little filtering or blocking mechanisms, allowing your SMS message to get to your supporters' phones uninterrupted. If you want your message to actually reach your supporters' mobile phones, a short code is the way to go.
5. Optimize send timing. Use smart send-time tools to deliver messages when each supporter is most likely to engage. Timing can make the difference between a message that gets opened immediately and one that gets lost in a busy notification feed.
6. Personalize your messages. Segmented, personalized texts consistently outperform generic blasts on every metric — opens, clicks, and conversions. Use supporter names, giving history, and interests to tailor each message.
7. Encourage supporters to save your number. Ask subscribers to save your short code or sending number as a contact in their phone. Saved contacts bypass unknown-sender filtering (especially important with iOS 26 changes) and make your messages feel more personal when they arrive.

The bottom line

SMS open rates exceed 99% because the channel is built on consent, notification visibility, and brevity. For nonprofits, that means every text you send has a near-certain chance of being seen — the question is whether the message is compelling enough to drive action.

Build your texting program on a foundation of consent, value, and personalization, and the channel will consistently outperform every other communication tool in your stack. momoGood Messaging gives you the tools to do exactly that — dedicated short codes, smart send times, AI segmentation, and compliance built in.

Talk to our team to get started.