Offer or drop? When a 300-character text is the right tool

BatchDrop gives you two ways to text your whole list. They look similar from your customer's side — a text from you — but they do different jobs.

Two kinds of announcement

A drop announcement belongs to a drop. It goes out when you open the drop and press send, and it names the drop and links to it so people can order. Use it when there is a batch with a window: Saturday's sourdough, this week's eggs.

An offer is a one-off text with no drop attached. You write up to 300 characters and it goes out now to everyone who is opted in. Use it for the things that are not a batch:

• A cancellation opened a slot this Thursday.
• You are back from vacation and taking bookings.
• Gutter season starts next month.

Replies to either land in your inbox, where you can answer one person at a time.

What the customer sees

An offer arrives as Your Store: your message Reply STOP to opt out. Your store name goes on the front and the opt-out line on the end, and the opt-out line is never cut off. You do not need to write either. Spend your 300 characters on the message.

Everyone, not a segment

There is no targeting. An offer goes to every opted-in customer. If a message only makes sense for three people, it is not an offer — text those three yourself.

What it costs from your allowance

Offers and drop announcements both count toward your monthly message allowance: 300 on Basic, 1,000 on Pro, 3,000 on Business.

A long text counts as more than one message. A sentence or two fits in one. A full 300 characters, plus your store name and the opt-out line, runs to three — so a full-length offer to 200 people is about 600 messages, double Basic's month. An emoji or a curly apostrophe switches the whole text to a format that fits fewer characters per message, which pushes the count higher still.

Before an offer or a drop announcement starts, BatchDrop works out what it will cost. If that does not fit in what you have left, it is refused before anything goes out, with a note to upgrade to send it. It never reaches half your list and stops.

Everything else keeps going at the cap: order texts, receipts, fulfilment texts, and your one-to-one inbox replies are counted but never held back. Sign-in codes your customers receive do not count. The allowance resets each billing period. There are no overage charges and no top-ups; if you regularly run short, the next plan up is the fix. See pricing.

Who it reaches

Only customers who are opted in to texts from you. People you imported or added by hand start out pending, and customers added through an order or a quote request are not opted in either — send them the opt-in request first. Anyone who replies STOP stops getting offers at once. The SMS rules post has the longer version.

Picking one

• Selling a batch with a window? Run a drop and let the announcement do the work.
• Telling everyone one thing, now? Send an offer.
• Only relevant to a few people? Text them yourself.
• Not sure it is worth three messages per person? Cut it to one sentence. It usually is better for it.