Text Messaging: How It Works and What It Costs
Empower lets your church text people from your church's own number. You can text one person or a whole group, and people can text you back. This article explains how texting works and what it costs. For step-by-step instructions, see Sending and Receiving Text Messages.
Your church's own number
Each church gets its own toll-free texting number, so people receive messages from a consistent church number instead of a staff member's personal phone.
Group texts arrive one at a time
When you text a group, each person gets their own separate text. Nobody sees who else received it, and replies come back only to your church.
Use merge fields to add details like each person's first name. A message sent to 40 people can still greet each one by name.
Replies and reply alerts
Texting goes both ways. When someone replies, you'll see it in their text conversation in Empower, and you can answer from there.
You choose which staff members get an email when a reply comes in. That way the right person can follow up without everyone watching for messages.
What it costs
Each church gets 100 outbound SMS segments a month at no extra cost. Each additional outbound segment costs $0.03. Incoming replies are free and don't count toward the 100 included outbound segments.
Segments are counted separately for every recipient. A one-segment message sent to 40 people uses 40 segments. If the message requires two segments, sending it to 40 people uses 80 segments.
What's a segment?
SMS is billed in segments. A standard text may fit in one 160-character segment. Longer messages, emoji, and some special characters may use additional segments. A few things affect length:
Empower adds "Reply STOP to cancel" to every outgoing text. This required phrase counts toward the message's total length.
Merge fields like names can make a message longer for some people.
The counter under Text Body shows how many characters you've used.
An example
Your church sends a one-segment message to 150 people in a month. That uses 150 outbound SMS segments, one for each recipient. The first 100 are included, and the other 50 cost $1.50. Any replies cost nothing.
If the same message needed two segments, it would use 300 outbound SMS segments. The first 100 are included, and the other 200 cost $6.00.
Common questions
Do we pay for replies?
No. Incoming replies are free and don't count toward your 100 included outbound SMS segments.
Does a group text count as one segment?
No. Segments are counted for each recipient. A one-segment message sent to 40 people uses 40 outbound SMS segments.
Can people see who else got a group text?
No. Each person gets their own text, and replies come only to your church.
How do people stop getting our texts?
Replying STOP opts that person out of future texts. Do not send additional texts unless the person opts back in.
Ready to send a message? See Sending and Receiving Text Messages for step-by-step instructions.