How to Set Up Shopify SMS Marketing: Sender and Opt-In

Setting up SMS on Shopify touches four places: Settings > Checkout, Settings > Policies, Messaging settings and the campaign editor. The order matters, because your checkout opt-in is part of what carriers review when you register a sender for the US or Canada, and the toll-free form has a section for each policy.

This guide runs in that order, from whether the built-in tool fits your store to your first scheduled campaign and what to check when texts stop arriving.

Does Shopify Have Built-In SMS Marketing?

Yes. SMS marketing joined Shopify Messaging, formerly known as Shopify Email, on December 10, 2025, so the place to look is Apps > Messaging.

Only SMS marketing campaigns are managed there. Order and shipping texts are a separate feature with their own country list, as our FAQ on shipping updates by SMS explains.

Messaging can also send automated texts for abandoned carts, abandoned checkouts and browse abandonment using pre-built templates, once the SMS channel is set up.

You pay per message: $0.012 per SMS to a US number, with rates that differ by country. Our SMS pricing FAQ has the full table.

If the replies, keywords or own-number rows describe your store, our overview of email and SMS apps is the next stop. For everyone else, the rest of this guide uses Messaging.

Which Countries Can You Text, and Which Sender Do You Need?

Shopify lists 12 recipient countries, two of them paused, which leaves 10 active. The 10 active countries are the United States (excluding Puerto Rico), Canada, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal and Sweden. What counts is where your customers are, because Shopify sets no specific country requirement for your store's location, as long as the store meets the SMS requirements. Find the row for the customers you want to reach.

The pause is the current state, not an upcoming change. SMS marketing to Spanish numbers paused on September 15, 2026. SMS marketing to Austrian numbers paused on October 1, 2026. You can't set up either as a new recipient country. Messaging's own banner calls them "currently unavailable to send SMS marketing messages due to recent changes in regulation."

As of November 2026, no page we read in Shopify's SMS documentation (overview, setup, requirements, campaigns, best practices, deliverability and pricing) gives a date for SMS to these two countries to resume.

What Does a Store Need Before the First SMS?

Two checks come before any setup screen, your plan and what you sell, plus your storefront if you'll text the US or Canada.

Plan and store requirements

The requirements for using Shopify Messaging are short. Your store must have:

• An active, paid Shopify subscription plan.
• The Online Store sales channel installed.
• A payment provider set up.
• Compliance with Shopify's Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy, plus its requirements for trust, safety, and fraud.

Shopify's marketing page says Messaging "is available on all Shopify plans," so read that together with the paid-subscription requirement. On a free trial or Pause and Build you can create campaigns and send test messages to yourself, but you can't send to subscribers.

If you'll text the US or Canada, check your storefront too. As of November 3, 2026, the toll-free form blocks password-protected storefronts, so remove the password before you get to it.

What you can't text about

These types of content are prohibited from being included in SMS marketing messages:

• Alcohol
• Debt collection and forgiveness
• Firearms
• Fireworks
• Fraudulent messages
• Gambling
• Hateful content
• High-risk financial services
• Illegal substances
• Malicious content
• Multi-level marketing
• Obscene or offensive material
• Political content
• Third-party lead generation

The list limits what goes in the messages. If your catalog falls in one of these categories, ask Shopify Support what that means for your store before you build anything. A store with age-restricted goods has a second hurdle on the US and Canada route: the "Age verification" error in the rejection table below.

Find Your SMS Setup Route

The country table answers by country. This quiz crosses your countries with your plan, your need for replies, your opt-in setup and the list you already have, then gives you a short plan and the order to do it in.

Set Up SMS Consent and Policies First

For the US and Canada, do this before the toll-free form. Carriers review your store information, website and opt-in during verification. An opt-in that's turned off, or a label changed so it no longer says what customers are signing up for, is a documented reason for rejection, and each rejection means fixing and resubmitting.

For the UK and EU, there's no 2-to-5-business-day form to fail, but the opt-in still comes first. Campaigns go only to customers who opted in to SMS, so without opted-in customers your first campaign has nobody to reach.

Turn on the SMS opt-in at checkout

Shopify's steps for collecting phone numbers at checkout take a minute:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Checkout.
2. In Customer information, select whether Shipping address phone number is optional or required.
3. In Marketing opt-in, in the SMS section, select Checkout only from the drop-down menu.
4. Click Save.

That phone setting applies only when checkout includes a shipping address step, and a store selling only digital or non-shippable products doesn't have one.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Settings
2. Checkout
3. Marketing opt-in

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As of November 3, 2026, the default label read "Text me with news and offers." If you change it, Shopify says it should state the purpose of the texts and how they're sent. Because Messaging sends marketing, the wording needs to reference marketing messages or offers, such as "I agree to receive marketing messages and special offers."

One more setting on this screen: Shopify's help says "To collect customer phone numbers from the checkout, you need to complete the following steps," and one step is to "Activate the SMS checkout option in your Settings." Its instructions for that step offer two choices under Customer contact method: Phone number or email, or Email for email only. Shopify says Email is selected by default on new stores.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Settings
2. Checkout
3. Customer contact method

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We tried both on a real checkout in our test store on November 3, 2026, with Ukraine as the delivery country, the phone field optional and SMS on Checkout only, and placed no order. The "Text me with news and offers" checkbox showed under the phone field with either one. The only difference we saw was the contact field, which read "Email or mobile phone number" with Phone number or email selected.

Shopify checkout page

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That shows the checkbox on screen for a cart that ships, not that this choice makes no difference: we placed no order, and Shopify says the customer needs to submit the checkout for the SMS preference to be saved. We didn't test a checkout with no shipping address step.

So weigh Phone number or email on what it does: it lets customers enter a phone number instead of an email, and Shopify says you can't recover an abandoned checkout when the customer began checking out with a phone number. The hint beneath it, "An SMS App is required to send SMS updates," sits in a section about order and shipping notifications, not the Marketing opt-in section.

Three rules govern what the SMS checkbox collects:

• The SMS opt-in can't be preselected at checkout, and it's separate from order confirmation SMS notifications. The email box follows different rules, which our FAQ on the email checkbox covers.
• The subscription preference is saved only when the customer submits the checkout.
• Consent that customers gave for email marketing doesn't apply to SMS, so your email list doesn't become an SMS list.

One rule depends on where the store is: if your store is located in Germany, Shopify says you need to add additional customer subscription status information.

Four neighboring pages cover what this guide only touches:

• The whole settings screen: our Checkout settings guide.
• Showing WhatsApp instead of SMS by region: the WhatsApp opt-in FAQ.
• Sign-ups after purchase: the Thank you page FAQ.
• Consent fields in a form: our Shopify Forms comparison.

What your privacy policy and terms must say

Both policies are set up on the Policies page of your admin, and the toll-free form has a section for each. Shopify's requirements are specific:

Your privacy policy must explain:

• How you collect phone numbers.
• How you use and store customer data.
• Who you share data with, including SMS service providers.
• Customer rights to access and delete their data.

Your terms of service must include:

• Message frequency.
• That data rates might apply.
• Opt-out instructions.
• Customer support or contact information.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Settings
2. Policies

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Which consent laws apply by region

Shopify's setup page says it "does not constitute legal advice," and neither does this table. It sets Shopify's requirement beside the wording of the law for each region, so you know what to raise with a lawyer. How each rule applies to your store is a question for them.

With the opt-in and policies in place, you can register your sender.

Add Your Countries and Set Up the Sender

Install the Shopify Messaging app if it isn't in your Apps menu, then set up your countries before you create campaigns. Registering and verifying your sender also helps carriers trust your traffic, so this step affects delivery as well as permission to send.

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Apps > Messaging.
2. Click Settings, and in the SMS section click Edit next to Registered countries.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Apps
2. Messaging
3. Settings

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3. In Targeted countries for SMS marketing, click Add countries.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Apps
2. Messaging
3. Settings
4. Registered countries

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4. Select the countries you want to send to, then click Next.
5. Complete the sender step for your market, described below.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Apps
2. Messaging
3. Settings
4. Registered countries
5. Add countries

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UK and listed EU countries: create a sender name

This route has one required field. Fill in Create sender name, click Done, and you can create and send campaigns immediately.

On November 3, 2026, the field counted up to 11 characters and said: "Letters and numbers only. Your sender name must be similar to your store name."

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Apps
2. …
3. Messaging
4. Settings
5. Registered countries
6. Add countries
7. Create sender name
8. Show full pathHide

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The red Upgrade your plan banner in this frame, the toll-free frame and the campaign frame is the state of our test store, a development store whose plan doesn't include Messaging. It isn't a step in the setup.

One name covers the group. The "Used in" line showed the UK plus seven more, and the screen says the name identifies your brand everywhere "except United States and Canada." The countries page adds that "Countries with similar registration requirements are added automatically," so expect others to join the one you selected.

The screen also shows a Message prefix, "Linked with your store name and added to the beginning of your messages," and the preview shows it at the start of the text.

US and Canada: register a toll-free number

Selecting the US or Canada opens the form Provide company information for US and Canada toll-free registration. Carriers read what you enter against your live store, and Shopify is blunt about what happens when the two disagree:

Shopify's help names four sections: Contact information, Business information, Privacy policy and Terms of service. On November 3, 2026, our form, with Ukraine as the country and Sole proprietor selected, showed three, with the contact name inside Business information:

• Business information: a business contact name, who must be a real person authorized to represent the business, the legal business name and business type, and a business contact email, phone number and address. Apart from the business type, these need to match what your store displays. The form recommends an email that matches your domain.
• Privacy policy: a URL field for the policy with the lines listed above.
• Terms of service: a URL field for the terms with their own required lines, also listed above.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Apps
2. …
3. Messaging
4. Settings
5. Registered countries
6. Add countries
7. Toll-free registration
8. Show full pathHide

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The red plan banner at the top of this frame is our test store's state, not a step.

Remove any storefront password first. On November 3, 2026, the form said: "To register for a toll-free number your storefront cannot restrict access to visitors. Remove the password protection in your Online Store preferences before continuing."

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Apps
2. …
3. Messaging
4. Settings
5. Registered countries
6. Add countries
7. Toll-free registration
8. Show full pathHide

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In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Apps
2. …
3. Messaging
4. Settings
5. Registered countries
6. Add countries
7. Toll-free registration
8. Show full pathHide

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Click Next, review the sender information page, and click Done. Toll-free registration can take 2 to 5 business days, and you receive an email when verification is complete.

Your number is randomly assigned and for delivery only, and you can't receive customer replies to it. Each campaign includes an unsubscribe URL by default. On November 3, 2026, the campaign editor's preview showed it after "STOP:" and the sender-name step's preview after "Unsubscribe:".

A $2.15 USD monthly charge applies to each approved toll-free number used for SMS marketing in the US and Canada. If you no longer want the number, remove Canada and the United States from your targeted SMS countries.

Verification takes days, so save your place in the launch checklist, which keeps your progress in this browser while you wait.

What to do when registration is rejected

If your registration is rejected, a banner appears in your admin and you receive an email explaining the reason. These are the most common errors Shopify lists, not every possible one.

After you fix the error, resubmit the form:

1. For the country where verification was rejected, click Manage.
2. Check that the fields on the toll-free verification form are accurate, then click Resubmit form.

If there are no steps to resolve the issue, contact Shopify Support.

Send Your First SMS Campaign

A phone number you hold from an old order isn't SMS consent. You can send campaigns only to customers who opted in to SMS marketing, and numbers that haven't opted in are automatically excluded from your campaigns.

Your store name and an unsubscribe URL are included in each campaign by default. Shopify's best practices add that a campaign should clearly identify your store as the sender, make plain it's a marketing communication, and give an easy, localized way to opt out.

Build the campaign

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Apps > Messaging.
2. Click Create message. Shopify's help calls this button Create campaign.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Apps
2. Messaging

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3. Select SMS, then select an SMS template.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Apps
2. Messaging
3. Create message

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4. In Campaign name, enter a name. Customers don't see it.
5. In the Message section, select the customer segment and enter your text.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Apps
2. Messaging
3. Create message
4. Create SMS campaign

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In that frame, Send test and Schedule send are greyed out, with two red banners below them: SMS setup required, which says "To send SMS, complete SMS setup," and our test store's plan banner. If you see those buttons greyed out, read the banners below them first.

On November 3, 2026, Send to listed segments such as All subscribers and Customers who have purchased at least once, with a number beside each. Every number read 0 in our test store, so this screen can't tell us whether that number counts SMS subscribers only.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Apps
2. Messaging
3. Create message
4. Create SMS campaign
5. Send to

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6. Optional: if your text uses a personalized value such as First name, select Replace special characters such as é and ç in personalized values.
7. Optional: in the Links section, select Shorten links.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Apps
2. Messaging
3. Create message
4. Create SMS campaign
5. Message

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How long can one SMS be?

The limit depends on the characters you use: 160 per message for standard characters, 70 for non-standard ones, including emojis, special characters and accented letters. Go over and the campaign is automatically split, and you're charged for each message.

Take Shopify's own example: a 200-character campaign counts as 2 messages. Cut that same campaign to 160 standard characters and it's 1 message. The character count appears in the message editor, so you can check before you schedule.

Leave room for what Shopify adds. On November 3, 2026, one short line of ours in the Steps 5 to 7 frame above counted as 1 SMS (113 characters), far more than we typed, and the preview beside the text field adds the store name and an unsubscribe link. Go by the count in the editor, not the length of your own text.

Two options in the campaign help you stay under the limit: Shorten links and Replace special characters such as é and ç in personalized values. A personalization value such as a first name can push a sent message over the count you saw, if a customer's data contains a non-standard character.

Customers receive a split campaign as one continuous message in every supported country except Luxembourg, where the parts display as separate messages.

Test it, then schedule outside quiet hours

1. Click Send test, enter a number in Phone numbers, and click Send test again. You can send up to 25 test messages per week.
2. When you're ready, click Schedule send.
3. In the dialog, select a date and time outside quiet hours for the countries you're sending to, then click Schedule send.

As a new sender, Shopify suggests you send to a small percentage of your audience first, so you can watch performance before sending to the full segment.

Messages sent during quiet hours are dropped and then retried after them, based on each customer's local time. Shopify also applies a one-hour buffer before quiet hours: in Canada, a campaign sent between 19:00 and 20:00 is dropped and retried later.

Sending immediately before quiet hours can take up to 12 hours to deliver, depending on segment size, and messages might not reach all customers at the same time. If timing matters, schedule well ahead.

Why SMS Stops Arriving, and What to Check

Registration gives you permission to send. Delivery is a separate decision, made message by message, and Shopify names what carries the most weight with carriers:

A text passes through three stages:

1. The messaging platform: Shopify Messaging applies checks for consent and content.
2. The wireless carrier: the customer's carrier decides whether to deliver, filter or block the message, and carriers don't always disclose why.
3. The recipient's device: the phone receives the message if it's on, connected and able to receive SMS.

Unlike email, there's no spam folder for SMS, so a filtered text simply never appears. Carriers and platforms scan your text, its links and the page they lead to, and prohibited topics cause messages to be filtered or blocked; the list is above.

Link only to pages on your own store domain, because public link shorteners such as bit.ly are often blocked by carriers. That's different from the Shorten links option in the campaign.

Open a campaign in Messaging to read three metrics:

• Delivery rate: a sudden drop can indicate carrier filtering, a content issue, or your number losing its verification status.
• Failed deliveries: can indicate inactive numbers, landlines that can't receive SMS, or content that carriers are filtering.
• Opt-out rate: a rising rate means your frequency or content needs to change, or your acquisition methods need review.

If your delivery rate drops, reduce your sending volume, send only to your most engaged customers, and confirm that your number is verified and your content follows the guidelines before you return to your usual volume.

On send lists of more than 1,000 subscribers, smart delivery is on by default across Messaging channels and filters out inactive SMS numbers, among others. Our email deliverability guide explains how it works on the email side.

Your SMS Launch Checklist

Steps one to three apply to every route. Stores texting US or Canadian customers should finish step three before starting step four, because carriers review your opt-in and the form has a section for each policy. Stores texting only the UK or listed EU countries can send immediately after setting the sender name.

Your ticks stay in this browser, so you can come back while verification runs.

The Bottom Line

Most of the risk in this setup sits before the first campaign, in details that are quick to get right and slow to fix after a rejection.

Frequently Asked Questions