Attentive Pricing in 2026: What Drives the Cost

Attentive does not publish its prices: its pricing page, read on October 7, 2026, shows no dollar amount for its plans and directs you to sales for a quote. What Attentive does publish is how the price is built (message volume, subscriber list size, number of channels and AI products), how messages are billed, and the carrier fees added to every text.

This guide sticks to what Attentive itself states on its pricing page, its Help Center, its carrier delivery fees page and its Shopify App Store listing, all read on October 7, 2026. It quotes no third-party price estimate, because no public source can confirm one.

How much does Attentive cost?

There is no public price list. In its own FAQ, Attentive answers the question this way: its pricing is tailored to your business needs based on your message volume, subscriber list size, number of channels and AI products selected.

The pricing page presents these as four choices:

Source: Attentive pricing page, as of October 7, 2026.

Attentive's Shopify App Store listing confirms the structure from the store's side: the app is free to install, and external charges may be billed by Attentive separately from your Shopify invoice.

What packages does Attentive sell?

The pricing page describes three channel packages and one all-in package. None has a published price.

Source: Attentive pricing page, as of October 7, 2026.

Attentive lists what every plan includes, whatever the package: strategic planning and onboarding, a dedicated support team with 24/5 service, 150+ pre-built integrations, its two-tap sign-up, pre-built cross-channel journeys, campaign builders, A/B testing, reporting, and built-in TCPA and compliance tools.

How are Attentive's AI products priced?

The AI tools are the one place where Attentive names a pricing model per product, still without amounts.

Source: Attentive pricing page, as of October 7, 2026.

Attentive adds that it offers discounts when you bundle multiple channels or premium AI products.

How does Attentive bill text messages?

Attentive's Help Center is explicit about the mechanics, and they shape the bill as much as the rate does.

• Sent and received messages are billed. Attentive bills for each message you send to subscribers and each subscriber response.
• The unit is the message segment. Messages over 160 characters are billed as more than one segment. Per its carrier fees page, the limit is 70 characters for a message containing Unicode characters such as emojis or accented characters.
• Emojis cost indirectly. Attentive does not charge extra for emojis as such, but they change how the message is encoded, which can increase the number of segments.
• Links and personalization add characters. A campaign can show as two segments with fewer than 160 visible characters, because tracking characters appended to links and variables such as a first name are added at send time.
• Opt-out language is billed. Messages sent from a toll-free number to AT&T subscribers are appended with opt-out instructions ("Stop to stop" by default), and you are billed for that text whether or not you customize it.
• Rates live in your contract. Your SMS and MMS messaging rates are in the Order Details section of your contract and on the SMS Usage and MMS Usage lines of your invoice.

What are the carrier fees on top of each message?

This is the one part of an Attentive bill with public numbers. Attentive states that, in addition to the fees for SMS and MMS message segments set in its order form, the customer is charged a carrier delivery fee for each message segment sent or received. The fees are invoiced by Attentive and can change at any time.

United States short-code carrier delivery fees, current as of October 1, 2026:

Source: Attentive carrier delivery fees, read on October 7, 2026. Attentive presents the list as illustrative of the most used carriers, not exhaustive, and publishes separate tables for toll-free and 10DLC numbers.

On the invoice, Attentive consolidates the month's carrier fees per carrier into a single line item for each one.

What other fees and commitments does Attentive describe?

The Help Center names several lines that sit next to message usage:

• Base fee. "A standard monthly charge for our service", charged monthly.
• Short code fee and list management fee. Both are named as items that the Billable Spend report does not include, which tells you they exist as separate lines.
• Minimum commits. Attentive offers rate discounts in exchange for committed terms with recurring minimum spend commitments, based on your projected spend and written into your contract. If your actual usage is less than the minimum commit at the end of a period, you are invoiced for the remaining amount.
• What counts toward the commit. Short code fees, the base fee and carrier delivery fees count toward your SMS and MMS minimum commit.

The amounts for each of these are in your contract, not on a public page.

What can you calculate before the sales call? A worked example

The store below is fictional. Only the carrier fees can be calculated from public numbers: Attentive's own per-segment rate, base fee and any commitment come from the quote.

A Shopify store plans to send 20,000 SMS in a month from a short code, each fitting in one segment. Suppose its subscribers split as 40% AT&T, 35% T-Mobile and 25% Verizon (an assumption for the example).

• AT&T: 8,000 × $0.0035 = $28.00
• T-Mobile: 7,000 × $0.0045 = $31.50
• Verizon: 5,000 × $0.0050 = $25.00
• Carrier fees: $28 + $31.50 + $25 = $84.50

If the same messages run to two segments (an emoji in a 100-character message is enough), the carrier fees double: 2 × $84.50 = $169.00. The same doubling applies to Attentive's per-segment rate.

So the full monthly formula to fill in with your quote is:

base fee + (segments sent and received × your contracted rate) + carrier delivery fees + short code and other fixed fees + any AI product fees, compared with your minimum commit if you have one.

What should you ask Attentive's sales team?

Because the price is negotiated, the questions matter. Each one maps to something Attentive documents.

1. What is my rate per SMS segment and per MMS, and does it change with volume?
2. What is the base fee, and what does it cover?
3. Is there a minimum commit? Over what period, and what happens if I am under it in a slow quarter?
4. Which fixed fees apply: short code, list management, others?
5. How is list size counted for the packages priced on list size?
6. What do AI Pro and AI Grow cost per month, and what is the per-click price of AI Journeys?
7. What discount applies if I bundle channels or AI products?
8. How long is the trial, and is the agreement month to month or long term afterwards? The App Store listing mentions both options after a minimum 30-day trial.
9. Which sending number will I use: short code, toll-free or 10DLC? The carrier fee tables differ.

Bring three numbers to the call: your subscriber count, the messages you expect to send per month, and your average message length in segments.

How does this compare with tools that publish prices?

Several email and SMS tools used by Shopify stores show their rates on a public page, which makes a first estimate possible without a call. Klaviyo's calculator, for example, displays a monthly cost for a given number of SMS with carrier fees included: the figures are in our Klaviyo pricing guide. Omnisend vs Klaviyo compares two published SMS rates, and our ranking of the best Shopify SMS apps lists the billing model of each app. For the mechanics of segments, short codes and compliance, see our business SMS guide for ecommerce.

When you compare a quote from Attentive with a published rate, line up the same things on both sides: the per-segment rate, carrier fees (included or added), fixed monthly fees and any commitment.

Attentive's listing has a rating of 4.7 out of 5 from 111 reviews on the Shopify App Store as of October 7, 2026.

Where does WhatsApp fit next to an SMS platform?

SMS and email stay in the platform you choose for them. WhatsApp can run in a dedicated app next to it. Kanal, our WhatsApp marketing app for Shopify, sends WhatsApp messages only and has no integration with Attentive: it works from your Shopify data for WhatsApp campaigns and abandoned cart recovery, alongside your SMS program.

Attentive pricing at a glance

Attentive's price is a contract, not a price list. The structure is public: a base fee, a rate per message segment, carrier fees per segment, fixed fees and optional AI products, often with a minimum commitment. Calculate your carrier fees from the published tables, bring your list size and volume to the call, and ask for every line of the formula in writing.