Three channels, one contact list. How each one behaves, what each costs, what the rules allow, and a simple way to decide which message goes where.
Stop asking which channel is best
The question small businesses ask is "should we do email, SMS or WhatsApp?", and the question that actually helps is "which message belongs on which channel?". The three behave differently, cost differently and are regulated differently, and the businesses that use them well are not the ones that picked a winner but the ones that gave each message the channel it suits.
What makes this workable is running all three from one contact list, with consent recorded per channel, so that a person is one record with three permissions rather than three records in three tools. Everything below assumes that setup. In Brainito it is the default: the same segment serves email, SMS and WhatsApp, and each step in a flow checks the consent for its own channel.
How each channel behaves
Long-form, visual and cheap. People read it when they choose to, which means it is read later and sometimes not at all, but it can carry a full newsletter, several products, a story and a dozen links. It is the only one of the three where you can send to a large list regularly without irritating anyone, and the only one where the sending identity, your domain, is entirely yours. Deliverability depends on your list and your authentication, not on a platform's approval.
SMS
Short, immediate and intrusive. A text is read within minutes by almost everyone it reaches, which is its strength and its danger. It carries about 160 characters and a link, nothing more. It costs real money per message, it requires registration in the US, Canada and India, and the regulation around consent is the strictest of the three. People tolerate a few texts a month from a business they chose, and punish anything more with STOP.
Conversational, rich and governed by Meta. Messages can carry images, buttons and documents, and the recipient can reply, which turns a campaign into a conversation. Anything you start must use a template Meta has approved, and once the person replies you have a 24-hour window for free text. Usage is near-universal in India, Brazil, much of Europe, Africa and Latin America, and low in the US. Costs come in two parts: the platform's fee per message and Meta's conversation fee, billed to your WhatsApp Business account.
What each one costs
Costs below are Brainito's, so you can compare like with like; other platforms differ in structure, and the email marketing pricing guide goes through those structures.
- Email: 25 credits per 1,000 emails, contacts free. A monthly newsletter to 2,000 people is 50 credits. On the $20 plan with 600 credits a month, email is close to a rounding error for most small businesses.
- SMS: credits per message at a rate that depends on the destination country, with the exact cost shown before you confirm a campaign. Included from the $50 plan. A text costs many times what an email does, so SMS is for the few messages that must be read now.
- WhatsApp: credits per message from the $50 plan, plus Meta's conversation fees paid to Meta, which vary by country and by whether the conversation is marketing, utility or started by the customer. Marketing conversations cost more than utility ones, which is one more reason to use utility templates for order updates.
The practical consequence: email is the channel for everything that does not have to be read today, and the other two are for the messages worth paying several times more to have read within the hour.
What the rules allow
Email is the most permissive. In the US, CAN-SPAM allows marketing without prior consent provided you identify yourself, include a postal address and honor unsubscribes; in the EU and UK consent is generally required. Everywhere, an easy unsubscribe is mandatory and good sense. SMS is the strictest: written consent for marketing in the US under the TCPA, carrier registration before you can send at all, quiet hours of 8am to 9pm local time, and STOP handling that must work instantly. WhatsApp sits between: Meta requires opt-in and approved templates for anything you initiate, and national law adds consent rules in the EU and UK and unsettled TCPA questions in the US.
Two habits cover most of this. Collect consent per channel, with wording that names the channel, and never assume that a phone number given for a delivery is permission to text or WhatsApp about offers. Our guides to SMS consent in the US and WhatsApp rules by country go deeper.
A decision rule, and the common cases
Ask three questions about the message. Does it need to be read today? Is it short enough for a sentence and a link? Would the person want a reply option? Email handles no to the first; SMS handles yes, yes, no; WhatsApp handles yes, and a yes to either of the last two. Then check consent for that channel and the person's country.
- Monthly newsletter, product launch, long offer: email. Nobody wants a newsletter by text.
- Appointment reminder the day before: SMS in the US, WhatsApp utility template in India or Europe, with email as the fallback for people who consented to nothing else.
- Order shipped, delivery today: WhatsApp or SMS, with the tracking link. The customer wants it now and on the phone.
- Flash sale ending tonight: SMS or WhatsApp to the people who opted in to that channel, email to everyone else in the morning.
- Abandoned cart: email first within the hour; a text or WhatsApp the next morning for the people who did not open and who consented to it.
- Customer asks a question: reply on the channel they used. On WhatsApp, inside the 24-hour window, that can be free text.
- Win-back after 90 days of silence: email, because a text from a business you have forgotten is unwelcome.
Combining them in one flow
The strongest pattern is not choosing a channel for a campaign but sequencing channels for a person. A flow sends the email, waits a day, checks whether it was opened, and texts or WhatsApps only the people who did not open and who said yes to that channel. The expensive message goes only where the cheap one failed. A contact without a phone, or without consent for the channel, is skipped with the reason recorded and carries on through the flow.
That is how Brainito's flows are built: email, SMS and WhatsApp are node types in the same graph, on the same contacts, with per-channel consent checked at every step and the cost of each channel shown before you confirm. The email marketing page covers the list and the campaigns, and the WhatsApp page covers connecting your own Business account. Start with email, because it is cheap and permissive and most of your messages belong there. Add the other two for the messages that have to be read now, and only to the people who asked.