Smshosting

Smshosting is an Italian communication platform that puts email marketing next to SMS, RCS and WhatsApp messaging in one account, together with tools for collecting contacts, automating campaigns and running digital loyalty cards. Its homepage calls it "La piattaforma più completa per comunicare con i tuoi clienti" (the most complete platform for communicating with your customers). The company says it was founded in Italy in 2003, and the site footer states that Smshosting is a registered trademark of LINK Mobility Italia S.r.l, based in Milan. The platform is aimed at shops and local businesses, agencies and freelancers, marketing teams, nonprofits, IT teams and developers, and public bodies, with dedicated pages for restaurants, hotels, gyms and medical practices. Case studies on the site include a communications agency, a Ducati Store, a photo shop and a herbalist.

What a sender gets for email

The company's own blog describes Smshosting as "il software per inviare newsletter italiano" (the Italian software for sending newsletters) and says it covers promotional emails (DEM), newsletters, automation and transactional emails. Its step-by-step guide shows the workflow: sign up, import contacts from an Excel or CSV file or start collecting them with the platform's tools, create and authenticate a sender address, pick the list, the sender, the subject and the preheader, build the email, send yourself a test, then send immediately or schedule it.

Emails are built in a drag and drop editor from ready-made blocks, starting from what the guide calls a great many email templates, with no HTML or technical knowledge needed. The editor previews both the desktop and the mobile version of a message while you design it. Subject lines and body text can pull in contact data through custom fields, such as a first name or a city, and the platform supports A/B tests, which the company explains in a video tutorial on launching an A/B test campaign in Smshosting.

Contact management is flexible. Beyond the email address, each contact can hold a first name, last name, mobile number and unlimited custom fields such as a birth date, address or province. A contact can belong to several lists at once, which the blog suggests using to track where a lead came from (a "Facebook lead" list or a "Blog lead" list), and filtered lists handle segmentation. Hard bounces are moved to a blacklist automatically, so later campaigns do not count or waste sends on addresses that no longer exist. After each campaign a results preview shows the statistics, and the company has a video on reading them.

Lead generation, landing pages and automation

Contacts come in through signup forms that can hold any fields you want. A form can sit on a landing page built in Smshosting or be embedded in your own website with a snippet of code, and it can automatically send a lead magnet, such as a discount or an e-book, to each new subscriber. For physical shops the blog suggests keeping the form open at the till, and the platform offers printable QR codes for collecting contacts in store. Newsletters can also be connected to WordPress. The homepage groups these under lead generation, a marketing CRM, advanced segmentation, GDPR consent management and lead scoring, and the menu adds site tracking.

Marketing automation runs as workflows: series of emails and, if you want, SMS that guide a contact toward a specific action. The blog's example is a promotion with a low open rate. The workflow resends it with a new subject line to everyone who did not open, and if some still have not opened, sends them an automatic SMS. Welcome series for new subscribers are the other example it gives.

Other channels and tools

SMS is a large part of the offer: scheduled SMS, an SMS gateway for sending from the web or by API, SMS OTP, email to SMS and receiving SMS, backed by REST API documentation and app integrations. RCS and WhatsApp sit in the same channel list. A launch bundle on the homepage combines an annual Premium plan, WhatsApp activation and 1000 WhatsApp messages at a dedicated price for new customers.

Several retail tools feed the email side. Digital loyalty cards let a customer join by filling in a form, after which each in-store purchase is tracked; a sender can then filter the top spenders of the year and email them a thank-you with a coupon, or nudge customers who have not bought in a while. Dynamic digital coupons can go into drive-to-store emails so the business can see who redeems the discount. Online booking management and Google Calendar reminders round out the toolset.

The newest feature is AI text generation. The homepage says it creates optimized texts for SMS, RCS and WhatsApp and effective email subject lines with a click.

Trial, pricing and support

The site repeats the same offer throughout its guides: "Prova gratis Smshosting per 30 giorni" (try Smshosting free for 30 days), with no card, no renewal and no obligation to buy. After the trial you buy the plan that suits your business. The company's newsletter guide says the Premium plan costs €19 a month and includes the SMS sending platform with automations, online booking management, landing pages, Google Calendar reminders, email and SMS workflows and digital coupons. The email marketing guide adds that Smshosting lets you keep unlimited contacts in the database at no extra cost.

On data protection, the newsletter guide describes Smshosting as a GDPR-compliant platform that lets you add the privacy notice to signup forms, collect informed and granular consent for each use of the data, and keep the data secure and traceable. The site has a dedicated security and GDPR page. The homepage figures are 100,000+ registered accounts, 1.5 billion SMS sent and managed each year, and an average customer rating of 4.5 out of 5 on Capterra.

Support is free and comes by phone, email and online chat, and prospective customers can book a free demo with an expert. There is also a service manual, a resource center with free training material, a YouTube channel with weekly videos, and reseller and promoter partner programs.

Who it suits

Smshosting fits Italian shops, restaurants, hotels, gyms and medical practices that want email, SMS and WhatsApp in one Italian-language tool, especially those with a physical store: QR signups at the counter, loyalty cards, coupons that bring people through the door and booking reminders all connect to the same contact database. Agencies and freelancers get a partner program and one platform for clients who mix channels. Developers get the SMS gateway, OTP and REST API.

A pure email publisher will find much of the package aimed at local commerce and SMS, and the site and its guides are written in Italian, so a team that does not work in Italian should factor that in. For a small business that wants to try the whole thing, the 30-day trial without a card is an easy start.