How Does SMS Flash Sale Work?

Flash Sale lets you send a promotional SMS directly to your SMS subscribers. It is designed for flash sales, limited-time offers, special events, and other promotions where you want to reach customers quickly.

Unlike automated SMS messages sent by Rewards Club, you create and send a Flash Sale whenever you want to run a promotion.

What’s the Difference Between an SMS Blast and a Flash Sale?

An SMS blast is a general term for sending a promotional text to a group of customers.

Flash Sale gives you more control over who receives your message and how many customers you reach at one time. You can send to your full available audience, or start with a smaller group and use Send to More to reach additional subscribers in batches.

For example, you might send an offer to 100 customers first. If the response is good, you can send the Flash Sale to more customers.

Create Your Flash Sale

Enter the promotional message you want to send.

As you edit, Rewards Club shows the message length and the current cost per recipient. Longer messages or certain special characters may increase the cost.

You can:

  • Save your message
  • Preview it
  • Reset it to the default Flash Sale text
  • Send Test SMS to check how it appears on a phone

Your test phone number must be subscribed to SMS.

For compliance, every Flash Sale automatically includes “Reply STOP to unsubscribe.” This line cannot be removed.

Select Your Recipients

Rewards Club shows your total number of SMS subscribers and how many are currently available for the Flash Sale.

By default, you can exclude subscribers who recently received another Flash Sale. Select the number of days you want to use for this exclusion.

If you want everyone to be available, simply uncheck the exclusion.

Next, set the number of recipients you want to send to.

If you select fewer recipients than are available, you can also choose which subscribers should receive priority.

This gives you the flexibility to send to everyone at once or start with a smaller group.

Review and Approve Your Flash Sale

Before sending, Rewards Club shows:

  • The number of recipients
  • The cost per recipient
  • The total SMS cost
  • Any available credit being applied
  • The amount that will be charged when sent

Click Approve Flash Sale when everything looks correct.

If you change the message or recipient selection after approval, the Flash Sale must be approved again before it can be sent.

Send Now or Schedule

After approval, you can choose Send Now or Schedule.

Send Now sends the Flash Sale shortly after you click the button.

Schedule lets you choose a future date and time.

Flash Sales can only be sent during the SMS Blast Hours configured under:

Account Settings → SMS Settings

The selected time zone and sending hours apply to both Send Now and scheduled Flash Sales.

Send to More

You do not have to send a Flash Sale to your entire subscriber list at once.

If you want to reach additional customers after the first send, open the Flash Sale under Flash Sale History and select Send to More.

Each additional send is called a batch.

When preparing the next batch, you can:

  • Review or change the SMS message
  • Select additional recipients
  • Set the number of recipients
  • Choose which eligible subscribers receive priority
  • Review and approve the cost before sending

You can continue sending additional batches until you have reached enough customers or there are no more subscribers you want to include.

When using Send to More, Rewards Club helps prevent the same customers from receiving the Flash Sale again unintentionally.

Flash Sale History

Previously sent Flash Sales appear under Flash Sale History.

Select a Flash Sale to see details about:

  • The SMS message
  • Recipients
  • Cost and credits
  • Individual batches, if Send to More was used

If a Flash Sale was sent in multiple batches, each batch can be reviewed separately. This is useful because the message, recipient selection, or number of recipients may have changed between batches.

You can also select Send to More from a previous batch to prepare another batch.

Use the Refresh button if a newly sent Flash Sale has not yet appeared in History.

How Flash Sale Billing Works

Flash Sale is a pay-per-use feature and is separate from your regular SMS Signup plan.

The cost depends on:

  • The number of recipients
  • The length and type of the SMS message

The current cost per recipient and total cost are always shown before you approve the Flash Sale.

If an SMS is undeliverable, a credit is applied toward a future Flash Sale.

For additional information, see How SMS Billing Works.

Before You Send

We recommend sending yourself a Test SMS before sending a Flash Sale to customers. This lets you check the wording, formatting, and how the message appears on a phone.

Once everything looks correct, select your recipients, approve the Flash Sale, and either Send Now or Schedule it.