3 Text Request Alternatives for Business Texting
Carly is a Text Request alternative for AI conversations and booking; Heymarket is worth comparing for CRM-connected team messaging; SimpleTexting fits a campaign-centered buying decision. Keep Text Request in consideration if texting from your established business number works well and staff find the shared process easy.
The best reason to replace a business texting tool is a concrete mismatch with how customers and employees work. A contact changes numbers, several staff members answer the same inquiry, or every scheduling reply requires an owner to stop what they are doing. Those cases reveal more than a generic feature-count comparison.
Carly publishes this guide. We checked original reviews and public documentation on November 9, 2026. We did not conduct a delivery or reliability benchmark, and the workflow scenarios below are suggestions for your evaluation.
A contact-number complaint has a documented explanation
Sarah K., an owner and executive director, gave Text Request 5/5 in a September 14, 2026 G2 review. She valued texting from a landline number, scheduling and groups, but criticized “not being able to update a phone number for a contact.” The review was marked incentivized through a seller invitation. A vendor response invited her to contact the success team about updating numbers.
Text Request’s own Changing a Contact’s Number guide clarifies the current workflow: phone numbers are unique identifiers and cannot be edited. To use a new number, archive the existing contact and create another with the updated number. An incorrect number can only be deleted when it has no message history.
This is a real product behavior, not just an unverified complaint. It also has a documented procedure. Whether it is a reason to leave depends on how often numbers change and how your staff needs to preserve context.
For a business with long customer relationships, test the whole change: old history, new number, group membership and future reminders. For a short campaign to a stable list, the limitation may rarely matter. Do not assume every alternative automatically merges the records correctly; ask each to demonstrate the same case.
Text Request pricing needs a current configuration check
The comparison chart linked from Text Request’s pricing page shows Basic at $59.99/month with 1,000 texts, Starter at $145 with 2,500, Corporate at $295 with 6,500, and Enterprise at $575 with 20,000. The chart is not visibly version-dated, so treat these as the linked chart’s figures and confirm them in a current quote.
The same chart shows different included dashboards and several paid feature additions. That makes the entry subscription an incomplete comparison if you need scheduled messages, integrations or more business numbers. Ask for the features your staff actually uses, rather than collecting the cheapest headline from each vendor.
For example, a team considering Basic should confirm whether its desired scheduling and integration setup is included or added to the bill. A business with several locations should price the required dashboards and numbers. Avoid relying on an old third-party price table when the vendor’s own materials need confirmation.
Reasons to keep Text Request
Text Request’s product site describes business texting, integrations and an API, alongside customer onboarding and support. If your staff already uses the platform comfortably, those established habits have value.
The number-change procedure alone may be manageable. Document it, train the team and decide how to link the old and new record in your wider customer process. If that resolves the problem, a migration may create more work than it saves.
Switching becomes more relevant when your operating model changes: you need AI to handle routine conversations, a different CRM relationship, or campaign tools that better match your marketing work.
Match the replacement to the problem
| Alternative | Strongest evaluation case | Main question |
|---|---|---|
| Carly | Delegate customer inquiries and appointment handling | Can the agent follow your rules and identify exceptions? |
| Heymarket | Connect staff texting with CRM ownership | How are numbers, contacts and owners synchronized? |
| SimpleTexting | Run recurring SMS and MMS campaigns | What does the complete campaign and reply traffic cost? |
1. Carly: when the message needs an assistant’s judgment and follow-through
Carly gives businesses AI agents for phone, SMS, WhatsApp, email and calendar work. Its strengths include customizable rules, email labeling and sorting, and advanced scheduling. Carly connects to thousands of apps and can be used inside ChatGPT, Claude, Grok Bot, Meta Muse and Perplexity.
The relevant scenario is a customer asking for an appointment while your team is busy. The agent should use approved information, collect what the business needs, offer appropriate times and leave context for the employee. Requests outside the approved rules need a clear human handoff.
Start with one predictable service. Define which calendar is authoritative, the appointment length, required preparation time and the information the customer must provide. Specify whether the agent may reschedule an existing appointment or should ask a person first.
Include identity ambiguity in the demonstration. A customer might say they have a new number or refer to an earlier conversation from another channel. Have the setup team show the intended verification and record-handling process. Do not instruct an agent to assume two contacts are the same person simply because their names match.
Carly cost and scope
Free Zapier-style workflows; AI agents from $35/month. Organization seats are $35 per seat/month. Business SMS, calling and the AI receptionist are separately billed add-ons; the appropriate AI usage tier also matters.
The $35 entry point is not a texting plan with an implied message allowance. Price the complete customer-handling workflow and ask to see any required history, permissions or reporting capabilities. Carly should earn the purchase through the task it can demonstrate, not an assumption that it reproduces every Text Request feature.
For the wider communications setup, see Carly’s phone and email overview. If your existing business number is essential, have eligibility and migration checked before changing the current service.
2. Heymarket: when the CRM should guide who replies
Heymarket has a two-user minimum and separate messaging credits. It is worth evaluating when the customer’s CRM record and assigned employee should shape the messaging process. Ask for the qualifying plan rather than estimating from one advertised seat.
The HubSpot quick-start guide describes phone-field selection, user mapping and contact synchronization. These are useful details to inspect when your frustration concerns contact identity rather than message delivery.
Demonstrate a customer who changes their number, then ask where the previous conversation remains and how staff find it. Do not assume that the presence of contact sync solves every identity problem. Include a record with both a company phone and a personal mobile number.
Also test a reassigned account. If the original employee leaves or changes roles, does the next reply reach the right person? What can a supervisor see? Those questions determine whether the integration reduces work or merely copies information between two places.
Heymarket may be a stronger fit for a team already committed to a CRM workflow. For an owner who wants an AI to answer routine inquiries, the demonstration needs to cover that behavior explicitly; CRM integration alone is not the same purchase.
3. SimpleTexting: when campaign preparation is the main job
SimpleTexting pricing separates plan credits, a number and other charges. Ask for an estimate using your own mix of text and image campaigns.
SimpleTexting is relevant when the team spends most of its time selecting audiences, scheduling announcements and handling campaign responses. It is less directly relevant if the problem is keeping a long customer history attached to changing identities.
Bring a campaign with the formats you actually use. A text-only reminder, a flyer and a longer follow-up can have different credit effects. Ask for the total including expected replies, number charges and any fees outside the plan.
Next, follow one response through the team. Who answers a booking question? Where does a request to stop receiving messages appear? How does a staff member see that another person has already responded? Campaign convenience should not come at the cost of unclear ownership.
If your current Text Request process already does those things well, a change needs a stronger reason than a lower entry price. Compare the complete plan and the staff effort required to finish the same work.
Build a contact-change acceptance test
Use a test customer with an old number, a new number, an open appointment and an earlier conversation. Decide what the intended result should be before trying the alternative.
The staff member should be able to find the old history, send future messages to the right destination and understand whether the new number has been verified. Group memberships and scheduled follow-ups should not silently continue targeting the obsolete number.
Include a second person with the same name. This prevents a demonstration from passing through an unsafe shortcut that would combine unrelated customers. Ask what requires human review and how the system signals ambiguity.
These are operational acceptance criteria, not a claim that any product handles all of them automatically. A clear manual procedure can be preferable to an automatic process whose mistakes are difficult to see.
Keep the number move separate from the data move
Export the records you are entitled to retain, including consent and suppression information. Confirm what history and attachments the receiving system can import. Keep an accessible archive if the new tool only accepts contacts.
Then confirm the number arrangement. Text hosting, calling and a full number port can involve different steps. Agree on the cutover sequence and test both directions of communication before cancelling the old account.
Finally, account for scheduled messages and open promises. A customer awaiting a response should have an owner after the move. For Carly, start with one appointment workflow and inspect the booking and escalation records before expanding to more services.
Test your first customer conversation with Carly
Bring an appointment request, a contact-change example and the rules your staff follows today.
Help me connect Carly Teams so I can work with my organization's business texts, phone calls, voicemail and voice/text agents from this chat. I'll add it to you myself: tell me exactly what to click for the app you are, one step at a time, and wait for me to confirm before moving on. If a step doesn't match what I see, ask me what's on my screen. If you can do the setup yourself (Claude Code, Codex, Muse, Grok Bot), go ahead, and ask me for any key in your secure credential prompt, never in the chat. Don't tell me it's connected until list_phone_lines works, and if I have several teams, ask which to use. Before sending a text or making a call, confirm the team, recipient and message or task with me. The steps are below.
# Connect Carly Teams to an AI app
> Carly Teams works a team's business phone lines through the team's AI agents: business texts, phone calls, voicemail, the voice and text agents, and the team's CRM.
MCP server: https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp (streamable HTTP, OAuth)
## Setup
Carly Teams isn't in any plugin or connector directory yet, so it's added as a custom connection by URL.
1. Add Carly Teams:
- ChatGPT: open https://chatgpt.com/plugins, click Add, and choose Create MCP App (not Create plugin or Upload plugin archive). If Create MCP App isn't on the menu, turn on Developer mode first in Settings > Security and login. Name it "Carly Teams" with the description "Work with my team's business texts, calls, voicemail and voice/text agents," paste https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp as the server URL, choose OAuth, create it, and sign in. Then in the message box open the + menu, choose Developer mode, and pick Carly Teams. No plugin needs to be built, packaged or uploaded.
- Claude (claude.ai, Claude Desktop, or Cowork): Customize > Connectors > Add custom connector, name it Carly Teams, paste https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp, and sign in.
- Claude Code: `claude mcp add --transport http --scope user carly-teams https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp`, then /mcp, pick carly-teams, and authenticate.
- Codex: `codex mcp add carly-teams --url https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp`, then `codex mcp login carly-teams`.
- Cursor: add {"mcpServers": {"carly-teams": {"url": "https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp"}}} to ~/.cursor/mcp.json, then sign in to carly-teams from Customize.
- Muse: a custom connector to https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp with a Carly API key as its bearer token. The key comes from carlyassistant.com/account (API key under Carly Teams) and goes in Muse's connector settings, not in a chat message.
- Grok: grok.com/connectors > New Connector > Custom, paste https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp, and sign in.
- Grok Bot: a custom remote MCP server named carly-teams at https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp. Approve it and sign in.
- Perplexity: Plugins in the sidebar (or Customize > Connectors), then Add custom > Connector > Add MCP connector. Choose Remote, name it Carly Teams, paste https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp, pick OAuth, check the box and click Add, then click the Carly Teams card to sign in.
- Anything else: a remote MCP server (streamable HTTP) named carly-teams at https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp. It signs in with OAuth.
Sign in with the Carly account that belongs to the organization.
2. Once it's added, the Carly Teams tools show up in the chat, including list_phone_lines. If they don't, turn Carly Teams on for the chat or start a new chat.
3. To check it worked, call list_phone_lines: it returns the teams and phone lines the account can reach. A team with no phone line yet can get one with find_numbers (optionally by area code) and get_number, which may return a checkout link to finish.
4. Something to try first: "Review our missed calls and voicemail and help me reply to customers." Carly Teams also reads and answers business texts, has the team's agent make calls, and edits the voice and text agents. Texts and calls go out at once from the agent's number and can't be taken back. Team permissions apply.
## Email, calendars and workflows
Email, calendars, files, booking pages and workflows are the regular Carly connector, added separately. It's listed in ChatGPT's plugin directory (https://chatgpt.com/plugins/plugin_asdk_app_6a67a26316b88191860222f918d4ec54) and Claude's connector directory (https://claude.ai/directory/carly), and connects anywhere else at https://carlyassistant.com/mcp/. Its setup is https://carlyassistant.com/mcp.txt.Want Carly answering your phones?
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