Looking for an alternative to Skipio?

Have you found yourself wondering what the difference is between Shout and Skipio? If so, you’re in the right place. Shout and Skipio both offer text messaging solutions to small businesses. Their specific feature sets and pricing structures, however, cater to different types of small businesses.

Read on to determine which platform is best suited to your needs.

Team and Business Texting

Both Shout and Skipio offer a comprehensive suit of features to help small businesses reach their customers and grow their businesses. Both platforms are suited to businesses who want to:

• Automate outreach to new contacts
• Increase engagement rates with existing customers
• Answer customer service questions quicker
• Set appointments efficiently
• Re-engage lapsed customers or prospects
• Keep team members on the same page
• Increase lifetime customer value

Shout and Skipio both encourage users to build connections with prospects and customers through personalized messaging and approachable campaigns. Their feature sets empower small businesses to customize their messages to sound just like a human would, with additional marketing firepower to make messages extra effective.

Text marketing features that both Shout and Skipio offer include:

• 10-digit phone numbers
• Drip campaigns
• Automated bots
• Web chat plugins for websites
• Custom fields for personalization
• Saved message templates
• Scheduled messaging
• Tags for organization
• Available on the web and on mobile apps
• Help center with guides

Shout’s Two Texting Numbers

Shout offers two types of texting numbers—customer service and marketing—whereas Skipio only offers one type of texting number.

Shout’s customer service numbers are local numbers based on your location. Whether you’re texting customers or team members, contacts like to see a local area code because it feels more approachable than a short code or 1-800 number. Shout’s customer service numbers are great for communicating one-on-one about scheduling appointments, answering customer service questions, and taking orders.

Shout’s marketing numbers are toll-free numbers (they start with 833). Because toll-free numbers don’t have the same marketing restrictions as local numbers, this means they are best for business texting. Shout’s marketing numbers are best for sending texts about sales, exclusive announcements, and other messages that need to be communicated en masse.

Skipio only offers one type of number. Wireless carriers monitor these numbers very closely for spam, especially when it comes to group messages. That means if you’re trying to message many people (e.g. 30 people or more) at a time OR you include certain blacklisted words in your text, your message may not be delivered.

Not only do Shout’s two texting numbers give you greater flexibility for communicating with your audience, they also increase the likelihood that all your messages will actually make it to your contacts’ phones.

Learn More About Texting on Shout

Take Orders and Collect Payment via Text with Shout

Shout includes a powerful orders management system to enable the smallest of business owners to get paid quickly and easily. Using Shout’s order dashboard, you can:

• Integrate your Square account and create Square invoices in Shout
• Create manual orders in Shout
• Send invoices and receipts via text, Instagram, and Facebook
• Track order status (invoiced, paid, shipped)
• Schedule follow up messages

Skipio does not offer any kind of order management or invoicing system.

Learn More About Orders & Invoicing

Create Shipping Labels in Shout

Shout also makes it easy to fulfill orders with our comprehensive shipping dashboard. You can buy and print shipping labels within the app, as well as:

• Compare shipping services and rates
• Insure packages
• Print packing slips
• Schedule USPS pickups
• Tracking shipping status
• Automatically text tracking alerts and delivery updates to customers

Skipio does not offer an integrated shipping solution.

Learn More About Shout Shipping

Skipio’s Voice Call Features

In addition to team and business texting features, Skipio offers a handful of calling features, including:

• Outbound calling
• Call forwarding
• Voicemail drops

These features are especially useful for small businesses in industries like real estate, home services, fitness, and insurance.

Shout doesn’t currently offer any outbound calling features. Shout does, however, support call forwarding in the event your contacts ever try to call your Shout phone number. You can connect your Shout number to your personal number so that all calls that come to your Shout number automatically come through to your phone. Your personal number will stay private, but customers will still be able to get in touch with you.

Shout also supports voice memos via Shout-to-Shout messages.

Collaborate with Everyone in Shout Group Chats

One of Shout’s most popular features is Group Chat—whether you need a central place to onboard your team, a replacement to Facebook groups for parties, or a streamlined way to communicate with VIP customers, you create and grow just about anything in Shout Group Chats.

Skipio does not support direct in-app messaging of any kind.

Learn More About Shout Group Chat

Integrations

Shout and Skipio alike both integrate with a range of software. Shout’s integrations are much more focused on social media, order completion, and shipping, whereas Skipio’s integrations are more focused on marketing automation.

Shout integrates with:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Square
• Shopify (coming soon)

Shout’s Facebook and Instagram integrations allow you to read and respond to all your messages from the same inbox. That means you can also use Shout’s text automations—including bots, quick responses, and scheduled messages—with Facebook and Instagram messages.

Skipio integrates with:

• Hubspot
• Keap
• Zoho
• Acuity
• ClubReady
• Mindbody
• Clickfunnels
• Zenplanner
• Mary Kay

Pricing

Shout caters to social sellers, many of whom are sole proprietors who need an affordable solution to scale their business. As such, pricing starts at just $4/month, and top out at $90/month.

Skipio’s plans range from $89/month to $299/month.

Powerful Tools Included With Every Shout Account

Shout includes a powerful set of tools with every account, including:

• Free, unlimited Shout-to-Shout messaging, including group messages and group chats
• Community Pages so you can supplement or replace your Facebook Groups for team management
• Messaging automations, including bots and drip campaigns
• Orders and Invoices dashboard
• Shipping dashboard
• Chat Plugins for your website