messaging
Multimedia Messaging Service. MMS is a text message. It carries a photo, video, GIF or a longer body of text (over 160 characters), instead of plain text alone. It travels over the same business number as SMS, just with an attachment.
MMS uses the same carrier infrastructure as SMS, but adds support for attachments. These are typically capped around 1 to 5 MB, depending on carrier. Long SMS messages over 160 characters are often silently converted to MMS as well. That's because standard SMS was built around that character limit.
For a small business, MMS is the difference between texting "your part is ready" and sending a photo. The photo could show the actual damaged part, a signed estimate, or a finished job site. Customers reply the same way they would to any text.
MMS costs slightly more to send than plain SMS. A small number of older or budget devices still cannot receive it. Instead, they fall back to a text-only version with a download link instead of an inline image.
Worked example
A 3-person auto repair shop texts customers a photo of a worn brake pad alongside the repair estimate.
Customers approve the extra work over text within minutes instead of the shop needing a phone call to explain what they are seeing.
Why it matters to a small team
A photo often closes a sale or gets a repair approved faster than a phone call can. For trades and service businesses especially, MMS turns a text thread into a lightweight version of an in-person walkthrough.
SMS is plain text limited to 160 characters per segment. MMS supports images, video, audio and longer text, and many carriers automatically send anything over the SMS character limit as MMS instead, even without an attachment.
Most US carriers cap MMS attachments between 1 MB and 5 MB, and messaging providers often compress images automatically to fit. Videos longer than a few seconds may be rejected or converted to a link instead of an inline attachment.
Usually yes, MMS messages typically cost a small amount more per message than plain SMS due to the extra carrier handling for media. The difference is often fractions of a cent but adds up at high volume.
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