Cheapest is a clearer question here than in most categories, because nearly everyone bills per line per month and the numbers are directly comparable — where they are published at all.
| Option | Monthly | Sends outbound? | Real cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| BlueBubbles | $0 | Yes | A Mac, your uptime, your Apple ID at risk |
| Photon Free | $0 | Limited | Evaluation-grade; runs against your own Mac |
| Photon Pro | $25 | Limited | Dedicated lines and outreach are on the $250 tier |
| Blooio Shared | $39 | Yes | Shared line — deliverability affected by others on the pool |
| LoopMessage | ~$60 base | Yes | Add-ons reported to push it past $120 |
| Sendblue AI Agent | $100 | No — reply-only | Outbound needs the enterprise quote |
| Blooio Dedicated | $289 | Yes | Isolation from other customers' behaviour |
$39 is the answer for most people asking this
Blooio's shared plan is the cheapest hosted option that can actually send an outbound message with no add-ons, no setup fee and no sales call. For a business sending appointment reminders, that is very likely the correct purchase.
What you give up at each price point
- At $0 self-hosted: delivery receipts you can trust, uptime that is not your Mac, SMS fallback, and someone else absorbing account risk. Real losses, acceptable for internal tools.
- At $39 shared: line isolation. Another customer's sending behaviour can affect your deliverability. Fine until messaging becomes load-bearing.
- At $289 dedicated: nothing much — this is the comfortable tier for a business that depends on the channel.
- Above that: you are paying for compliance artefacts, enterprise support or outbound volume, not for better message delivery.
The cost calculation people get backwards
Coming from SMS, per-line pricing looks expensive. It inverts as volume grows: iMessage gets cheaper per message the more you send, because the line is the cost and the messages are close to free.
- Per message at 200/mo on a $39 line
- 20¢Per message at 200/mo on a $39 line
- At 1,000/mo
- 4¢At 1,000/mo
- At 10,000/mo
- 0.4¢At 10,000/mo
- At 20,000/mo
- 0.2¢At 20,000/mo
So the honest framing is not 'is $39 cheap' but 'do I send enough for the line to pay for itself'. For most appointment businesses, one or two recovered no-shows a month covers it — iMessage vs SMS cost has the full comparison.
Common questions
- What is the cheapest iMessage API?
- Blooio at $39/month flat is the cheapest hosted plan with outbound included. Photon has a free tier suitable for evaluation and $25/month Pro, though dedicated lines sit on its $250 tier. BlueBubbles is free but self-hosted.