Marketing & discovery
SMS vs email open rate
SMS messages are widely cited as reaching roughly a 98% open rate versus about 20% for email, with far higher response rates, making text the highest-reach channel for salon reminders and offers.
The 98% figure is an industry benchmark repeated across messaging vendors rather than a single audited study, and 'open' is measured differently for SMS than for email. The durable, well-supported point for salons is directional: text is opened and answered far more, and sooner, than email, which is why SMS reminders and review requests outperform.
This figure is load-bearing across 39 pages on SalonAI. See where, below.
Sources
Where this number comes from. The end of the reference chain.
The SMS Marketing Guide for Hair Salons and Beauty Salons
Textla/2024/vendor
Why Text Messaging Gets Far Greater Open, Response, and Engagement Rates Than Email
Kenect/2024/vendor
Where this number is used
Every page on SalonAI that leans on this figure. This is the point: a number is not a dead end, it is a node, and you can see exactly what it supports and follow it up the hierarchy.
AI capabilities (6)
By business type (10)
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Comparisons (4)
Deep-dive pages (17)
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