Quick answer
Yes — Remindly is a one-time-purchase alternative to SimpleTexting. It costs $34 once, while SimpleTexting runs $29+/mo — about $348 per year, every year. Self-hosted appointment reminder tool that sends SMS and email through your own Twilio and SMTP. It is for people who want the job done on their own hardware without a renewal date — not for teams that live inside SimpleTexting's ecosystem.
The verdict
Switch to Remindly if you are an individual or small team paying SimpleTexting $29+/mo for work your own machine can do. Remindly costs about one month of SimpleTexting once — after year one you pay only the SMS fees you were already going to pay anyway.
Stay with SimpleTexting if your workflow depends on its integrations, you need enterprise features (SSO, admin controls, SLAs), or your team is large enough that per-seat collaboration tooling is worth the bill. Remindly does not try to replicate those.
Head to head
| Remindly | SimpleTexting | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $34 once | $29+/mo |
| Cost after 1 year | $34 + your SMS fees | $348+ |
| 500 appts/mo SMS cost | ~$4 (your Twilio bill) | Included, then overage |
| Two-way confirm (C/R) | Yes | Yes |
| No-show analytics | Yes — per weekday and hour | No |
| Quiet hours | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted / your data | Yes — SQLite, your box | No |
| API keys | Yours (BYO) | Theirs |
| 5-year cost | $34 | $1,740 |
Where SimpleTexting still wins
- Ecosystem and integrations. Established tools accumulate years of third-party integrations, templates and add-ons. If your workflow is wired into SimpleTexting's ecosystem, switching means rebuilding that plumbing — a real cost.
- Team and enterprise features. Shared workspaces, granular permissions, SSO, audit logs and a vendor to call when something breaks — that is what the higher subscription tiers actually buy, and a pay-once app does not come with it.
- Familiarity and hiring. SimpleTexting is the name people already know. Onboarding a team onto a tool nobody has used before takes time the subscription never charges for.
Where Remindly wins
- Price, permanently. $34 once versus $348/yr for as long as you use it. There is no renewal, no seat count and no tier gate.
- Appointments. Manual entry or CSV import with per-row validation and error reporting.
- Reminder rules. Any offset like 24h, 2h or 15min, by SMS or email, with per-rule templates and merge fields.
- Two-way confirm. Clients reply C to confirm or R to reschedule via the Twilio inbound webhook, with confirmed / pending / no-reply status.
The math
Remindly costs about one month of SimpleTexting once — after year one you pay only the SMS fees you were already going to pay anyway.
- After 1 year: Remindly has cost you $34 total — SimpleTexting has cost $348.
- After 3 years: Remindly is still $34 — the subscription is at $1,044.
- After 5 years: Remindly is still $34 — the subscription is at $1,740.
Common questions
Is it really free on GitHub?
Yes — Remindly is MIT-licensed at github.com/bensblueprints/appointment-reminder-sms-mvp. The $34 buys the packaged Windows installer with everything wired up; building from source is free.
Am I still paying for SMS?
Yes, but only the real carrier fee. Twilio charges ~$0.0079 per SMS on your own account and Remindly never marks it up — you skip the SaaS fee stacked on top, not the carrier cost.
Where does my client data live?
In your own SQLite file on your box, self-hosted with your own API keys — nothing goes to a third-party cloud.
Try Remindly — $34, one time
Or get Remindly plus every other app in the suite: the OneTimeSuite bundle is currently $97, one time.