Both channels drive revenue for cannabis retailers, but they work differently. Email educates and builds brand. SMS creates urgency and drives immediate visits. The best dispensaries use both. Here is how to think about each one.
Book a Discovery CallBefore diving into strategy, here are the numbers that define each channel for dispensary marketing.
| Metric | SMS | |
|---|---|---|
| Open Rate | 20-25% average | 98% within 3 minutes |
| Click-Through Rate | 2-5% average | 19-36% for dispensaries |
| Cost Per Send | $0.001-0.005 | $0.01-0.03 per segment |
| Content Capacity | Unlimited - Images, HTML, long-form | 160 characters per segment |
| Best For | Education, newsletters, product launches, brand building | Flash sales, deal alerts, loyalty, urgency |
| Response Time | Hours to days | Minutes |
| Unsubscribe Risk | Low - Customers tolerate higher frequency | Higher - Customers quick to opt out from over-sending |
| Compliance Burden | Moderate - CAN-SPAM requirements | Higher - TCPA, carrier filtering, cannabis restrictions |
Email marketing for dispensaries is often undervalued because operators compare it to SMS open rates and declare it the loser. That comparison misses the point. Email does things that SMS physically cannot do, and those things are critical for dispensary growth.
First, email gives you unlimited content space. You can showcase new product arrivals with photos and descriptions, educate customers about terpene profiles or consumption methods, share your brand story, and include multiple calls to action in a single send. A well-designed dispensary email can walk a customer through your weekly deals, highlight a staff pick, announce an event, and drive them to your online menu, all in one message.
Second, email is dramatically cheaper per send. At fractions of a cent per message, you can afford to send weekly newsletters to your entire list without worrying about per-message costs eating into your margins. That frequency matters for staying top of mind. The dispensary that shows up in your inbox every Tuesday with new drops and educational content builds stronger brand preference than the one that only texts you deal codes.
Third, email subscribers tolerate higher frequency without opting out. Cannabis customers who sign up for your email list expect regular communication. You can send two to three emails per week without seeing significant unsubscribe spikes. Try that with SMS and your opt-out rate will climb quickly. This frequency tolerance makes email the better channel for ongoing brand communication and relationship building.
SMS does one thing better than any other marketing channel: it gets seen immediately. A 98% open rate within three minutes of delivery means your message is virtually guaranteed to reach the customer's eyeballs. For dispensaries running time-sensitive promotions, that speed is irreplaceable.
Flash sales, daily deals, holiday promotions, and limited-time loyalty bonuses all perform best on SMS. When you need to move inventory today, drive foot traffic this afternoon, or fill a slow Tuesday evening, a targeted text message gets results that email simply cannot match in that timeframe. The immediacy creates urgency, and urgency drives action.
SMS also excels at transactional and loyalty communications. Points balance reminders, reward redemption notifications, order-ready alerts, and loyalty tier upgrades all feel natural as text messages. Customers expect quick, actionable updates via SMS. These operational messages also keep your dispensary top of mind between promotional sends.
The trade-offs are real, though. SMS costs significantly more per message, which means careless blasting eats your margins. Character limits force you to be concise, leaving no room for education or brand building. And compliance requirements, especially TCPA regulations and cannabis-specific carrier filtering, create overhead that email does not have. Dispensaries that send too many promotional texts also see higher opt-out rates, shrinking their subscriber list over time.
The dispensaries generating the highest marketing ROI do not choose between email and SMS. They use both channels strategically, assigning each channel to the use cases where it performs best. A coordinated email and SMS strategy typically generates 30 to 40 percent more revenue than either channel used alone.
Here is the framework we use for our dispensary clients. Each channel has clear use cases where it outperforms the other.
We manage email and SMS campaigns for dispensaries using Alpine IQ, SpringBig, and other platforms. Let us build a coordinated strategy that puts the right message on the right channel at the right time.