SMS Subscribers
How many people joined your SMS list — new opt-ins, not the size of the list.
What it means
SMS Subscribers is the number of people who joined your SMS list, counted on the day they joined. It's a count of new joins, not the size of the list, and it never goes negative — people leaving are counted separately as SMS UnsubscribesSMS UnsubscribesLower is better; a high value suggests audience fatigue or list-hygiene issues.. On Klaviyo the figure is shown day by day, and the Total row adds up the days in your selected range.
Show the math
Formula and a worked example
SMS Subscribers counts the people added to your SMS list on a given date. Each point on the SMS Subscriber Growth chart is one day; the Total row is those days added together.
It's a gross figure. Nobody leaving is taken off it — that's SMS UnsubscribesSMS UnsubscribesLower is better; a high value suggests audience fatigue or list-hygiene issues. — and the two are combined for you in Net SMS SubscribersNet SMS SubscribersReal growth of your text audience..
Worked example. A week runs 120, 95, 140, 60, 45, 210 and 180 new subscribers, so SMS Subscribers for the week is 850. Opt-outs over the same seven days total 465, which puts Net SMS Subscribers at +385.
Read the shape as well as the total. Two big days and five flat ones means one promotion did the work, and the flat days are the part that repeats next month whether you run anything or not.
It answers the question
How many people can you text next month that you couldn't text last month? Every SMS figure on the page is earned from this audience, so this number sets how big the channel is allowed to get.
Why it matters
SMS only reaches people who agreed to it, so the size of the list is a hard ceiling on what the channel can earn. Sending more often to the same people lifts revenue for a while; new joins are the only thing that raises the ceiling.
It's also fast feedback. Joins are dated to the day, so a change to a pop-up, a checkout field or an offer shows up here within a day or two — long before it shows up in revenue.
What good looks like
There's no universal target: this is a count, so a shop with 5,000 visits a month and one with 500,000 can't share a number. Judge it three ways — against your own recent weeks, against the opt-outs on the same days, and against the traffic that produced it. Steady daily joins are worth more than one tall spike, because the spike only comes back if you run the promotion again.
How to improve it
| Lever | What you do | Expect | How long | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fast Ask for the number where you already ask for the email | Make the sign-up unit two steps — email first, phone number on the second screen | More SMS joins from traffic you already have | 1–2 weeks | A second step loses some people who would have left an email address. Watch Email Subscribers alongside this column, not instead of it. |
| Fast Ask at checkout | Offer order and delivery updates by text, with marketing consent as its own separate choice | A steady trickle of joins from buyers rather than browsers | 2–3 weeks | One more decision inside checkout. Watch Orders on the step you add it to for a fortnight before you keep it. |
| Slow Give the list a reason that isn't a discount | Early access, restock alerts, delivery updates — things worth handing over a phone number for | Slower joining, subscribers who stay | 1 quarter | You have to keep the promise every month. A list that joined for early access leaves quickly once the early access stops. |
| Slow Trade a code for the number | Offer a first-order discount in exchange for opting in | The fastest lift on this number, and the least loyal one | 2–4 weeks | The code comes off the first order, and code-hunters pull SMS Rev. / Recipient down as the list grows. You buy size and pay in quality. |
Every lever costs something somewhere. The last column is the one to read twice.
Read it with
Joins on their own only tell you the door swung. Against the people leaving on the same days, they tell you whether the room is filling.
Building the list
More people arriving than leaving, and the gap is widening. This is the only shape that makes next quarter easier than this one.
A revolving door
You're refilling a list that's draining at the same time. The total can look healthy while the same names cycle through it.
Quiet on both sides
Little joining, little leaving — usually a period with no capture push and few sends. The list is standing still, which ages it.
Shrinking
Fewer arriving than leaving. Every week in this corner makes the next SMS campaign smaller before you write a word of it.
Growth next to what the channel contributes. A list growing while SMS's share of revenue holds flat means the new people aren't buying yet — normal for a few weeks after a capture push, a problem if it runs a quarter. A flat list with a rising share means you're leaning harder on the people already there.
Size next to quality. Joins climbing while per-recipient revenue falls means the offer that captured them attracted people who wanted the code, not the shop. Neither number catches that alone, and the size figure is the one that flatters you.
Common misreads
It's the joins in the period, not the total on the list. A shop with 40,000 subscribers and a shop with 900 can both show 850 for a week, and they're in completely different positions.
Only if joins outran opt-outs. Net SMS Subscribers is the column that settles it, and it can be negative in a week where this one hit a record.
A single tall day is usually one promotion, one pop-up test or one paid push. Look at the flat days either side of it — those are what your capture does when nothing is running.
Also called
SMS opt-ins · SMS sign-ups · new SMS subscribers · list adds
See yoursYour SMS Subscriber Growth day by day, with joins above the line, opt-outs below it and the net as a line across.
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