Group messaging: automated phone calls and text
so i've searched many times before how to make automated phone calls for free, but found no real solution. i've accepted the fact that some things will not be free, so i started looking into paid services. found a free/paid service that's looking good called DialMyCalls. It gives me one free call to 25 people a day (with ads along with that voice message, before and after), and $.06 per 30 second message. this will do for now. found this post that gives a code for 50 free credits when i sign up: D381735.
this service also offers text to group. i'm going to be using DialMyCalls weekly for my youth group, to notify parents of absences, and to make announcements. simplify things a lot!
in my search for free sms to group, i found this service that's kind of interesting, think email group for text messages.