Mobile Commons

What Mobile Commons does

Mobile Commons is a SaaS mobile messaging and customer engagement platform founded in 2007 by Jed Alpert and headquartered in Brooklyn, NY. The company was acquired by Upland Software in 2014 and returned to independent operation in 2025 under its founding leadership. It operates a four-product suite: mCommons (SMS messaging platform), Waterfall (SMS marketing automation), Rant & Rave (AI-powered customer feedback and sentiment analysis), and Hipcricket (mobile messaging campaigns). The platform is deployed across 245 customers and 4 countries, with a workforce of 137 employees and over 808 million cumulative connections on record. Underlying technology components include RCS (Rich Communication Services) support, a proprietary AI/NLP sentiment engine, and integrations with 20+ partners. The company maintains compliance posture across TCPA, GDPR, CCPA, and the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, and has facilitated over $34M in fundraising for social impact causes through its messaging tools.

The customer base is concentrated in nonprofit, advocacy, and political-organizing segments, with named logos including SEIU, Greenpeace, Planned Parenthood, Human Rights Campaign, and National Audubon Society. Mobile Commons monetizes through SaaS subscriptions sold via a sales-led, demo-based go-to-market motion. The platform combines utility messaging (alerts, reminders, two-way SMS) and engagement messaging (campaigns, marketing automation), with the Rant & Rave layer adding real-time sentiment capture over those conversations.

The 2025 transition to independent operation, concurrent founder return, RCS rollout, and external recognition (G2 Easiest to Do Business With and Grid Leader) collectively signal a repositioning of the company as a focused, category-specialized SaaS vendor targeting regulated, high-stakes use cases in advocacy and enterprise engagement.

Name

Mobile Commons

Legal name

Mobile Commons, LLC

Website

https://waterfallmobile.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2007

Operating status

Operating

Short description

Mobile Commons is a SaaS mobile messaging and customer engagement platform that serves 245 nonprofit, advocacy, and enterprise customers across 4 countries through SMS, RCS, and an AI-powered sentiment engine across its four-product suite.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Mobile Messaging Platforms

NAICS

Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (518)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)

akta.pro primary industry

SMS/RCS Messaging Platforms (BPAMACAF)

akta.pro secondary industry

Messaging-Led Community Platforms (Chat/Group Communities) (MPACAJAE)

Keywords

• Mobile messaging platform
• SMS marketing software
• Customer engagement software
• Nonprofit advocacy messaging
• Real-time feedback platform

Headquarters

HQ city

Brooklyn

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices5 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Application Subscription Services: Cloud-based SaaS platform subscriptions for mobile messaging and customer engagement across four product lines: mCommons, Waterfall, Rant & Rave, and Hipcricket
2. Support Services: Customer support and mobile strategist services included with platform subscriptions, providing onboarding, best practices guidance, and ongoing strategy optimization
3. Professional Services: Implementation and consulting services for enterprise customers

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Mobile Commons operates an independent parent company offering a portfolio of four cloud-based mobile messaging and customer engagement platforms: mCommons (SMS/MMS/RCS broadcast messaging for nonprofits, advocacy, civic, and healthcare teams), Waterfall (automated multi-channel messaging for enterprise marketers), Rant & Rave (real-time customer feedback and sentiment analysis for service-driven sectors), and Hipcricket (high-volume SMS/MMS promotions for retail and loyalty teams). The platforms enable fundraising, volunteer recruitment, legislative outreach, promotions, customer surveys, and complaint resolution through cloud-based messaging infrastructure.

Product overview

Mobile Commons operates as an independent parent company offering a portfolio of four distinct messaging platforms under one umbrella. The portfolio includes mCommons (SMS/MMS/RCS for nonprofits and advocacy), Waterfall (enterprise multi-channel messaging automation), Rant & Rave (real-time customer feedback and engagement), and Hipcricket (high-volume promotional campaigns). Founded in 2007, acquired by Upland Software in 2014, and returned to independence in 2025 under founder Jed Alpert. The four platforms share a common mobile messaging foundation but serve different market segments: nonprofits/advocacy (mCommons), enterprise/operations (Waterfall), customer experience/service (Rant & Rave), and retail/promotions (Hipcricket).

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• mCommons: SMS, MMS & RCS broadcast messaging platform for nonprofits, advocacy, civic, and healthcare teams - known as the most trusted nonprofit text platform for 18 years.
• Waterfall
• Rant & Rave
• Hipcricket

Products and services

• mCommons Cloud-based SMS, MMS, and RCS broadcast messaging platform built for nonprofit, advocacy, civic, and healthcare organizations. Features include audience targeting, personalization, volunteer recruitment, automated member journeys, campaign reporting, mobile CRM, surveys/polls/quizzes, legislative click-to-call, polling locations, mConnect (district-matched round-robin calling), and mData (data activation and supporter mobilization).
• Waterfall Automated multi-channel messaging platform for enterprise marketers enabling cross-channel messaging campaigns with smart segmentation, real-time feedback, automated alerts, and operational efficiency across customer, team, and vendor communications. Designed for fast setup without complex technical implementation.
• Rant & Rave Real-time customer feedback and engagement platform for service-driven sectors including utilities, housing, finance, and public service teams. Captures customer feedback across multiple channels (email, SMS, web, app, phone, chat), performs sentiment analysis via its Sentiment Engine, generates cases for negative feedback through the Recover Module, routes intelligently to qualified teams, and provides actionable analytics and reporting.
• Hipcricket High-volume SMS and MMS promotions platform for retail and loyalty teams. Enables sweepstakes, offers, alerts, and text-to-win contests with campaign-ready templates, no technical experience required, and real-time campaign tracking at national scale.

Quantifiable outcome

• 168% increase in SMS-driven donations for National Audubon Society
• +7 more outcomes

Named customers15 records

Segments6 records

Ideal customer profiles5 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration22 records

AI capability2 records

Feature7 records

Partnerships

Twelve partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• SalesforcecoreTechnology or IntegrationIntegration partner allowing mCommons users to sync supporter data and power multi-channel engagement across Salesforce CRM
• EveryActioncoreTechnology or IntegrationIntegration enabling data sync and supporter segmentation across EveryAction nonprofit CRM platform
• ActBluecoreTechnology or IntegrationIntegration for Democratic/progressive campaigns enabling donation attribution and fundraising tracking from SMS campaigns
• NationBuildercoreTechnology or IntegrationIntegration connecting mCommons with NationBuilder CRM for synchronized supporter communication
• Action NetworkcoreTechnology or IntegrationIntegration with progressive advocacy platform for synchronized campaign management
• SalsacoreTechnology or IntegrationIntegration with Salsa nonprofit fundraising and CRM platform for synchronized supporter engagement
• ClassycoreTechnology or IntegrationIntegration with Classy nonprofit fundraising platform for mobile-optimized donation experiences
• NGPVANcoreTechnology or IntegrationIntegration with NGPVAN political CRM for campaign communication and voter outreach
• ActionKitcoreTechnology or IntegrationIntegration with ActionKit platform for advocacy and campaign management
• Blue StatecoreTechnology or IntegrationIntegration partner for progressive organizations and digital fundraising
• StripecoreTechnology or IntegrationPayment processing integration for mobile-optimized donation and transaction handling
• Capitol CanarycoreTechnology or IntegrationIntegration for advocacy and legislative communication management

Scale indicators25 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Tatango: Tatango is an SMS marketing platform focused specifically on nonprofits, charities, and membership organizations. It directly overlaps with Mobile Commons' mCommons product on broadcast messaging, fundraising text campaigns, and advocacy opt-in, making it the most comparable vertical-specialist competitor.
• CallHub: CallHub provides P2P texting, voice broadcasting, and SMS campaigns for political campaigns, nonprofits, and advocacy organizations. It competes directly with Mobile Commons on grassroots organizing, legislative call campaigns, and high-volume advocacy messaging.
• Hustle: Hustle is a peer-to-peer texting platform used heavily by Democratic campaigns, nonprofits, and labor unions for distributed text-based outreach. It mirrors Mobile Commons' advocacy and labor union customer segments with the same SMS-first organizing workflow.
• RumbleUp: RumbleUp is a P2P and broadcast texting platform serving political, nonprofit, and advocacy clients. It is highly comparable to mCommons in terms of customer base, compliance posture, and message-volume use cases.
• Attentive: Attentive is an SMS-first marketing platform focused on retail and e-commerce brands, directly overlapping with Mobile Commons' Hipcricket product on promotional campaigns, sweepstakes, and loyalty opt-ins.
• Postscript: Postscript is an SMS marketing platform purpose-built for Shopify-driven retail and DTC brands. It is comparable to Hipcricket's retail/loyalty messaging niche and increasingly to Waterfall's enterprise promotional use cases.

Broad incumbents

• Klaviyo: Klaviyo is a broad marketing-automation platform with SMS as a growing channel alongside email, often used by retail and DTC brands. It competes with the Waterfall and Hipcricket products as part of a much larger multi-channel suite.
• Iterable: Iterable is a cross-channel marketing platform including SMS, push, email, and in-app. It is a broader incumbent offering overlapping functionality to Mobile Commons' Waterfall product for enterprise marketers.
• Twilio: Twilio is the dominant CPaaS platform exposing SMS, MMS, RCS, and voice APIs to developers and enterprises. It is a critical horizontal incumbent whose underlying APIs enable many of Mobile Commons' SMS use cases and which could displace niche vendors if it adds vertical templates.
• Qualtrics XM (CX): Qualtrics is a broad customer-experience and experience-management platform with sentiment analytics and survey capabilities comparable to Rant & Rave's real-time feedback and sentiment engine. It competes with Mobile Commons' service-sector CX offering at the higher end of the enterprise market.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Facebookfacebook.com/profile.php

Compliance6 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles6 records

Subsidiaries4 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Mobile Commons