When comparing Bolt vs Reach, the Slant community recommends Reach for most people. In the question“What are the best messaging apps for iOS?” Reach is ranked 29th while Bolt is ranked 33rd. The most important reason people chose Reach is:
Ability to send a single message to multiple people without exposing their contact information to each other. Reach sends individual messages to the group rather than starts a group chat.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro One tap photo and video sharing
Tap a contact to take a picture, tap and hold a contact to record video. Tapping the screen will allow you to add text to photos and videos just taken.
Pro One-to-one conversations increase chance of feedback
Limiting conversations to only two parties increases the likelihood of getting a response.
Pro Mass message multiple people at once
Ability to send a single message to multiple people without exposing their contact information to each other. Reach sends individual messages to the group rather than starts a group chat.
Pro Personalized and Individual conversations in "Group Mode"
When sending a message to a group of people, Reach starts a private conversation in your Messages, Mail or WhatsApp apps respectively for each recipient
Pro Reusable Recipient Groups
Improve workflow productivity by creating reusable recipient groups
Pro All platforms in one: iMessage, Text/SMS, E-mail, WhatsApp, and Google Voice
Reach does not require the recipient to have Reach installed on their device. Instead it uses the existing messaging apps on the device to send the message to the recipient.
Pro Message Templates Feature
Prepare message templates which can be reused. Message templates can have recipients name variable, for example the template "hey {first name}!" will be populated with the recipients first name when the message is sent out
Pro Free texting through Google Voice
Reach integrates with Google Voice and allows to send free text messages in the U.S.A and low rates across the globe
Pro Fully automated mass texting with free SMS
Using Google Voice integration, Reach is able to send mass texts in a fully automated mode (without the need to press "Send" button for each message)
Cons
Con Only available in select countries
Bolt is limited to New Zealand, Singapore, and South Africa.
Con No groups
Bolt only allows one-to-one communications.
Con Need to press "Send" button per each recipient
When sending a message to a group, the user must press "Send" button for each recipient. The only work around is to use Google Voice integration for fully automatic mass texting