What Are SMS and MMS Carrier Fees?

SMS and MMS carrier fees are additional costs charged by wireless carriers. These fees vary per message and number type. For example, some carriers only charge fees for messages sent on toll-free numbers. Others charge for both sent and received messages on short codes.

Confusing, we know.

At SimpleTexting, we strive for transparent pricing that’s accessible for businesses of all sizes.

With our plans, you purchase credits that allow you to send SMS and MMS messages. If you go over your allotted credits, you pay a small overage fee per message.

All you need to know is your price per credit, which can be found on our pricing page. That’s it. Unlike other competitors, we don’t pass along carrier fees to customers. 

However, we reserve the right to pass through additional fees to customers should carriers decide to change their pricing structure. Due to a recent change by Canadian carriers, we expect to begin charging passthrough costs for messages sent to Canadian mobile numbers in the near future. 

Below we pull back the curtain on some of the surcharges we incur. The tables are broken down by:

• Number type: There are two. Long codes, which are 10 digits long. And short codes, which are 5 or 6 digits long.
• Message type: Messages over 302 characters in length, or those with media attached, are MMS. SMS messages only contain text.

Long code SMS fees

Short code MMS fees

Additional short code SMS fees

Additional short code MMS fees

Each time SimpleTexting communicates with carriers to send out a message, they check what type of message it is and what kind of number it’s coming from—then charge us the applicable fees. Rest assured, if we ever change our pricing to pass along these fees, we will inform you.