There are several factors that determine the amount you’ll see on your SMS billing invoice. This article breaks down what each of these factors stand for and how we calculate the final monthly payment.

Listing of charge metrics

The monthly invoice for Campaign SMS is based on the metrics specified in your transaction document that sums up the service quote. These metrics include:

• Setup charges: paid before the initial setup. When you launch on-demand options, your invoice from the same month will include this charge as well.
• Access: the right to use Campaign SMS during the specified measurement period, typically 12 months. Your monthly access fee depends on the kind of code (phone number) your organization is using. Learn about different codes from this article: Types of SMS codes and services.
• Digital message: the total number of electronic messages managed or processed by Campaign SMS during the measurement period. The price of each SMS is bundled in 1,000.
• Carrier fees: bundled inside the SMS per month price. Carriers can set a fee per outgoing message to customers (MTs) but some also charge for incoming (MO).
• Overage fees: applied if you exceed the usage of Campaign SMS specified in the transaction document during the contract period.

Setup charges

The setup charges for Campaign SMS always include SMS services, which apply to 10-digit long codes and dedicated short codes. Some of the most common tasks are:

• Submitting the carrier approval form or carrier registration form
• Following up with the carriers
• Providing guidance regarding the carriers’ guidelines
• Onboarding and training

Onboarding

SMS light onboarding

Light onboarding includes up to ten hours of training within 90 days from the start of your engagement. It is required for all new US customers that purchase a dedicated long code with an SMS subscription or any code(s) provisioned by another gateway partner.

These services are designed for implementations with up to two shared codes supported through the carrier approval process and up to two language delivery setups for SMS campaigns requiring carrier approval.

SMS full onboarding

Full onboarding includes up to twenty hours of meetings within 6 months from the start of your engagement. This service is required for all new customers that purchase a dedicated short code with a Campaign SMS subscription. It is designed for implementations with up to two dedicated short codes provisioned by Acoustic and up to two language delivery set ups for SMS campaigns that require carrier approval.

SMS messages vs. marketing interactions charges

The term marketing interactions refers to contact interactions in a variety of channels, such as email, mobile push notifications or social audience contacts. You can choose to calculate your SMS billing based on marketing interactions instead of bulk 1,000 SMS sent. This applies mostly to organizations who want to test different channel options in their communications. Because SMS is a more expensive channel, the cost of one SMS message is calculated using a specific ratio:

• 10DLC messages (1,000 SMS) to marketing interactions is 1:15.
• Dedicated short code messages (1,000 SMS) to marketing interactions is 1:20.

Note: This type of conversion is applicable to the US only.

If the marketing interactions pricing doesn’t work for you, you can still use the monthly SMS volume package. It’s also possible to switch back to the regular SMS pricing if you exceed your marketing interactions limit. Refer to your contract or contact customer success director to choose the optimal pricing method.

Example

You have 10 million marketing interactions per year in Campaign. Historically, you've been using 8 million of those on email. You might want more flexibility across marketing channels but you’re not sure how many messages you’ll send monthly and estimating the right SMS service package can be complicated. That’s when you can try calculating SMS charges based on marketing interactions available in your existing Campaign package.

SMS billing of multi-part messages

In some cases, your SMS message can be split into two or more parts. This usually happens when your message:

• Exceeds 160 7-bit characters
• Exceeds 70 16-bit characters if you use Unicode characters
• Includes a mix of 7-bit and 16-bit characters that will make it impossible to send as one message

The charge for a multi-part message applies to each part, e.g. if you send a two-part message, you will be charged for two individual messages. For more details about character counts in SMS, go to How character encoding affects SMS message length.

Partial month charges

A partial month charge refers to a situation where you use the SMS service for less than a full month.

Example

You started using Campaign SMS on the 15th day of the month. If your monthly amount was $10,000, then you are billed $5000 in your first month. From your next month full month, your invoices will include the regular $10,000 quote.

Overage charges

The typical measurement period for Campaign SMS usage is 12 months, divided into monthly limits. However, you can adapt the monthly limits to your current needs and use the committed messages over a one-year period.

If you exceed the total number of messages for up to 12 months during your measurement period, we measure the actual usage and add the overage charge to the base charge on your monthly invoice.

This calculation works the same way for shorter measurement periods. If you buy a million SMS messages a month for six months, you can use the 6 million in that six-month period, however you find suitable.

Example

You ordered 12 million SMS messages to be used over 12 months, which means 1 million messages a month.

Of the 4,600,000 SMS messages billed, 1 million SMS messages are billed using the committed subscription rate.

3,600,000 SMS messages are charged at the overage rate specified in your transaction document.

Each month, our billing team submits your invoice based on a usage report from the SMS partner. The following table shows how we calculate the number of SMS messages billed.

Note: If you don’t use all the messages available in your measurement period, you can’t move them to the next measurement period, e.g., month 13 of using Campaign SMS.

Ramp periods

A ramp period is a way of calculating SMS billing that involves different quotes across specific periods. Ramp periods are particularly useful when you're getting started with your SMS channel and the number of sent messages will grow gradually.

Example

You want to buy a million SMS messages/month for the first three months and 2 million/month for the next nine months. In that case, those will be separate measurement periods. You can use 3 million over the first three months and 18 million over the next nine months. Once you put these quotas in ramp periods, we include an overage fee if you exceed the assigned number of SMS messages. The number of messages in ramp periods don’t add up in the same way as in your typical 12-month measurement period.

Pricing for Campaign SMS with 10-digit long code

Pricing for organizations using a 10DLC is based on 3 key concepts.

Brand

A brand is the legal entity of the business,usually one per company. When your company has subsidiaries, we recommend to register each subsidiary as an individual brand. For example, if you subscribe to messaging from a company like Gap, you opt out for messaging from Gap the “brand”. It doesn't mean you also opt out from messaging by Banana Republic or Old Navy, also owned by Gap. In such a case, you might consider multiple brands.

Campaign

A campaign is a set of use cases that describes the nature of your conversation with the customer. There are 2 category types: declared and mixed/marketing. The declared category represents a singular use case (e.g. fraud notification, delivery notification) while mixed/marketing requires multiple use cases, e.g.marketing and delivery notifications.

Note: If you register more than one brand, you can't share one campaign across different brands. Create individual campaigns for each brand.

Code

The code stands for the actual 10-digit number assigned. The number of codes you will need depends on the throughput (messages per second) you want to achieve and whether you want to use localization, which means you assign a separate code for different areas.

Note: Each campaign has a series of codes assigned. You can't share one code across different campaigns.

There are two plans involving 10DLCs: Standard and Premium edition. Standard edition features up to five brands, campaigns and codes while the Premium edition enables you to add any number of these to your organization. 

Possible fee changes

Campaign SMS relies on third party providers, including major wireless operators and mobile networks. If a partner increases their fees, the pricing will be increased accordingly. We will notify you of any changes as soon as possible. The price changes will start as they go into effect with the mobile messaging partner.

If there’s a mistake on the mobile messaging partner’s side and some SMS messages are not included in the billing, Acoustic may invoice for the under-billed SMS messages.

International messages

Campaign SMS International Messages pay per use charge apply strictly against messages that terminate with mobile messaging devices in countries outside the scope of the entitled country from Customer’s subscribed SMS code.

Mobile Messaging Partners will attempt to deliver international SMS messages. The invoice will include th messages that are not successfully delivered or that are delivered using a code different from your subscription.