Pricing
There is no charge to subscribe to a group other than standard text messaging rates charged by your mobile phone carrier (that's what we mean when we say "Standard/Other charges may apply."). Costs for our service are paid by the person or organization who maintains the groups and sends messages to the group.
There are two types of accounts you can have at our site: A Monthly Plan or a Pay-As-You-Text Plan.
Monthly Plan Rates
Most of our clients sign up for a monthly plan in which you pay a monthly fee based on the number of groups you want to manage and the number of messages you want to commit to each month. This monthly fee is charged to a credit card you provide when you sign up. We do not use "premium SMS" billing to bill through your mobile phone provider.
There is no charge to subscribe to a group other than standard text messaging rates which may be charged by your mobile phone carrier.
| Number of Groups | Cost Per Month | Message Credits Included* |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | $25.00 | 300 |
| 6 | $50.00 | 600 |
| 9 | $75.00 | 900 |
| Add'l 3 Groups | $25.00 | +300 |
| * Message credits included with your group plan expire at the end of the month if unused. Blocks of message credits purchased at the rates below do not expire and carry over from month to month. | ||
For example, if you want to have an "announcements" list, a "prayer" list, and a list to allow members of your staff to get messages from the pastor or church business manager, you'll need three groups. That's $25/month and your first 300 messages are included. (Remember the number of messages you send is multiplied by the number of people in your group. So if you have a group of 50 people and send two messages to the group in a month, that's 100 messages total.)
Per-Message Rates
In addition to the monthly fee (above), you pay a small amount per message sent to each member of your group. Your rate depends on the number of messages you commit to each month. After your monthly commitment (which can be as few as zero message credits) you purchase blocks of 1000 message credits at the rates below. We charge these purchases to your credit card through the secure shopping cart system on our site. We do not use "premium SMS" billing to bill through your mobile phone provider.
There is no charge to subscribe to a group other than standard text messaging rates which may be charged by your mobile phone carrier.
| Montly Commitment* | Cost Per Message Credit | Total Cost |
|---|---|---|
| - NONE - | $0.050 | $50.00 |
| 2000 | $0.045 | $90/month; $45.00/1000 add'l message credits |
| 5000 | $0.040 | $200/month; $40.00/1000 add'l message credits |
| 10,000 | $0.035 | $350/month; $35.00/1000 add'l message credits |
| * Unused message credits from your monthly commitment expire at the end of the month. Blocks of messages purchased at the reduced rates do not expire. | ||
Most of our customers start with no monthly commitment and pay 5 cents per message. As time goes on you may discover you're sending 2500 messages per month. At that point you can switch to a 2000-message per month commitment for $90/month. So your first 2000 message credits each month would be included in the $90 and any additional messages credits you purchase would be would be 4.5 cents each. Note that if you don't use 2000 message credits in a particular month the balance does not carry over to the next month. However, the blocks of 1000 message credits you buy do carry over from month to month if unused.
Optional Features and Message Charges
Messages WE pay for: We cover the cost of sending the opt-in confirmation messages and receiving the response from your members. We also cover the cost of requests for HELP and other system messages like those generated when the user sends INFO or GROUPS commands.
Messages YOU pay for: You pay for all the messages you send. Each message sent to one member costs one message credit. So if you have 100 members in your group we will deduct 100 message credits from your balance when you send a message to that group.
You also pay for messages sent as a result of optional features you enable on your account. If you have a custom welcome message, for example, you'll be charged one message credit each time that message is sent. You'll also be charged for each announcement message sent if yours is set up as an announcement-only group.
If you enable replies for your group, you'll be charged one message credit for each reply you receive. If you create a voting campaign for your group, you'll be charged one message credit for each vote that is received.
Pay-As-You-Text Messaging Plan
If you plan to send less than 250 messages per month you might consider our Pay-As-You-Text plan. You do not get to pick the name of your group (so it will be something random like XF2K77H) and you may not get access to some of the reporting features of our site. In this case the rate is 10 cents per message sent, and message creditss are purchased in blocks of 250 ($25/block).
Message credits are purchased at our site through our secure shopping cart using your credit card. We do not use "premium SMS" billing to bill through your mobile phone provider.
There is no charge to subscribe to a group other than standard text messaging rates which may be charged by your mobile phone carrier.
Sample Plan Costs
Church with 400 members wants to reach members of three groups: senior high, single adults, and a general list of members for announcements and urgent prayer requests. They have 30 students in the senior high list, another 30 in the single adults, and 200 on the general membership list. On average they send one message every week to the senior high and single adults groups, and a couple messages a month to the general membership list, for a total of about 650 messages. Cost is:
Monthly plan, 3 groups ... $25.00
Included messages: 300
Additional messages: 350
Message cost (350 at $0.05) ... $17.50
Total cost ... $42.50
(They're currently paying over $100/month to use a competing SMS messaging service.)
Church with 800 members has just three groups but they're fairly large. They're sending 3600 messages per month total. They commit to 2000 messages per month to lower their per-message-credit rate to 4.5 cents.
Monthly plan, 3 groups ... $25.00
2000 message commitment ... $90.00
Included messages: 2300
Additional messages: 1300
Message cost (1300 at $0.045)... $58.50
Total cost ...$173.50
(They're currently paying $255/month to use a competing SMS messaging service with a higher per-message rate.)
A small church with 100 members wants to text urgent prayer requests and important notices to its members. On average it's only sending two such messages per month. It uses our Pay-As-You-Text plan and spends $20/month to send 200 messages.
(They're currently paying $50/month to use another service.)