The information in this article pertains to Postscript brands on usage billing. If you are on credit-based billing, see here for information about credits.
At Postscript, we strive to be as transparent as possible with our merchants about how our pricing works. After thorough research and conversations with partners and customers, we determined a usage-based plan offers shops the flexibility needed to adapt to their industry throughout the year. With our usage-based approach to pricing, you:
Will only be charged for what you send.
Can review your usage across days, carriers, country, message type, and more
Can track, control, and predict your spend for each month
In this article, we discuss carrier fees and how they fit into the billing process.
What Are Carrier Fees?
Carrier fees are small surcharges that mobile carriers (e.g. Bell, AT&T, T-Mobile, etc.) apply to both incoming and sent messages. Carrier fees will differ based on the type of messages sent (i.e., SMS vs. MMS) and the phone number sending the message (i.e., a toll-free number or a short code). Postscript does not support sending MMS outside of the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico.
Carrier fees cover the costs associated with the increase in commercial text messaging across carrier networks. At this time, carrier fees are only applicable when sending to recipients in the United States and Canada. You can view these fees by country, carrier, message type, and sending number type below.
United States Canada
Dedicated Short Code
SMS | MMS | Incoming SMS | Incoming MMS | |
Verizon | $.0040 | $.0065 | N/A | N/A |
AT&T | $.0030 | $.0075 | N/A | N/A |
T-Mobile | $.0045 | $.0100 | $.0025 | $.0100 |
US Cellular | $.0045 | $.0100 | N/A | $.0100 |
Toll-Free Number
SMS | MMS | Incoming SMS | Incoming MMS | |
Verizon | $.0040 | $.0065 | N/A | N/A |
AT&T | $.0030 | $.0075 | $.0030 | $.0075 |
T-Mobile | $.0045 | $.0100 | $.0025 | $.0100 |
US Cellular | $.0045 | $.0100 | $.0025 | $.0100 |
A Note on Inbound Carrier Fees. T-Mobile charges fees for inbound messages. Inbound fees are identical to their outbound fees listed in the table above (i.e., $0.0025 for SMS and $0.010 for MMS). AT&T also charges for inbound messages for TFNs and 10-digit long codes. Their inbound rate is $0.003.
The following rates reflect sending from a toll-free number.
Carrier | SMS | MMS |
Bell & Virgin | $0.0087 | $0.0160 |
Fido Solutions | $0.0060 | $0.0170 |
Freedom Mobile | $0.0047 | |
Rogers | $0.0084 | $0.0170 |
Telus | $0.0062 | $0.0101 |
Videotron | $0.0055 | $0.0055 |
A Note on Inbound Carrier Fees. Bell & Virgin charge fees for inbound messages. Inbound fees are identical to their outbound fees listed in the table above (i.e., $0.0087 for SMS).
How Carrier Fees Work
When a shop sends a message, carriers check what type of message it is (i.e., SMS vs. MMS) and what type of number sends it (i.e., toll-free or short code) and then charge the applicable fee.
At the end of the day, Postscript totals the fees related to messages a shop sent that day and updates the Estimated carrier fees line in the Usage Activity summary.
Shops on a Starter or Growth plan with Postscript will be charged for usage activity each time they hit their billing threshold. Once Postscript totals final carrier fees related to that usage activity, shops are charged those fees.
This means shops will see two separate, transparent charges: one for the usage activity and one for the related carrier fees.
RCS Carrier Fees
When shops send messages from an RCS agent, there are higher carrier fees in the US.
Text RCS | Rich RCS | Incoming - Text RCS | Incoming - Media RCS | |
Verizon | $.0040 | $.0060 | N/A | N/A |
AT&T | $.0045 | $.0100 | $.0045 | $.0100 |
T-Mobile | $.0062 | $.0062 | $.0025 | $.0025 |
US Cellular | $.0062 | $.0135 | $.0025 | $.0135 |
Note: Carrier fees are estimated at $.0043 for text-only RCS messages (~30% higher than standard SMS) and $.0089 for media RCS messages (~10% higher than standard MMS).
Before You Go
Carrier fees vary based on the type of message you send (i.e., SMS vs MMS) and the carriers delivering the messages. If, for example, you send a few back-to-back MMS campaigns during a usage activity period, the related fees would be higher. Or, maybe you sent out a campaign to your VIP customers, and it just so happens that the majority of those phone numbers are on Verizon. That would impact the total charge carrier fees for the usage activity.
Additional Resources
Did you know special characters and emojis impact character count? Learn more about the impact these have on character count, and ultimately, your bill.
Interested better understanding how sending internationally impacts your bill? Check out this article.
Need an overview of your Postscript bill and charges? We've got you covered with this guide.
Want to learn more about your billing threshold? Take a look at this article.
Get Support
Have questions? Please feel free to reach out to our wonderful Support team at [email protected] or via live chat. You can also submit a support request here!
Need ongoing channel strategy guidance? Please fill out this form and we'll connect you to one of our certified partners.