Destination mix
One row per market. Billed messages = monthly messages × average parts. US / USA / United States use the published all-in rate; every other label uses the published floor bound.
Unpublished lanes vary — run a 100-message probe per destination. See the SMS test matrix design.
Charset helper
GSM-7: 160 chars single / 153 concatenated. UCS-2: 70 single / 67 concatenated. One non-GSM character flips the whole message to UCS-2. Extension-table characters (e.g. euro) count as 2 septets in GSM-7.
How this differs from a simple cost estimator
Most calculators take one destination and one unit price. This planner is built for a multi-market mix: each row carries its own volume, average parts-per-message and optional competitor quote. Segment and charset arithmetic is explicit so a UCS-2 template does not silently double your bill. Competitor deltas are honest about what they compare against — the published US all-in rate for US rows, and the published floor bound for everything else. Non-US lanes are never filled in with invented concrete rates.
FAQ
- How does this planner price non-US destinations?
- Only the United States has a published all-in rate in this tool ($0.0125 per billed message). Every other market is shown as a floor bound at the published $0.004 floor. Actual rates vary by route and must be measured with a small probe send before you budget at scale.
- Why multiply messages by average parts?
- SMS billing is per segment, not per logical message. A long GSM-7 text splits at 153 characters per concatenated part (160 if it fits in one). UCS-2 drops that to 70 / 67. If your average message needs two parts, your billed volume is roughly double the send count.
- Does pasting a sample message send it anywhere?
- No. Charset detection, septet counting and cost math all run as static JavaScript in your browser. Nothing is uploaded. The page works from a local file with no network.