WildApricot's text messaging service can amplify your organization's communication efforts. This page clarifies commonly asked questions regarding its cost.
Note: WildApricot's Text messaging service can only send text/SMS messages to contacts listed in your WildApricot database.
Service costs
Fees for text messaging are charged monthly, directly to a credit card you provide, and are not included as part of any WildApricot subscription plan.
There are no long-term contracts or hidden fees. You pay only for what you use. You may cancel your messaging service at any time.
Each month, the system charges your credit card for the virtual phone number and for the total number of messages you sent and received, per recipient, during the prior billing period.
Initial registration of your SMS messaging account | $30 one-time fee |
Dedicated virtual phone number | $6 monthly fee |
Price per message* | $0.04 per recipient, charged monthly |
*The price per message applies to messages you send as well as any replies, per recipient. You can disable replies by adjusting your text reply settings.
Billing for the Text Messaging service is separate and different from the billing for your WildApricot subscription plan. You must apply for a Text Messaging account and provide credit card billing information for that account. Text Messaging is not bundled with any WildApricot subscription plan.
How do I pay?
Important Note: Fees for text messaging are charged separately and directly to the credit card you provide, and are not included as part of your WildApricot subscription.
Each month, the messaging system charges the credit card you provide. The charges include the monthly fee for the virtual phone number and the cost of the total number of messages you sent and received, per recipient, during the prior billing period.
Enter credit card details in the Subscription settings when you register for the text messaging service.
Do you have a free trial for the texting service?
You can explore the system before entering credit card details, but until you enter credit card details, you won't be able to launch a campaign or send yourself a test message.
How do I estimate a message campaign's cost?
The system estimates the price when you set up a campaign. The estimate appears at the bottom of the Campaign details screen.
Number of message recipients
To arrive at an estimate, the system multiplies the price per message by the number of recipients in your database with a valid mobile phone number. This is only an estimate and is not the final price, as many factors can affect how many messages are actually delivered and received. You will be billed for the actual total, not the estimate.
The actual number of recipients can be less than the estimated number for any of the following reasons:
- A contact's phone number is not a valid US or Canadian mobile number
- A contact has not consented to receive text messages from your organization
In either of these cases, the contact will not receive a text message, and the contact will not count toward the total number of recipients for that message.
Important Note: WildApricot's Text messaging service can only send text/SMS messages to contacts listed in your WildApricot database.
Message length
If your message exceeds the maximum character length set by mobile carriers, the system will split it into smaller messages and then merge them back together on the recipient's phone so they appear as one message. However, each smaller message is counted and charged as a separate message.
A single SMS message technically supports up to 160 characters, or up to 70 if the message contains one or more Unicode characters, such as emoji. Messages longer than 160 characters are automatically split into parts (called "segments") and then re-assembled when they are received ("message concatenation"). Message concatenation allows you to send long SMS messages, but this increases your per-message cost, because SMS are billed per segment.
Messages that are larger than 160 characters are split into 153-character "segments" and sent individually, then re-assembled by the recipient’s device. The effective character limit per segment is 153 rather than 160, because a data header must be included with each segment to ensure correct re-assembly.
You will see a warning if your message exceeds the SMS limit.
Macros in the content of the message
Macros are essentially placeholders in your message content that automatically get filled with information from your database. These placeholders enable personalized messages for each recipient.
If you choose to include macros in the content of your text message, the final message length per recipient may be longer than estimated.