Drip SMS pricing is based on monthly tiers that adjust based on your usage. Two main factors determine usage:

• The number of SMS subscribers in your account 

• The number of SMS message segments you send

With usage-based tiers, there are no additional hidden carrier fees, and we’ll cover the cost of your dedicated sending number.

How we calculate your SMS Bill

SMS tiers start at $39/month. As your SMS list size grows and your sending volume increases, your tiers are adjusted accordingly to ensure your sending is never interrupted.

Similar to our email pricing, Drip uses a High Watermark System to set SMS monthly tiers. With that, you are billed based on the previous month’s usage (highest number of SMS subscribers and message segments sent), and not for usage at the time of billing.

Please note: Below is a snapshot of our standard SMS billing tiers. For quotes on higher volumes, feel free to reach out to support@drip.com.  

Message Segments and Usage

In short, Message Segments are the measuring units used to process and charge for your messages. Within each tier, you can send a certain number of SMS messages to your subscribers before moving up a tier.

When you type characters into an SMS message, you use up your allowance of characters in a given segment. Each of these Message Segments constitutes a “sent SMS” within Drip, and each segment will count as a sent message.

SMS vs MMS

Mobile carriers process SMS and MMS differently, which impacts how many segments each message consumes against your monthly plan.

Here are the basics of what you can expect from Drip:

• A text-only message containing 160 characters or less counts as 1 message against your tier allotment.
  • For text messages over 160 characters, they are split into message segments of 153-160 characters each. 
• Emojis
  • Adding an emoji changes how the major mobile carriers encode your entire SMS message. This results in a message segment dropping to 70 characters per segment, regardless of the amount of emojis used.
• Multimedia Messages (MMS):
  • Adding an image or gif converts your SMS to an MMS. 
    • We don’t automatically charge you for an MMS message just because you want to add a little flair to your SMS marketing. 
  • MMS messages allow up to 1,600 characters plus media, and count as a flat 3 segments per message regardless of character length.
• This is done by the major mobile carriers to help messages get delivered faster across their networks:

Tips on Optimizing SMS Usage and Costs

Shorten your Segment cost

If you are building an SMS message and you see it is 460 characters or longer, you should either:

• Try to shorten your message copy
• Add a picture and send it as an MMS
  • This will save you on message allotment while also delivering better overall results for your marketing efforts

How often should I send SMS campaigns? Will I go over my tier sending message limits often?

Our SMS billing tiers are designed to be guardrails to help ensure that your account stays within the sending frequency of best practices. The ratio of SMS subscribers to message allotment within our tiers scales as your list grows to accommodate more sophisticated segmentation and workflows.

The industry standard for SMS messaging is evolving away from mass blast SMS campaigns into more personalized communication. If you think of email sending as a 1-to-many channel, think of SMS as a 1-to-1 channel. Developing personalized messages in automations will ensure your messages aren’t filtered as spam by the major mobile carriers.