How much SMS verification costs: credits per code, free checks and a monthly estimate

WhatsApp & APIs·· 78 views· 3 min read

The short answer: each code uses the credits for its SMS, usually one, and checking it costs nothing. The price of each credit goes down with the amount you buy at once, from $0.0092, and the minimum purchase is 1,000 credits. To estimate a month, count the verifications, add the resends and multiply by the parts in each SMS.

What costs credits and what does not

Operation Credits
POST /v1/sms/otp (send) The SMS's: one per part. The default text fits in one part
/resend (resend) Another SMS, more credits
/verify (check) None
GET /v1/sms/otp/{id} (status) None
/cancel (cancel) None; the SMS already sent is not refunded
Everything, with a Sandbox key None: nothing is sent and nothing is charged

The price per credit

There are no bundles: you type how many credits you want, from 1,000, and the whole purchase is charged at the price tier for that amount.

Credits bought Price per SMS
Up to 1,000 $0.0167
1,001 to 5,000 $0.0150
5,001 to 10,000 $0.0142
10,001 to 25,000 $0.0125
25,001 to 50,000 $0.0117
50,001 to 100,000 $0.0100
Over 100,000 $0.0092

A monthly estimate

1 Count the verifications per month: new sign-ups, logins with a second step, confirmed payments.
2 Add the resends. If, say, one customer in ten asks for another code, multiply by 1.1.
3 Multiply by the parts. With a short text it is 1. A Portuguese text with accents that goes over 70 characters counts as 2.
4 Pick the tier. With the total credits, look up the price in the table and compare it with buying for several months at once, which may land in a cheaper tier.

An example: 2,000 sign-ups a month, with one in ten asking for a resend and a one-part text, gives 2,000 × 1.1 × 1 = 2,200 credits a month.

What blows up the bill is not the price, it is abuse. Without limits, a bot on your form can spend a month's credits in a day. Turn on the account rules and your site's brakes: see fraud through your code form.
A Sender ID is a separate cost, $50.00 per name and per country, and does not change the credit price. Without one, codes go out from NETMSG, free. Credits are paid with the same payment methods as our other services and reach your SMS balance once paid.

Want to see credit prices and buy your first ones? See the SMS page.

See SMS prices

SEE ALSO

SMS credits and price tiers: how buying works and how to pay less per message

Writing the verification SMS: the code placeholder, your Sender ID and staying in one part

SMS fraud through your code form: how credits get burnt and how to stop it

Limits against abuse: codes per number per hour and the wait between resends

How many credits an SMS uses: 160, 153, 70 and 67 characters explained

Your own codes or our verification API: which way to send SMS codes from your system

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