Wallet · Merchant guide
Write a text message, pick who gets it, and see exactly what it will cost before you press send. One panel shows the real segment count, the total for the whole broadcast, and whether your balance covers it.
Three ways to reach people
Send to one number, to a list you have uploaded, or to everyone who opted in through one of your keywords.
The cost is shown before you send
The Message Review panel gives you the live segment count and the full broadcast total, so nothing is a surprise on your bill.
Test on yourself first
Send to a single number, usually your own, for the price of one segment. It catches the mistakes a preview will not.
How a broadcast goes out
Pick an audience
Choose who receives the message
Use the buttons at the top: Single Recipient, Recipient Lists, or Keyword Subscribers. You can switch between them at any time before you send.
Write it
Draft your message and preview
Type your message, then click Preview. Your company header and opt-out footer are added for you, and you can attach an image, a Dynamic Voucher, or a Prize.
Choose who receives it
Pick one of the three audiences with the buttons at the top of the page. Each one changes who the same message goes to.
| Audience | Who it sends to | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Single Recipient | One phone number you type in. | Testing your own content first, or replying to one customer. |
| Recipient Lists | A list of numbers you have uploaded. | Reaching a set of contacts you already hold. |
| Keyword Subscribers | Everyone who opted in by texting one of your keywords. | Reaching people who asked to hear from you. |
Start with Single Recipient and send to yourself. A test message costs a single segment and shows you the real thing on a real phone, which catches mistakes a preview will not.
What a message costs
This is the part most people get wrong, so it is worth a minute.
Carriers bill by segment, not by message. A short plain-text message is one segment. A longer one is split into several, and you are billed for each. The Message Review panel counts them for you, but it helps to know what drives the number.
| Standard text | Unicode text | |
|---|---|---|
| What triggers it | Plain letters, numbers, and common punctuation. | A single emoji or certain special characters pasted from a word processor. |
| A one-segment message holds | 160 characters | 70 characters |
| Longer messages, per segment | 153 characters | 67 characters |
One pasted character can double your cost. The moment a message contains an emoji or an unsupported character, the whole message switches to Unicode, where a segment holds far fewer characters. A message that fit in one segment as plain text can jump to two or three. If the Message Review panel shows more segments than you expected, look for a special character first.
Adding an image (MMS)
Attaching an image turns the message into a picture message (MMS), billed at a flat 3 segments no matter how long the text is. For a long message that is often cheaper than sending it as plain text, and the Message Review panel will tell you when that is the case and offer to attach one.
Picture messages are not available on every number. Short-code numbers cannot send MMS, so on those numbers the panel will not suggest attaching an image.
The Message Review panel
Once you click Preview, this panel is the single place to check before you send. It shows:
- Segments per recipient and the total segments for the whole broadcast.
- Ready to launch, with how many segments you will have left afterward, or how many more segments you need if your balance is short.
- A breakdown of characters, header, body, footer, and the encoding in use, so you can see what is pushing the count up.
Scheduling for later
Instead of sending now, click Schedule and pick a future date and time. The broadcast waits in your outbound queue with a Scheduled status until it sends. Closing the page does not send it early, and it will not go out twice.
You can review or cancel a scheduled broadcast before it goes out from the Past Broadcasts tab. Archiving one there stops it from being sent.
Good to know
Every message must give people a way to opt out. Your opt-out footer (the “Reply STOP to cancel” line) is appended to every message automatically, and it lives in each number’s settings, not on this compose screen, so there is no per-message switch to turn it off. To change its wording, use the modify header / footer link, which opens that number’s settings on the Phone Numbers page. Keep the footer in place: removing it is what gets a sending number blocked by the carrier, and getting one unblocked takes far longer than leaving it on.
You need an approved phone number first. Sending requires an approved number on your account. If you do not have one yet, the page will point you to Phone Numbers to request one.
Your balance is checked before you can launch. The Launch button stays disabled until your balance covers the whole broadcast, so you cannot accidentally start a send you cannot finish.
Test runs cost segments too. A message you send to yourself is billed the same as any other, so a single-segment test is the cheapest way to check your content.
Why it matters
See the cost, then send with confidence. The Message Review panel turns a guess into a number: how many segments, what the whole broadcast costs, and whether your balance covers it, all before you press send. Test on yourself first, watch for the one emoji that doubles your count, and keep your opt-out footer on. That is how a subscriber list stays a channel you can send to for a long time.
Merchant guide. A plain-language explanation of how to send an SMS broadcast, not a substitute for the terms in your agreement.