🛡 USPTO Patent Pending · Pay-as-you-go

One price. No tiers.
No surprises.

$0.03
per text segment.
Sent or received.
$5 minimum to load your wallet · ~250 segments · enough for weeks
No subscription No auto-renewal No per-member fees Cancel by ignoring it
Try it for $5 → See real examples ↓
Just
$5
to start
The price, in three numbers

That's the whole rate card.

No tiers, no usage bands, no enterprise pricing. Two rates and a starter minimum. Inbound and outbound text segments cost the same. Members never pay anything.

Outbound
$0.03
per text segment sent

Every invitation, nudge, confirmation, status reply, or broadcast. Same price for everyone — no volume tiers, no premium pricing for special features.

Inbound
$0.03
per text segment received

Every YES, NO, STATUS, PAY, or other reply from members. Carriers charge for inbound, and we pass that through honestly — same rate, no markup.

Onboarding
$5
one-time minimum

The smallest amount you can load your wallet with. Buys you ~250 segments — enough for most groups to run for weeks. After that, top up any amount, anytime.

📏 What's a "segment"? A standard SMS message is up to 160 characters — that's one segment. Longer messages get split into multiple segments billed individually. Most invitations and replies fit in one segment. Messages with emoji or non-Latin characters use UCS-2 encoding and segment at 70 characters instead — we always show you the segment count before you send.
What it actually costs

Three groups, three months, three numbers.

Here's what a typical month looks like for groups of different sizes. These aren't marketing numbers — they're the realistic SMS volume for a weekly recurring event with normal RSVP behavior, threshold confirmation, and a couple of STATUS checks per week.

Small group

10–15 members

A weekly book club, board game crew, or run group. One event a week.
Wave 1 invites · 12 × 4/mo$1.44
YES/NO replies · 10 × 4/mo$1.20
Threshold broadcast · 8 × 4/mo$0.96
STATUS replies · ~10/mo$0.30
Occasional poll · 12 sent + 8 replies$0.60
Estimated monthly cost
~5 weeks per $5
$4.50
Medium group

20–30 members

A pickup sports league, weekly trivia, or open jam. One event a week.
Wave 1 invites · 25 × 4/mo$3.00
YES/NO replies · 18 × 4/mo$2.16
Threshold broadcast · 15 × 4/mo$1.80
Auto-nudges · 6 × 2/mo$0.36
STATUS replies · ~25/mo$0.75
Estimated monthly cost
~2 weeks per $5
$8.07
Large group

40–60 members

A mid-sized faith group, fitness club, or large pickup league. One event a week.
Wave 1 invites · 50 × 4/mo$6.00
YES/NO replies · 32 × 4/mo$3.84
Threshold broadcast · 25 × 4/mo$3.00
Auto-nudges · 18 × 2/mo$1.08
STATUS replies · ~50/mo$1.50
Estimated monthly cost
~10 days per $5
$15.42

Real costs vary. SMSGO shows you the exact segment count and total before you send any message.

Actual production data

From the group
that started all this.

Numbers below are pulled directly from SMSGO's production database — Jonathon's Silver Spring Ultimate Frisbee group, the original use case the system was built around. This is what an actively-running group of 100+ people actually costs.

Silver Spring Ultimate Frisbee · Live data

107 members. 2,110 segments.
30 days. $63.30.

That's $0.59 per active member per month — and that's a heavily-used group with weekly events, multiple polls, and frequent STATUS checks from members. Most groups will run cheaper.

The really interesting number is 13 active days. The wallet only drains on days the group is actually doing something. Quiet days are free.

107
Members in roster
2,110
Total segments / 30 days
$63.30
Total spent / 30 days
13
Days the group was active
Included at the same rate

Everything is in. Nothing is gated.

There is no Free tier. There is no Pro tier. There is no Enterprise tier. Every feature in SMSGO is available to every customer at the same per-segment rate. Pricing is the same for the founder and a group of 200.

✓
Threshold automation — set a number, the system fires when you hit it
✓
Nudge automation — auto-reminders only when you're below threshold
✓
STATUS check — anyone can text STATUS for the live count
✓
PAY / contribute — members can chip in toward the group's wallet
✓
Wave-based invitations — Wave 2 fires only if Wave 1 fell short
✓
Waitlist auto-promote — drops trigger automatic promotions
✓
Polls — single-letter voting, live tallies, per-voter messaging
✓
Surveys — multi-day, multi-time-block, multi-location ranking
✓
Member groups & tags — slice your roster any way you want
✓
Preview & confirm — see every message before you send it
✓
Verified RCS sender — branded experience on supported phones
✓
Wallet ledger & exports — every text and dollar visible, exportable

Want the full feature tour? See how it works →

A pleasant surprise

Your group can chip in if they want.

Most "group SaaS" puts the whole bill on the organizer. SMSGO doesn't have to. Any member can text PAY (or CONTRIBUTE or DONATE) and contribute any amount toward the group's wallet. Many groups end up cost-neutral — the people benefiting from the coordination chip in to cover the texts.

A typical contribution month

The Frisbee group's actual contribution log. Three members chipped in over 30 days, totaling $35 — more than enough to cover the month's $63.30 in SMS costs.

Stripe-powered, $3 minimum, $1,000 maximum per contribution. Receipts go back by text. All contributors are visible on the dashboard so the organizer knows who chipped in.

Optional, never required. Members are not pressured to contribute — there is no "members must contribute" feature. It's there if your group wants it.

📥 Contributions · Last 30 days
Jessie G.+$10.00
Mark+$15.00
Wes L.+$10.00
Total in +$35.00
By design, not by accident

What you're not paying for.

Most software pricing is a maze of seat fees, feature gates, and recurring charges that creep up year-over-year. None of that exists here. Here's what you'll never see on a bill.

× Per-member fees. Whether your group has 12 people or 200, the per-member cost is zero. You pay for messages, not roster size.
× Monthly subscriptions. No recurring charge. No "billed annually." No autopay you forgot to cancel. Wallet drains as you use it.
× Quiet-month fees. If your group goes silent for a month, you pay $0. The wallet just sits there waiting.
× Feature upsells. No "Pro plan" gate on polls, surveys, or any other feature. There is no upgrade button.
× Onboarding fees. The $5 minimum buys segments, not setup. Setting up your first group takes about 4 minutes.
× Cancellation fees. There is nothing to cancel. Stop using it and your wallet sits there, ready when you come back.
× Carrier registration costs. A2P 10DLC and RCS verified sender registration costs are absorbed by SMSGO, not passed through.
× Member account fees. Members never need an account. They just text. No per-seat licensing, ever.
Honest answers

Pricing questions, answered.

The objections we hear most often, and the straight answers. If something here feels evasive, email lunardi@smsgo.org and we'll fix the page.

What happens to my $5 if I don't use it all in the first month?

Nothing. The balance stays in your wallet indefinitely. There's no expiration, no inactivity fee, no claw-back. Come back six months from now and your remaining balance will still be there waiting.

Can I get a refund?

Yes — if you've loaded your wallet but haven't used SMSGO yet, email support@smsgo.org and we'll refund the unused balance. After significant usage, refunds are case-by-case but we err on the side of taking care of people. You're never trapped.

What if my group goes quiet for a few months?

You pay nothing. The wallet sits at whatever balance it had when you went quiet. When you come back and send the next event invite, it draws from the same wallet. Group activity is what costs money — not having a group.

Are there hidden fees? Stripe charges, carrier surcharges, taxes?

No hidden fees. The $0.03 per segment is what you pay. Stripe charges its own card-processing fee on contributions (typically 2.9% + 30¢) — that comes out of the contributor's payment, not the group's wallet. Sales tax may apply in some states based on your billing address.

What about international texts? My group has people abroad.

SMSGO is currently US-only. International numbers can't be added to a group, and the system won't attempt to send to them. We're working on Canada support next; international expansion beyond that is on the roadmap but not a near-term commitment.

What if I run multiple groups? Is each one billed separately?

Each group has its own wallet. You can run as many groups as you want under one organizer login, and each group's wallet is funded and drained independently — so a quiet group doesn't subsidize a busy one, and vice versa. One organizer, many groups, separate wallets.

Does the price ever go up?

If carrier rates change, the per-segment price could change to reflect that — and we'd announce it well in advance. We've never raised the rate since launch, and there's no plan to. Pay-as-you-go also means there's no "lock you in for a year" trick — if a price change happens, you just stop using it.

Can I see exactly what each event costs?

Yes — every event detail page has an itemized SMS cost breakdown showing invitations, replies, broadcasts, and STATUS checks separately. Every individual message is logged with its segment count and cost. Transparency is a feature.

🔐
A2P 10DLC Registered

SMSGO uses carrier-registered numbers via Twilio. All messages flow through compliant channels — no gray-market routing.

💳
Stripe-powered payments

Wallet top-ups and member contributions are processed by Stripe. We never touch your card details directly.

🛡
USPTO Patent Pending

The threshold-driven event coordination mechanism is patent-pending. SMSGO LLC, Maryland.

📜
SMS-compliant by default

STOP, HELP, opt-out, frequency disclosures — all built in. Your members are never gray-area subscribers.

Ready to load your wallet
and find out?

$5 buys you about 250 text segments — enough for most groups to run for weeks. No subscription, no auto-renewal, no commitment. Just a wallet that loads when you load it.

Start your group for $5 →

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