How to choose an SMS gateway for your business (and which fees to watch out for)

Choosing an SMS gateway? Everywhere you look there is a tempting “from €X per SMS”. That price is only half the story. After years of running a gateway (and many customers migrating to us) we know where the real costs hide. This checklist helps you choose with a clear head.

What an SMS gateway actually does

An SMS gateway is a service through which a company sends SMS from a computer, an online shop or its own application to all mobile networks. It accepts the message through a web interface or an API, checks your credit and hands it to the operator of the recipient's network. The operator delivers it to the phone and sends back a delivery report, which you see in the history or receive by webhook. A business gateway reaches every network, including the virtual operators that use the big networks; the consumer web-SMS services of the operators themselves tend to limit the number of recipients and have no API.

1. The “from” price almost never applies to you

The headline price is usually tied to huge volumes, a system number instead of your company name, or one specific operator. Always ask: “How much will I pay at my real volume, with my sender name?” The difference between the advertised price and your actual price can easily be 50 %.

2. Monthly fees for the sender name: the silent budget eater

Some gateways charge your own sender name (instead of an anonymous number) as a monthly fee — €20 a month is €240 a year on top, and at smaller volumes easily another cent on every SMS. Others charge it once or not at all. Always ask for the breakdown: registration fee and monthly fee. Ask too whether an alphanumeric sender name works at all in your target countries: German, Austrian and most other European networks deliver it without registration, whereas Czech and Slovak operators require a one-off registration.

3. Credit expiry

It sounds like a detail until a few hundred euros lapse. Some gateways limit the validity of credit (and bonus credit sometimes to a single month). If you send in bursts — seasonal campaigns, occasional notifications — insist on credit without expiry.

4. What is included and what costs extra

Delivery reports, statistics, a link shortener with click tracking, an API — standard with some providers, a paid module with others. Add up the price of the whole setup you actually need, not just the SMS.

5. How quickly you can start

With some providers you register and send within minutes; with others you wait for account approval or negotiate a contract. For a deliverability test, ask for a few free SMS — you learn the delivery speed and the quality of the dashboard before you spend a cent.

Summary

• Do not trust the “from” price — ask for the price at your volume and with your sender name.
• Add the monthly fees (above all for the sender name) to the price per SMS.
• Watch credit expiry and what exactly is included.
• Test for free before you decide.