SMS true-cost calculator.
The cheapest per-message rate is often the most expensive way to send. Compare two providers or routes on cost per delivered message — total spend divided by the messages that actually reach a handset. Enter your own figures; nothing is assumed and nothing leaves your browser.
You pay for every message submitted, delivered or not. Delivery rate is the share that actually reaches a handset. The optional value field lets you see the revenue lost to undelivered messages.
- Messages delivered
- 720,000
- Total spend
- 8,000.00
- Messages delivered
- 980,000
- Total spend
- 10,000.00
Once undelivered messages are accounted for, Provider B delivers each message for 0.00091 less — 8.2% lower cost per delivered message than Provider A, despite any difference in sticker price.
Why cost per delivered message beats the rate card
You pay for every message you submit, but you only get value from the ones that arrive. So the number that matters is total spend divided by messages delivered — not the price per message. A route quoted 30% cheaper that delivers 82% of messages costs more per delivered message than a direct route at a higher rate that delivers 98%, once you count the re-sends and the value of the messages that never landed.
The formulas
- delivered = volume × delivery rate
- total spend = volume × price per message
- cost / delivered = total spend ÷ delivered
- value lost = volume × (1 − delivery rate) × value per delivered message
No prices are assumed
Every figure comes from the numbers you type. BroadNet does not set a price or a delivery rate here — the calculator only does the arithmetic on your own inputs, in your own currency, entirely in your browser.
Frequently asked questions
- What is cost per delivered message?
- It is total SMS spend divided by the number of messages that actually reached a handset, rather than the number you submitted. Because failed messages still cost money to send and cost you the outcome they were meant to drive, cost per delivered message reflects real economics in a way the headline price per message does not.
- Why is a cheaper SMS rate often more expensive?
- Because the cheapest rates are frequently grey routes with lower, unstable delivery. Once you account for re-sending failed messages and the value of conversions lost when OTPs or alerts never arrive, the effective cost per delivered message on a cheap route commonly exceeds that of a higher-priced direct route.
- What delivery rate should I use?
- Use your own measured delivery rate per country and provider, taken from operator-level delivery receipts over several weeks — not a one-off test or a vendor's coverage map. Direct routes hold a steady rate; grey routes swing as firewalls catch and re-route them.
- Does the calculator use BroadNet pricing?
- No. It assumes nothing and stores nothing. You enter volume, price per message and delivery rate for each provider, and it computes cost per delivered message from those figures alone, entirely in your browser.
The full argument behind this calculator: why cost per delivered message is the only number that matters, and how the two figures diverge.
The tactics that lower real cost — encoding, number validation, route quality and channel mix — not just the headline rate.
Why the cheapest quotes are usually grey routes, and how to tell before your delivery rate collapses.
Send on routes you can measure.
BroadNet routes A2P to 200+ countries, direct to the operator in 86 over 1,000+ operator connections, at a 99.99% platform SLA, and returns operator-level delivery receipts so cost per delivered message is auditable, not a guess.