Short Message Service:Billing

Billing rules

• SMS charges on submission. Fees apply when a message is successfully submitted, regardless of carrier delivery status (success or failure). This aligns with standard global carrier billing practices.

• SMS uses real-time metering with next-month settlement:

  • The system records daily usage in real time.

  • Bills are generated on the first day of the following month for the previous month's usage.

  • You can request an invoice in the console after settlement.

• Rules for calculating message count and length:

  Message type	Character counting	Message segmentation
  English-only messages (GSM-7 encoding)	Standard characters (letters, digits, and common symbols): each counts as one character. Extended characters (| ^ € { } [ ] ~ \): each counts as two characters. For more information about GSM-7 characters, see GSM-7 characters. Note If a message contains any character not listed as an extended GSM-7 character, the entire message is billed using the rules for UCS-2 encoding.	The maximum length of a single message is 160 characters. If your content exceeds the limit, it is split into multiple segments, each with up to 153 characters. Each segment is billed as a separate message. Example: A 350-character message will be split into three segments (153 + 153 + 44) and billed as 3 messages.
  Messages in other languages (UCS-2 encoding)	Every character (such as Chinese characters, letters, symbols, and spaces) counts as 1 character.	The maximum length of a single message is 70 characters. If your content exceeds the limit, it is split into multiple segments, each with up to 67 characters. Each segment is billed as a separate message. Example: A 150-character message will be split into three segments (67 + 67 + 16) and billed as 3 messages.

Overdue payments

When your account balance (including coupons) cannot cover overdue charges, SMS sending is suspended until outstanding bills are settled. Maintain a sufficient balance to avoid service interruption.

Bills

Resource packages

SMS uses prepaid resource packages by default. Purchase a resource package before sending messages.

• Resource packages are non-refundable.

• Resource packages are unavailable during overdue payment. Remaining quota in a partially used package is non-refundable.

• Each resource package is valid for 180 days. Unused quota expires after this period.

Available resource packages by destination:

• Global Plus package: Covers over 200 countries and regions.

• Global package: Covers most destinations, excluding the following:

  Madagascar, Azerbaijan, Jordan, Sri Lanka, Palestine, Haiti, Iran, Tajikistan, Indonesia, Nigeria, Serbia, Tanzania, Kuwait, Senegal, Cambodia, Zambia, Gabon, Libya, Malawi, Trinidad and Tobago, Belize, Maldives, Liberia, Zaire, Iraq, Pakistan, Niger, Comoros, Mayotte, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Mali, Ecuador, Myanmar, Kyrgyzstan, Egypt, Nepal, Bhutan, Jamaica, Tunisia, Laos, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Ethiopia, Syria, Philippines, Somalia, Lebanon, Mongolia, Ascension, Afghanistan, East Timor, Malaysia, Russia, Peru, Uganda, Chad, Algeria, Ghana, El Salvador, Qatar, Bolivia, Turkmenistan, Rwanda, Israel

• Country/Region-specific package: Covers a single country or region.

View supported destinations and pricing on the resource package buy page.

Pay-as-you-go

SMS supports sending to over 200 countries and regions with destination-based pricing.