SMS Credits: Calculation and Pricing
Credits are calculated based on sent SMS messages. Your SMS credits are part of a yearly subscription and credits are added to your account at the start of each subscription period based on the SMS volume you've subscribed to. The credit system itself, including country-based pricing and per-SMS calculation, works the same way it always has.
In this Article
How credits work - SMS basics
Adding or using SMS as a channel for communication allows you to reach your audience directly on their phone. This is ideal for time-sensitive communications like reminders, confirmations, promotions, or for re-engaging your profiles. The SMS functionality in Apsis One uses a credit-based system, managed through a yearly subscription. This article explains how credits work, how pricing is calculated, and how to make the most of your yearly credit allowance.
Check your SMS credit balance
You can see your remaining credits in two places:
Dashboard — The SMS Overview widget shows your current balance at a glance (visible to Account Owners and Admins).
SMS tool — Your credit balance is displayed on the SMS start page, next to the "Buy More Credits" button.
You can also export your sent SMS to track credit usage over time, with columns for actual cost and section - useful for allocating costs internally.
Your starting balance
When you subscribe to SMS, credits are added to your account based on your chosen subscription level. Your subscription is expressed as a number of SMS per year, calculated using the Swedish credit cost of 5.5 credits per SMS. For example, subscribing to 1,000 SMS/year adds 5,500 credits to your account.
How credits are used and deducted
Credits are calculated and reserved when you schedule an SMS activity, not when it's actually sent. Keep in mind that your balance can change between scheduling and sending if, for example, new recipients are added to a segment or another SMS activity uses credits in the meantime.
What happens if you run out of credits?
As credit cost is calculated when scheduling, it could happen that the credit balance of your account has changed at the time for the sending.
Miscalculation of SMS campaigns credit cost can happen if more recipients are added after you schedule an SMS activity - the the number of credits needed are higher than first calculated - or if you spend the SMS credits with another activity. If you use a lot of special characters in an email the actual sent email may actually contain more characters and therefore count as more than one SMS of 160 characters.
Since credit costs are calculated when you schedule an SMS activity, your balance may change between scheduling and the actual sending. This can happen if new recipients are added to a segment, if another SMS activity uses credits in the meantime, or if special characters in your message result in more SMS parts than expected.
If your balance doesn't cover a sending, the SMS activity will still be delivered in full and your balance will go negative. The overdraft will be settled at your next top-up, upgrade, or subscription renewal.
To avoid running out of credits, we recommend monitoring your balance throughout the year:
If you're running low ahead of a planned campaign, consider purchasing a top-up to bridge the gap.
If you find yourself running low regularly, it may be time to upgrade your subscription to a higher volume. Upgrades are available at any time.
When your balance is negative and you're out of credits, you may still create and send SMS. You will then be invoiced afterwards.
Refill Credits
If your credit balance is negative when your subscription renews, the deficit will be deducted from your new credit allocation. For example: if you were at −200 and your subscription renews at 55,000 credits, your new balance will be 54,800.
Bounced SMS and credits
Credits are charged per sent SMS. If a phone number hard-bounces, the first three attempts are charged. After three hard bounces, that number is excluded from all future sendings at no additional cost.
Bounced SMS
After three hard bounces, bounced phone numbers are excluded from future sendings. Since credits are calculated per sent SMS messages, the three first bounces count as sent messages and are therefore charged. Previously bounced phone numbers do not incur a credit cost, since they're excluded from all future sendings, as long as they've bounced 3 times before. Only sent SMS messages count towards the final cost of your SMS activity.
Here you find information about how to Order SMS Credits.
Pricing
The price of a SMS campaign is calculated automatically, based on the number of recipients per country and number of SMS. Like this:
Recipients × Credits per Country = Total per Country
Sum of the Country totals = Total Campaign Cost
First we multiply the number of recipients by the credit cost of their country. The result is the credit cost per recipient in that specific country. We do this again for each country you're sending SMS to, and lastly we add them up.
Campaign credit cost example
A standard 160 character SMS Campaign would look like this:
Recipient | Credit Cost | Total Per Country |
5 × Sweden | 5,5 | 27,5 |
12 × Denmark | 6 | 72 |
Total Campaign Cost | 99,5 Credits |
|
Example: Longer message (2 SMS) If your message exceeds 160 characters, it will be sent as 2 linked SMS, and the credit cost doubles per recipient.
Recipient | Credits/SMS | × SMS count | Total |
100 × Sweden | 5,5 | × 2 | 1 100 |
50 × Norway | 7 | × 2 | 700 |
Total Campaign Cost |
|
| 1,800 credits |
Note: Data tags (like ##firstname##) count as 10 characters in the editor but expand to real values at send time. This means the actual SMS length - and credit cost - may differ from what you see when calculating in the SMS editor/wizard.
Get the most from your SMS credits
Keep messages under 160 characters when possible, as crossing the limit doubles (or triples) your credit cost per recipient. Use link shortening and concise copy. Always send at least one test SMS to "yourself".
Segment your audience. Sending to a segment of 500 engaged profiles will deliver better results than blasting 5,000. Use email for broader campaigns and reserve SMS for high-impact moments.
Use SMS for what it does best. Utilise the SMS channel for time-sensitive content like reminders, confirmations, offers, abandoned conversion nudges, or urgent updates. SMS has open rates above 90%, so use it where it matters.
Clean your phone number data. Invalid or outdated numbers cause bounces that still cost credits (up to 3 times per number). Regular data hygiene reduces wasted spend.
Combine with Marketing Automation. Trigger SMS sends based on behaviour (for instance a profile email address bounced) to use credits strategically rather than in bulk.
Track and allocate costs. Monitor your SMS credit balance from the Dashboard or the SMS Overview, or export your SMS sending data to see actual credit usage per section and time period.
Right-size your subscription. Review your sending history from the past 12 months to see how many credits you actually use. This helps you choose the right subscription level at renewal — avoiding both surplus and shortfall.
SMS pricing per Country
Prices are in credits per single SMS (up to 160 characters). Longer messages that split into multiple SMS will be charged per SMS part. See example "Longer message" above.
Here's our current pricing (credits per SMS 160 characters) per SMS according to country and country code:
Country | Country code | New credit/SMS |
China | 86 | 1,1 |
Hong Kong | 852 | 7,8 |
Indonesia | 62 | 42,2 |
Japan | 81 | 6,9 |
Malaysia | 60 | 14,4 |
Philippines | 63 | 26,4 |
Singapore | 65 | 5,1 |
Albania | 355 | 7 |
Austria | 43 | 3,6 |
Belgium | 32 | 10,5 |
Bulgaria | 359 | 16,1 |
Croatia | 385 | 7 |
Cyprus | 357 | 1,5 |
Czech republic | 420 | 6,4 |
Denmark | 45 | 6 |
Estonia | 372 | 6,7 |
Finland | 358 | 7,8 |
France | 33 | 7,2 |
Germany | 49 | 13 |
Greece | 30 | 6,8 |
Hungary | 36 | 7 |
Ireland | 353 | 7,2 |
Italy | 39 | 6,2 |
Kosovo | 383 | 3,2 |
Latvia | 371 | 4,8 |
Liechtenstein | 423 | 3,6 |
Lithuania | 370 | 3,4 |
Luxemburg | 352 | 9,4 |
Malta | 356 | 8,8 |
Montenegro | 382 | 10,8 |
Netherlands | 31 | 11,4 |
North Macedonia | 389 | 2,4 |
Norway | 47 | 7,0 |
Poland | 48 | 2,6 |
Portugal | 351 | 2,4 |
Romania | 40 | 5,4 |
Serbia | 381 | 10 |
Slovakia | 421 | 5,8 |
Slovenia | 386 | 12,2 |
Spain | 34 | 5 |
Sweden | 46 | 5,5 |
Switzerland | 41 | 5,5 |
UK | 44 | 4,6 |
Moldova | 373 | 5,6 |
Ukraine | 380 | 21 |
Bosnia | 387 | 8 |
Turkey | 90 | 0,6 |
Default | (non listed markets) | 13 |
Next Step
SMS Subscription: Manage Your Plan