Nobody in the United States buys a short code outright. Codes are leased from the Common Short Code Administration, the registry CTIA runs at usshortcodes.com, and in September 2016 it charges one of two flat rates. A random code, where the system assigns the number, costs $500 a month. A select code, where the lessee picks a specific number through the registry’s search (a word spelled on the keypad, say, or an easy pattern such as repeating pairs), costs $1,000 a month.
Terms and what they add up to
Leases run for three, six or twelve months, and the whole term is paid for in advance. The cheapest possible entry is therefore $1,500 for three months of a random code, and the top of the range is $12,000 for a year of a chosen one. In between, a full year of a random code and six months of a chosen one both come to $6,000, which is the real choice a sender faces: a longer run on an arbitrary number, or a shorter run on a memorable one. The registry expects full payment within 60 days of the order; if it does not arrive, the number goes back into the pool. The fee is not refundable, even if no carrier ever agrees to switch the code on.
Leases can be set to renew automatically, and since October 2012 a renewal has had to be paid by the expiry date. The registry mentions monthly billing for certain registrants; otherwise the full term is paid up front, by credit card, electronic funds transfer or check. Over the summer the registry has also been running a limited-time offer, announced in June, that adds a free month to any prepaid three-, six- or twelve-month lease. On a select code that is worth $1,000.
Dedicated or shared
Those prices are for a dedicated code: one brand, all the keywords on it, nobody else’s traffic. The cheaper route many small senders take is a keyword on a code that a messaging provider already leases and shares among its customers, which splits the lease many ways. The catch is that the tenants share a fate. The registry notes that a dedicated code is not affected when another company on a shared code is caught breaking the monitoring rules, which is exactly the risk a shared tenant carries. Its own FAQ also says carrier policy expects each code to be dedicated to one brand.
Costs beyond the lease
The registry fee buys the right to the number and nothing else. Before a code sends a single text, each carrier has to review and provision the campaign. That work goes through an aggregator, one of the companies with direct connections into the carrier networks, and the time it takes varies by carrier. The lease clock runs the whole while.
Then come the provider’s charges, which no registry publishes and which differ widely between companies:
- a setup fee for preparing the carrier application and seeing it through provisioning
- a monthly fee for hosting the code on the provider’s platform and for the software used to send and receive messages
- a price per message sent or received, with MMS priced separately from SMS
Because the registry charges everyone the same, these line items are where one provider’s price differs from another’s. The setup fee, the per-message price and any minimum contract length are the figures worth comparing before a lease is signed.
Since then, the registry’s rates have not moved: its current pricing still lists $500 a month for a random code and $1,000 for a select one, on the same 3, 6 or 12 month terms.