Carrier Per-Message Pass-Through Rates

When you send an SMS or MMS through Volt, the destination carrier charges a small fee on every message segment delivered to one of their subscribers. These are pass-through fees, which means we forward them on your invoice exactly as the carrier bills us.

This article lists current per-segment rates by carrier, broken out by the type of number you're sending from (10DLC, Toll-Free, or Short Code). For a full overview of every fee on your invoice (registration, vetting, monthly campaign fees, and more), see Understanding the Carrier and Registration Fees on Your Invoice.

Last reviewed: May 13, 2026.

How carrier fees are calculated

Carrier fees are charged per segment, not per message:

• A standard SMS holds up to 160 characters in one segment.

• Using emojis, smart quotes, or other special characters drops that to 70 characters per segment.

• Longer messages split into multiple segments and are billed accordingly.

• MMS is billed per message (not per segment), but at a higher rate.

A 280-character marketing SMS, for example, is billed as two segments per recipient.

10DLC (Local Long Code) Rates

These rates apply to standard A2P traffic sent from registered 10-digit long codes. Since Volt registers your brand and campaigns with The Campaign Registry (TCR), your traffic qualifies for the registered rates below.

SMS

MMS

A note on unregistered traffic

If 10DLC traffic is sent without a properly registered brand and campaign, carriers apply much higher penalty rates (for example, $0.0100 per AT&T SMS segment and $0.0120 per T-Mobile SMS segment, with similar increases for MMS). Volt's registration workflow is designed to prevent this from happening on your account.

Toll-Free Number (TFN) Rates

Toll-free numbers used for messaging have their own pass-through rates, separate from 10DLC. These apply once your toll-free number is verified.

SMS

MMS

Short Code (SC) Rates

Short codes have their own carrier rates. They also carry a separate monthly lease fee from the CTIA Short Code Registry, which is billed independently from per-message carrier fees.

SMS

MMS

A quick example

Say you send a 280-character marketing SMS to 10,000 customers from a registered 10DLC number. The message takes two segments per recipient, and your recipient list is split roughly evenly across the four major carriers.

• Total segments delivered: 10,000 × 2 = 20,000 segments

• Roughly 5,000 segments to each carrier

• AT&T (5,000 × $0.0035) = $17.50

• T-Mobile (5,000 × $0.0045) = $22.50

• Verizon (5,000 × $0.0045) = $22.50

• U.S. Cellular (5,000 × $0.0050) = $25.00

• Approximate carrier fee total: $87.50

Your invoice will show this broken out by carrier so you can see exactly where the cost went.

Why these rates change

Carriers update their messaging fees periodically, usually with 30 to 60 days of notice. When that happens, we update our pass-through rates to match. We don't mark up carrier fees, so you only ever pay what we're charged.

If a rate change is coming, we'll notify customers in advance.

Questions

If a charge on your invoice doesn't look right, or you'd like help estimating costs for a planned campaign, email billing@textvolt.com and we'll walk through it with you.