Understand SMS Costs and Permission
See how SMS segments, credits, recipient permission and opt-outs affect a campaign send.
Before you approve an SMS campaign, check who can receive it and what the final text costs. SMS campaigns are in a controlled pilot for eligible Nigerian phone numbers.
What You Will Learn
- Distinguish a contact record from permission to send campaign SMS
- Read a segment and credit estimate
- Understand why a recipient can be skipped
- Find funding and delivery status in Messaging
Permission comes first
Select relevant groups, then review the eligible recipients. Group membership alone does not give you permission to send marketing SMS. A campaign requires suitable permission for the phone number and purpose. Opt-outs, refusals, invalid numbers, changed numbers and other restrictions can remove recipients before submission.
Every campaign message includes an opt-out route. A recipient can stop your campaign SMS without closing their account. An older global stop request continues to apply. Event or service messages have their own purpose and must not be presented as promotional messages to bypass a refusal.
Segments and credits
The final message includes your text, personalisation, business identity and opt-out instruction. Its length and characters determine billable segments. Review the prepared total and maximum approved cost; the estimate can change if you edit the draft or the configuration changes. A paid test also uses credits.
Use Messaging credits from SMS campaigns to check your balance or add credits. Adding credits does not send a draft. Recipients skipped before submission are not charged. A submitted message can incur a charge even if later delivery fails. If submission outcome is uncertain, Trankets reviews it rather than assuming it is free or sending it again.
Sending and delivery
Campaigns follow the supported sending window and daily pause rules in Africa/Lagos time. The review shows the account timezone equivalent. If a phone already has two SMS attempts admitted for sending by your company within ten minutes, another campaign attempt is refused and company campaign SMS pauses until the next supported-region day. Tests and transactional SMS count toward the safeguard; the pause does not stop event or service SMS. A counted attempt may still be in flight or awaiting provider confirmation. It is not proof of handset delivery.
Check the campaign detail for current status. Provider acceptance is not handset delivery. Reports may arrive late or remain unavailable. Do not infer that a person read a message from a submission or delivery indicator.