Mass Texting Pricing 2026: The A2P 10DLC Fees Nobody Quotes You
Textedly charges an $8/month telecom fee, SimpleTexting's 10DLC fee is a flat $4, and EZ Texting waives fees only above its cheapest tier. Real 2026 pricing compared.
Is it right for you?
- Have you added the platform's telecom/carrier surcharge to the advertised plan price, or are you comparing "starting at" numbers that exclude it?
- Does your cheapest qualifying tier actually waive the telecom fee, or only the tiers above it? (EZ Texting's Launch plan does not, Boost and up do.)
- Will you need a second local number or an extra teammate seat? Those are separate monthly line items on every vendor compared here.
- Do you send under 6,000 messages a day? If so, you qualify for TCR's Low Volume Standard brand tier ($4.50 one-time) instead of the $46 Standard tier.
- Have you checked whether your contact list skews toward T-Mobile numbers? T-Mobile's January 2026 carrier fee increase applies per message segment, regardless of which platform you use.
Quick verdict
For under 1,000 texts/month and the lowest predictable all-in cost, SlickText's $29/month entry tier with a published no-surprise-overage policy beats Textedly's same-priced Basic plan once Textedly's mandatory $8/month telecom surcharge is added. If avoiding a second local number is the priority, EZ Texting's Boost plan ($60/month billed annually) is the cheapest tier that actually waives the telecom fee, its cheaper Launch plan does not. SimpleTexting is the better fit for a team that will add a second number or extra teammates, its $10/month add-ons are disclosed on the pricing page rather than buried in a help-center article. Whichever platform you pick, budget the one-time TCR brand and campaign registration ($19-$61 depending on brand type) and the roughly $0.0025-$0.0045 per-message carrier surcharge on top of the plan price, both are carrier-mandated and apply no matter which vendor sends the text.
Try Textedly →What business texting actually costs, once every fee lands
A $29-a-month mass texting plan and a $500-a-month one can run on the exact same underlying fee stack: a one-time brand and campaign registration filed with The Campaign Registry (TCR), a recurring monthly campaign fee, and a per-message carrier surcharge that AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon each charge on every A2P 10DLC text delivered to their networks. None of that appears as a single line item on a vendor's pricing page, it is split across a signup-flow disclosure, a help-center article, and the monthly invoice. We pulled the current 2026 fee schedule directly from Twilio's published A2P 10DLC documentation (the compliance infrastructure most of these platforms run on) and checked the live pricing pages of four consumer-facing mass texting vendors, Textedly, SimpleTexting, EZ Texting, and SlickText, on 2026-08-09 to show what actually lands on an invoice beyond the advertised "starting at" number.
| Vendor | Cheapest paid tier | Telecom/carrier surcharge | 10DLC registration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Textedly | $29/mo, 500 texts | $8/mo, mandatory on every plan | $4-$44 one-time, volume-dependent |
| SimpleTexting | $39/mo, 500 credits | None disclosed beyond carrier pass-through | $4 flat, one-time |
| EZ Texting | $20/mo billed annually, 500 contacts (Launch) | Charged on Launch only; waived from Boost ($60/mo) up | Bundled into plan price |
| SlickText | $29/mo, 500 credits | None disclosed beyond carrier pass-through | Not separately itemized on pricing page |
The three-layer fee stack behind every 10DLC text
A2P 10DLC (Application-to-Person messaging over 10-digit long code numbers) is the compliance system US carriers require for business texting sent from a standard local phone number. The fees exist in three layers, and only the first is fully inside a vendor's control. Layer one is TCR brand and campaign registration: a US A2P Sole Proprietor or Low Volume Standard brand costs $4.50 one-time, while a Standard brand (needed for higher-volume senders) costs $46 one-time and includes mandatory secondary vetting. On top of that, each messaging campaign requires a $15 one-time vetting fee plus a recurring monthly campaign fee that ranges from $1.50/month (low-volume mixed use) to $10/month (Standard use case), billed for as long as the campaign stays active [Twilio, "Pricing and Fees for A2P 10DLC Service," verified 2026-08-09]. TCR raised several of these fees on August 1, 2025: Standard Vetting went from $40 to $41.50, Brand Registration from $4 to $4.50, Vetting Appeal from $10 to $11, and a new Authentication Plus fee of $12.50 per retry now applies to public for-profit brands that fail identity verification on the first attempt.
Layer two is the per-message carrier fee, charged by AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon on every A2P 10DLC segment sent to their networks, on top of whatever the messaging platform itself charges. Layer three is the platform's own markup and plan structure, the part that actually varies vendor to vendor and is the only layer a comparison shopper has real control over. Vendors that say they "never mark up" carrier fees, as both SimpleTexting and SlickText state in their own pricing FAQs, are describing layer two specifically, not layers one or three.
T-Mobile just raised its cut, again
Carrier fees are not static. Effective January 19, 2026, T-Mobile raised its pass-through fee for outbound 10DLC SMS from $0.0030 to $0.0045 per message segment, a 50% increase, and applied similar increases across short code, toll-free, and RCS channels. The change also extended to US Cellular numbers, which T-Mobile absorbed after acquiring the carrier in August 2025 [Twilio Help Center, "T-Mobile Messaging Carrier Fee Changes (January 2026)," verified 2026-08-09]. Twilio's own FAQ on the change states plainly that "as of December 2025, no other major US carrier has announced a similar increase," but does not rule one out. For a business whose contact list skews toward T-Mobile numbers, which is common given T-Mobile's market share among younger and price-sensitive consumers, this is a documented cost increase that predates and sits underneath every vendor's advertised plan price. No signup page mentions it, because it changed after most of those pages were last updated.
EZ Texting's "no hidden fees" claim has an asterisk
EZ Texting markets itself with the tagline "no hidden fees" on its pricing page, and its Boost, Scale, and Enterprise tiers do waive the telecom fee outright. But its cheapest tier, Launch, at $20/month billed annually (500 contacts, 6,000 yearly credits), is explicitly listed as "Subject to Telecom Fee" on the same pricing page, while Boost at $60/month is listed as "Waived Telecom Fee" [EZ Texting pricing page, verified 2026-08-09]. That means the plan most likely to attract a first-time small-business buyer, the cheapest one, is also the one where the telecom fee is not waived. A shopper who reads only the headline "no hidden fees" and picks Launch will still see a telecom line item on the invoice; the fee-free promise only kicks in once they upgrade to a plan roughly three times the price.
Why the carrier fee itself isn't the scam
Two different complaints get lumped together under "hidden SMS fees," and they are not the same problem. One is legitimate frustration at vendors that bury a mandatory monthly surcharge, Textedly's $8/month telecom fee applies to every paid plan and is disclosed only in the pricing page's FAQ section, not the plan cards themselves [Textedly pricing page FAQ, checked 2026-08-04, see our full Textedly review for the complete fee breakdown]. The other is the per-message carrier surcharge itself, which is not a vendor markup, it is a fee set by AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon and passed through unchanged. SimpleTexting states this directly in its own pricing FAQ: "we never mark these up," and SlickText makes the identical claim in its own FAQ. Both companies would have a financial incentive to inflate this fee if they could get away with it; industry-wide carrier-fee transparency requirements and competitive pressure from vendors that publish their exact pass-through rate make this a legitimate cost, distinct from a surcharge a vendor chooses to add on top.
SlickText is the only one of the four that puts an exact number on this in writing: its help center states a flat $0.0042 per SMS segment and $0.0087 per MMS, billed in arrears based on the prior period's send volume, and applied the same way regardless of number type [SlickText Help Center, "Understanding Carrier Fees," verified 2026-08-09]. That figure sits below the $0.0045 T-Mobile now charges on its own network, which is expected, SlickText's rate is a blended average across AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon traffic, not a single-carrier price. It is also the only piece of fee documentation SlickText publishes with a specific rate attached; its 10DLC brand and campaign registration cost is not itemized anywhere on the public pricing page, so a buyer only sees that number after signing up and registering a brand. Textedly's $8/month telecom fee and SlickText's $0.0042/message rate are not directly comparable line items, one is a flat monthly charge regardless of volume, the other scales with how many texts actually go out, which means a low-volume sender (under roughly 1,900 messages a month, where 1,900 times $0.0042 crosses $8) comes out ahead on SlickText's model even before touching the base plan price.
A worksheet for your real monthly bill
Run this against your own numbers before comparing "starting at" prices across vendors. (1) Start with the base plan price for your expected monthly send volume. (2) Add the vendor's mandatory telecom/carrier surcharge, if any, confirmed against the specific tier you are buying, not just the vendor's general marketing claim. (3) Add $10-20/month for each additional local number or teammate seat beyond what the base plan includes. (4) Add the per-message carrier pass-through, roughly $0.0025-$0.0045 per segment depending on which carriers your contacts are on, multiplied by your expected monthly send volume. (5) Amortize the one-time TCR brand and campaign fee ($19-$61 depending on brand type) across 12 months if you want a true monthly run rate.
Example: a small business on SimpleTexting's 500-credit plan ($39/month) that adds a second local number ($10/month) and sends 500 texts a month to a typical US carrier mix (roughly $0.0025/segment, per SimpleTexting's own disclosed average) is looking at $39 + $10 + $1.25 = $50.25/month, about 29% above the advertised $39 sticker price, before counting a second teammate seat ($20/month) if the team needs one. The same math on Textedly's $29 Basic plan starts at $29 + $8 (mandatory telecom fee) + roughly $1.25 in carrier pass-through = $38.25/month, a 32% markup over the advertised price, even before the one-time 10DLC fee.
Frequently asked questions
What is A2P 10DLC and why do I have to pay extra for it? A2P 10DLC is the compliance system US wireless carriers require for Application-to-Person business texting sent from a standard local 10-digit phone number. It exists to reduce spam and fraud on business-to-consumer texting, and the registration and per-message fees are set by The Campaign Registry (TCR) and the carriers themselves, not by the messaging platform you sign up with [Twilio, "Pricing and Fees for A2P 10DLC Service," verified 2026-08-09].
How much does 10DLC brand and campaign registration actually cost? A Sole Proprietor or Low Volume Standard brand costs $4.50 one-time; a Standard brand costs $46 one-time and includes secondary vetting. Campaign registration adds a $15 one-time vetting fee plus a recurring monthly fee of $1.50-$10 depending on the campaign's use case, for as long as the campaign stays active [Twilio, verified 2026-08-09].
Why did my per-message carrier fee go up recently? T-Mobile raised its outbound 10DLC SMS pass-through fee from $0.0030 to $0.0045 per segment effective January 19, 2026, a 50% increase that also applies to US Cellular numbers following T-Mobile's 2025 acquisition of that carrier. Twilio's own documentation notes that no other major US carrier had announced a matching increase as of December 2025, but does not guarantee one won't follow [Twilio Help Center, "T-Mobile Messaging Carrier Fee Changes (January 2026)," verified 2026-08-09].
Does EZ Texting really have no hidden fees? Only from its Boost tier ($60/month billed annually) up. Its cheapest Launch tier ($20/month billed annually) is explicitly marked "Subject to Telecom Fee" on EZ Texting's own pricing page, despite the site's "no hidden fees" tagline applying to the brand as a whole [EZ Texting pricing page, verified 2026-08-09].
Are carrier pass-through fees something I can negotiate away? No. They are set by AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon and charged uniformly regardless of which messaging platform you use. Both SimpleTexting and SlickText state in their own pricing FAQs that they pass these fees through at cost with no markup, which is the honest baseline to expect from any vendor, the fee itself is not avoidable by switching platforms.
Which vendor has the lowest real cost for a small business sending under 1,000 texts a month? At that volume, SlickText's $29/month entry tier has no disclosed mandatory surcharge beyond carrier pass-through, putting it below Textedly's same-priced plan once Textedly's mandatory $8/month telecom fee is added. If your team already pays for a business phone system, check whether texting is bundled before adding a dedicated platform, our small business phone system comparison and Grasshopper review cover providers that include business texting on their base plans.