Sending a text message is something that people do each day without even thinking about it anymore. In fact, most people prefer to send a message, or some other electronic communication, instead of actually using the telephone. While a lot of people text these days instead of calling someone, how much is that costing us, and will that ever become cheaper?
Your Cost Differs Based On Carrier
The average cost of your text messaging plan is going to be determined partially by who you use as your carrier. AT&T offers plans where you can get 1000 messages for 10 dollars a month, or 2000 text messages a month for 20 dollars. You can also pay per text, which costs roughly 20 cents.
T-Mobile, however, offers an unlimited plan for $14.95 a month, with cheaper plans for 400 or 1000 text messages a month. In general, you can expect to pay anywhere between 10-20 dollars a month for a text message plan, or you can face charges of about 10-20 cents each text message if you go without a plan.
Text Messaging Can Be More Expensive Overseas
Most of the standard text messaging plans are for text messages to phones in the United States. This makes it more expensive to send texts to phones outside the United States. AT&T charges 25 cents for a text message from the United States to another phone overseas, and charges 50 cents a message to send a phone from overseas to a phone in the United States.
Can Costs Be Reduced
Most companies aren’t coming down with the price of their text messages services. The only way you can hope to save money on text messaging services is to bundle it in with other services such as going with unlimited texts on a family plan.
However, there is a way that the customer can get around having to pay for text messages. If you own a smartphone, there are apps that can be downloaded that avoid using any of your text messages. When the app is downloaded, you get your own phone number for the purpose of sending and receiving text messages. This makes it free to text in some cases, or sharply reduces your costs in every case.
Another way to get around that is to text from your PC, or from Facebook. You can send a message straight to another cell phone, and you don’t get charged for it. The person who gets the text will have to pay according to their plan, so be aware of that before sending too many messages to phones from your computer.
Text messaging is certainly not going away anytime soon. However, the cost of text messaging has not budged as phone carriers see more of a profit in charging for text messages. While the cost of texting may rise in some instances as the value of minutes decreases, there are ways to make it cheaper for consumers. The rise of smartphones, and market pressures, will hopefully bring the cost of text messaging lower as time goes by.
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