This article explains how credits are used when tickets are sent by SMS. It helps event organizers understand the tiered pricing, see costs before sending, and choose the best delivery channel for each guest.
Every SMS is delivered through mobile carriers, and carrier charges vary widely by country. Sending a text to one country can cost more than seventy times what it costs in another. Tiered pricing charges the real cost of reaching each guest, so most customers pay less and previously blocked countries become available again.
A. What is updated
- Email and WhatsApp delivery are not affected, and neither is generating or downloading tickets
- One ticket still uses one credit
- Sending a ticket by SMS may use extra credits, depending on the guest's country
- The extra amount ranges from 0 to 2 credits per SMS, added on top of the ticket's own credit
- The exact cost always appears before sending, per recipient and as a running total
- A small number of countries cannot receive SMS at all, and those recipients are flagged so Email or WhatsApp can be used instead
B. How the tiers work
Each country falls into one of four bands based on the cost to deliver an SMS there. The extra credits are added on top of the single credit the ticket already uses.
- Free: +0 extra credits, no added cost, covering the majority of common destinations
- Tier 1: +1 extra credit per SMS
- Tier 2: +2 extra credits per SMS
- Not supported: SMS cannot be delivered, so Email or WhatsApp should be used
Most destinations, including nearly all of the countries customers send to most often, sit in the Free or Tier 1 bands. Only a minority carry higher costs, and only a handful cannot receive SMS.
For more information, here is the full list: SMS Pricing by Country
C. Worked example
This example uses the 100-credit pack, where each credit costs $0.50.
- Sending a ticket by SMS to a Free-tier country, such as the United States or India, uses 1 credit for the ticket itself. That is $0.50
- Sending the same ticket by SMS to a Tier 2 country, such as Algeria, uses 1 + 2 = 3 credits. That is $1.50
The single credit is always for the ticket. The tier only adds to it when SMS is chosen as the delivery channel.
D. Seeing the cost before sending
Pricing is built into every screen where SMS is involved, so there are no surprises.
- As recipients are entered, each phone number shows its country and credit cost. A running total shows how many credits the batch will use and the balance afterward
- Unsupported countries are flagged inline before sending, so those guests can be switched to Email or WhatsApp, or removed, without a failed send
- The final confirmation shows a full breakdown by tier before anything is charged
- A phone number in an unsupported country is identified up front, rather than charging a credit and failing silently
E. Resend and sample tickets
Extra credits apply only when an SMS is actually sent, and the cost always appears first.
- Resending a ticket that was originally sent by SMS uses the SMS credits again, including any tier credits for the guest's country. For Free-tier countries, no extra credits are added, so only the single ticket credit applies. Unchecking SMS and resending by Email or WhatsApp instead costs nothing extra
- Sample tickets preview how an SMS looks before sending to guests. Samples are sent to a verified phone number on the account, with reasonable daily limits, to keep the feature fair for everyone
If you have any questions, you can see more topics in this knowledge base or reach out to the customer relations team at support@ticket-generator.com.