Clickatell launches hassle-free variable cost SMS

Global messaging company (and site sponsor) Clickatell have today announced the launch of a mobile terminated (MT) premium rate SMS service in South Africa.

Currently offered by Vodacom and MTN in South Africa, mobile terminated services are used for subscription-based content. Because the networks offer these services in different ways, Clickatell provides an easy-to-use open interface for value-added service providers to access the networks and bill their customers. Uniquely, Clickatell pays out the full revenue share to its customers.

Good stuff, and useful if you’re wanting to enter the South African premium SMS market. Here’s two interesting things I noticed from the press release.

Firstly, the service offers variable billing – so a shortcode isn’t tied to a particular price point like it is in the UK. It’s up to the operators to support such a service, and fortunately both Vodacom and MTN do. Here in the UK a shortcode is fixed to a certain price – so if you wanted to run a service on a particular shortcode at a different price to the one it’s locked to, you’d have to send the reply from a different number. A complete arse when it comes to branding and can confuse consumers.

Second, Clickatell pay out the full revenue share they receive from the mobile operators. That’s a refreshing change – most PSMS service providers take their cut along the way, and have a habit of hiding the true income they’re making from your service. Given a choice between a company who are open with their payouts and one that surrounds it with smoke and mirrors, I’d chose the former.