Ask HN: I want to add SMS to my service, tips/help/advice?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=224324

by schtog • 18 years ago

27 15 18 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Lets say you start a GPS/SMS-service so you receive an SMS, do some stuff with the data and sends back what they ask for.

So you have a transaction and thus a way to make money. How can you charge money for this? Can you contact a telecompany and somehow split the profits? Like, you put a prize of 40c for an SMS then you split it 30c/10c telecompany/me.

Any tips on how to go about this? This must be possible right?

jonknee3• 18 years ago

Unless you're huge you aren't going to connect directly in with the operators. There are too many and the implementation is hell. You connect into a middleman who has direct connections to all the majors.

Search for premium SMS providers. There are quite a few. It's probably not going to be cheap, especially if you want a dedicated short code (they rake you over the coals for that). m-bill.net is one that came up for me and I've heard of them in the past. They have agreements in place internationally, which can be a really good thing. But they don't list prices, which can be a bad sign.

Realistically you're probably looking at $1000 a month minimum. And giving up about half the revenue (I think a lot goes to the carrier, but you can't really find out the exact percentage because the providers work off volume and what not).

gizmo• 18 years ago

It's called reverse billing. Lots of information out there, and a lot of providers. Don't use SMS as your primary source of revenue. Use reverse-billing just for a "fun" feature and hope to break even on it.

ismail2• 18 years ago

i wouldnt suggest reverse billing, this is messy and complicated. Reverse billing indicates that the recipient pays(This is usually used when requesting content, that is not initiated via SMS i.e from WAP/Internet) However if you are requesting something via SMS the easiest option is for a premium rated SMS number.

Also, reverse billing is usually more difficult to setup premium sms can be bought from any of the WASP's

ruslan• 18 years ago

As for simple sending/receiving SMS messages, we at gtalk2voip.com use Clickatell's SMS service, which is very flexible, offers good technical support and providers a number of APIs including SMTP, SMPP and HTTP (we use SMTP). Among their cons: their rates are quite high unless you pre-pay for 1M messages a month and they don't want to provide you with a complete list of rates associated to mobile phone (DEF) prefixes, so reselling SMSes is close to impossible, cause you have no means to know how to account your own users in real time :-(.

As for selling content over SMS, as far as I know there's no way for a small startup company to get into revenue sharing deals with mobile carriers, besides there are a lot many of them. Yet, there are some companies that provide paid content distribution service, which you can use to resell your mobile service, software or other content you have right for (some junk like ring-tones, pron, etc). They act as a proxy service and they take up to 70% of revenue. They usually have a small coverage of mobile carriers they work with. Also there is a very high rate of returns/chargebacks, as end-user is always right even if he completely abused your service or software :-(. We wanted to use such service to let our customers recharge their balances in our system with a single SMS sent. After I studied this subject (for Europe, have no ideas about US) we abandoned the idea as completely profitless. If you find out anything with better conditions, please let me know.

tlrobinson2• 18 years ago

http://www.textmarks.com/

is free but they insert ads sometimes (always?)

jonknee3• 18 years ago

That's not for PSMS though (which is what the OP was talking about, transactions and all that).

tlrobinson2• 18 years ago

I haven't used it, but TextMarks does have a system for responding to users' messages:

http://www.textmarks.com/dev/docs/recv/?ref=devsb

ismail2• 18 years ago

Look for WASP... Wireless Application Service providers, they usually have links to all the mobile operators and they charge you a fee.

phpdev• 18 years ago

I recommend Zong.com - They specialise in this and have an API.

bluelu• 18 years ago

This is called premium sms. There are lots of providers out there offering a service for this.

iloveyouocean• 18 years ago

How to go about this (generating revenue from Premium SMS transactions):

1) Secure a 5 or 6 digit ShortCode from Neustar(the only seller of shortcodes, usshortcodes.com) This will take approximately 1 month and cost $1000/month billed in 3 month intervals. Premium messaging only works with a shortcode, so this is necessary.

2) Secure a contract with an SMS provider. I strongly suggest m-Qube, which is now owned by Verisign. Their service is excellent in every way. Great APIs, superior uptime and performance, superior support, very competitive rates, excellent relationships with the carriers.

3) Draft a 'Program Brief' following the carrier guidelines, that explains your application. These guidelines are very specific (things like how you offer the ability to opt-out, advertise your tariffs, etc.) and your application must conform to them perfectly before the carriers will approve it.

4) Submit the Program Brief for carrier approval. This process takes between 1 to 3 months depending on the nature of the application, particular carrier, etc. The approval process may, and often does, include redoing some of your application to suit the carriers.

5) Assuming all the carriers approve your Program Brief, you can then start charging users when you send them a response. (sending a message is the only event you can charge a premium tariff for).

The carriers each have a specific revenue sharing breakdown that is dependent on volume, price point, etc. In the case of m-Qube, they also take a small cut. Negotiating directly with the carriers is another endeavor entirely that I dont have any expertise in.

mailanay• 18 years ago

Please checkout http://txtme.savitr.net. This is a service started by my startup Savitr Wireless (http://www.savitr.net)

We have built a SMS Engine / Framework which easily integrates with aggregators / carriers to send and receive SMS messages.

We license out the Framework directly as well as provide API to our hosted service.

ucdaz• 18 years ago

You might want to check out teleflip.com. It's a free sms gateway.

ivey• 18 years ago

I've worked with mxtelecom (it was so-so), mblox (better than mxtelecom) and mindmatics (best experience so far). The whole process will be frustrating from the beginning, and it never gets much better. But it's doable, and if your service is compelling, there's a decent amount of money to be made.

Ask HN: I want to add SMS to my service, tips/help/advice?

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