What church texting costs

Your church's cost

Enter your list size and how often you text, and the calculator adds up Twilio's charges for a month.

People on your list

Texts to each person in a month

Length of each textUp to 160 characters161 to 306 characters307 to 459 charactersA picture message

Twilio bills a text in segments of up to 160 characters.

Replies you expect in a month

Twilio charges for each text your church receives.

What your church pays for texting each month now

Leave this empty to skip it. With a number here, the calculator sets Twilio's bill beside it.

Number and registration

Local number, low-volume registration$19.50 once and $1.50 a month. Local number, charity registration$61 once and $3 a month, for a church the IRS lists as a 501(c)(3). Toll-free numberFree to register, and the number costs $2.15 a month.

Twilio's bill each month

$12.09 to $13.29

Plus $19.50 once for registration.

• Texts
• Carrier fees
• Replies
• Number and registration

How the month adds up

800 text segments sent	$6.64
Carrier fees on them	$2.80 to $4.00
0 replies received	$0.00
Phone number	$1.15
Monthly registration fee	$1.50
Total	$12.09 to $13.29

The bill is a range because each carrier sets its own fee. AT&T charges the least for a text and Verizon the most, so the total depends on which carriers your people use.

Three examples

A text's length

The phone companies bill a text in pieces called segments, so a text that runs a few characters over the limit costs twice as much to send. Paste a text below and the checker counts its characters and segments in your browser, without sending the text anywhere.

Twilio's prices

Twilio adds up three things each month: a charge for each text, a fee the carriers put on each text, and the rent on the phone number. A carrier is a phone company such as AT&T, T-Mobile or Verizon.

Each text

A segment holds up to 160 characters of plain text. Twilio splits a longer text into segments of 153 characters, and a text with an emoji or a curly quotation mark holds 70 characters in one segment and 67 in each segment after the first.

Carrier fees on a local number

Carrier fees on a toll-free number

The phone number

Registration fees

The carriers register a church that texts from a local number in two parts. The brand says who the church is, and the campaign says what the church texts and how people agreed to get it. Twilio files both with The Campaign Registry, the company the carriers use for this, and passes the fees on at cost. A church on another texting service can ask that service what it charges for the same registration.

A church that registers a Low Volume Standard brand and a Low Volume Mixed campaign pays $4.50 and $15, which is $19.50 once, and then $1.50 a month. That registration carries up to 2,000 text segments a day to T-Mobile customers, about 6,000 a day across all carriers.

Twilio checks each brand's name and tax number against the IRS's list of tax-exempt organizations, among other records. When that check recognizes a church as a 501(c)(3) organization, the Twilio Console, the website where a church manages its Twilio account, offers the church the Charity campaign and takes the standard campaigns off the list. Charity costs $3 a month, and Twilio's table shows no AT&T or T-Mobile fee on its texts. The table names no discount from the other carriers, so the calculator keeps their fees. Twilio's guide for nonprofits says a nonprofit should register a Standard brand so these prices apply, and with the vetting fee that comes to $61 once.

A toll-free number needs no brand and no campaign. Twilio verifies the number for free, the number costs $2.15 a month, and the carriers charge their fees on each text. The registration guide walks through both kinds of number.

Sources

Each page was read on October 13, 2026.

• Twilio, “SMS Pricing in United States for Text Messaging”, for the charge on each text, the carrier fees and the phone numbers.
• Twilio Help Center, “Pricing and Fees for A2P 10DLC Service”, for the brand and campaign fees and the daily limit on a Low Volume Mixed campaign.
• Twilio Help Center, “A2P 10DLC Campaign Vetting FAQ”, for the $15 vetting fee.
• Twilio Help Center, “Special Use Cases for A2P 10DLC”, for the Charity campaign, its carrier fees and who may use it.
• Twilio Help Center, “Nonprofit and Government Guide to A2P 10DLC Text Messaging”, for the brand type a nonprofit registers, the check against the IRS's list, and its example of a church registered as a 501(c)(3).
• Twilio Docs, “A2P 10DLC, Gather the Required Business Information”, for the line that the Charity campaign does not include religious organizations.
• Twilio Help Center, “Best Practices for Using Toll-Free SMS and MMS in the US and Canada”, for free toll-free verification.
• Twilio Docs, “How long can a message be?”, for the length of a segment.