What is
Premium Rate / Reverse Billing?
Many people subscribe to services
using their mobile phone. This is
usually to receive content such as video
clips and ringtones and more commonly
racing tips, tarot readings or news
directly to their mobile.
In many cases this content is
"chargeable", ie the end user pays for
the content they receive. This can be
anywhere between 25p and £10. This is
known as "Reverse Billing" or "Premium
Rate Services".
Not only does this allow the end user to interact with your
services but is a great way to generate
a steady revenue stream.
How does it work?
The
end user simply texts your "keyword"
to reach your services. In many cases,
you may have more than one service and
these can be offered using sub-keywords
- they text a second word after the
keyword. By offering such a service we
can give you the ability to offer
unlimited content or services quickly
and easily.
The end user can be
charged from 25p-£10 and we can offer a
shared 5 digit number from
just £19.99 per month. If required
we can provide you with a dedicated inbound
number of your own.
More information on
5 digit text shortcodes
can be
found on our
shortcode page.
Premium rate services we provide:
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Premium Rate
SMS text message Chat Services
(Premium Rate 2 way SMS).
Inbound messages
are received directly on your PC screen. Our
unique service groups messages from end users
together just like on many modern mobile phones.
New messages are highlighted and an audible
incoming message alert tells you you have
received a new SMS. This service is ideal for
services such as directory
services, "ask a question" services, adult chat,
tarot and racing tips.
-
Grouped and threaded incoming messages. New
messages are highlighted and message history
from the same end useris shown beneath.
-
Incoming message audible alert.
-
Respond for free or at a premium rate
charge.
-
Fully customisable interface
-
Add up to 100 admin users to your service
easily.
-
Numbers are automatically locked to your
account so once the end user has text you
they do not need to text your keyword again
for up to 3 days from their last text
eliminating "lost texts" common with other
services.
For more information on Text Chat see our
two way SMS Chat services
page.
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Text Voting and Text
Competitions.
Are you considering running a
voting service by text message?
The end user can text a vote
easily at just a standard
message cost or at a premium
rate between 25 & £10.
For more information on text voting, take a
look at our
SMS text
message Competition
and voting page.
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Text
Reverse Auctions
and Lowest Unique Bid.
SMS reverse auctions (otherwise
known as lowest unique bid
auctions) are becoming very
popular as a fun alternative way
to win for example TV's,
laptops, cars and holidays.
For more information on reverse auctions, take a
look at our
SMS text
message Competition
and voting page
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Multimedia Content.
Clients can request music,
video, pictures or midi songs
easily by text for a premium
charge.
For more information on sending MMS
Multimedia, take a
look at our
Bulk MMS Multimedia page
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API Gateway.
We provide an API gateway which
can be used with our both our
standard SMS and premium
rate services.
We HTTP
POST incoming messages directly to your own
server/application for you to
take control of the content that
is sent back to the client.
Documentation for our API can be
downloaded from our
API/Developer page.
For more information for developers can
be found on our SMS
API Developer
page
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The facts and costs of texting a shortcode.
There are two types of billing mechanisms on a shortcode, MT and MO.
Textvertising provide a shared MT shortcode or
dedicated MO or MT codes.
MT - "Mobile Terminated".
When texting to this type of shortcode the cost
is always at the end users standard network rate
- just like a normal text message.
MT shortcodes can provide premium rate services
except this is only done by sending a chargeable
message to the client who pay when they
receive a message from the shortcode.
However, you do not have to send back chargeable
messages, these can of course be free to the
customer to receive.
This type of shortcode allows us to provide the
flexibility of providing a shortcode that
can be used for both free marketing
or premium rate services. The choice
is yours.
MO - "Mobile Originated".
When texting this type of shortcode the end user
is charged a premium cost immediately. This can
be set anywhere between around 25p and £10.
Textvertising do not provide a shared MO
shortcodes as they have distinct disadvantages:
1) they would be useless for marketing. Most
campaigns encourage the end user to text for
more information or subscribe to a database.
Most people would not wish to pay a premium rate
for this.
2) These type of shortcodes do not allow you to
run subscription based premium rate services.
However, they are useful for requesting
multimedia content. When multimedia content is
sent to a client it is impossible to charge the
client for receiving it in the same way as can
be done with a premium rate message.
By paying "up front", the content can be sent
back at no cost as you receive payment on
"submission" of the request message made to the
MO shortcode.
Textvertising can still provide multimedia
content at premium rate even with an MT
shortcode. This is easily done by sending a
premium rate text message to the end user
detailing what they have requested, checking it
has been accepted, then sending the multimedia
clip once payment has been taken.
Account
Costs.
We provide one of the cheapest ways to get
started with reverse billing. Our "Gold
Account" is perfect for the new user and is
simply a "Pay-as-You-Go" service with no
contract ties:
Network Out-payments.
Out-payments are the amount you
receive after network charges. If you
would like a copy of our reverse billing
plans and their out-payments, just
call us for a download code then
click here
and follow the instructions.
Useage.
Premium Rate Services must be
operated under the guidelines and rules
of the regulatory body,
PhonePay Plus.
There is a PhonePay Plus compliance
document available to download
here
which explains how services must comply. |
