Political texting generally costs between 1 and 3.5 cents per SMS segment, and between 2.5 and 8 cents per MMS message, based on rates published by providers in August 2026. Where you land in that range depends on volume, whether you send from a long code or a short code, whether you need MMS or video, and how much of the work you want the vendor to do. Platform fees, short code rentals, and service surcharges then move the effective cost meaningfully.
What providers publish
| Provider | SMS per segment | MMS | Fixed fees |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scale to Win | 1.5¢ long code, 1¢ short code | 3.5¢ long code, 2.5¢ short code | $500/month short code rental |
| RumbleUp | 3¢ (1 to 10k), 2.5¢ (10k to 250k), 2¢ (250k to 2.5M) | 8¢ / 7¢ / 5¢ across the same tiers | $19/month, plus $5 new account charge |
| FullPAC | 3.5¢ standard, 2.5¢ partner, volume discounts from there | In the rate card | None. No per-seat fee, no per sub-account charge |
| Peerly | Not published as of August 2026 | Not published | Unknown |
Sources, all read August 17, 2026: Scale to Win (scaletowin.com/pricing), RumbleUp (rumbleup.com/pricing), Peerly (peerly.com/pricing), and FullPAC.
The word that changes your budget: segment
Every rate above is per segment, not per message. An SMS segment is roughly 160 characters of plain text, and about 153 when a message is split across multiple segments. A message longer than one segment is billed as two, or three.
This is the single most common budgeting error in political texting. A 300-character message at “1.5 cents” costs 3 cents to send, not 1.5. Write long scripts and your effective rate doubles without the rate card changing at all.
- Emoji and special characters are worse. A single emoji can switch the whole message to a different encoding and cut the per-segment character limit to 70.
- Links consume characters too. Use the vendor’s shortener if they publish one.
- MMS is priced per message, not per segment, which is why a long message with an image is sometimes cheaper than the same text as multi-segment SMS.
The costs that are not on the rate card
Carrier pass-through fees
Carriers charge per message on top of what the platform charges. Some vendors state that their published price already includes these: RumbleUp says so explicitly on its pricing page, and notes it reserves the right to pass on future increases. Others quote a platform rate and add carrier fees separately. Always ask which one you are being quoted. It is a real difference on a large program.
10DLC and registration
Carrier registration involves fees, and some vendors mark them up while others file at cost. Ask directly. Ask also what happens if a filing is rejected and has to be refiled, because that is where the time goes. Our 10DLC quick start walks the process.
Service surcharges
If you want the vendor to run the sending rather than doing it yourself, that is usually a per-message surcharge. RumbleUp publishes plus 2 cents for outsourced sending and plus 5 cents for full service. On a 500,000 message program, a 5 cent full-service surcharge is $25,000, which is larger than the entire messaging spend at 3 cents. Model it before assuming it is a rounding error.
Short code rentals and platform fees
A $500 monthly short code rental is excellent value at ten million messages and terrible at fifty thousand. Work out the crossover for your actual volume rather than taking the lowest per-segment number on the page.
Inbound replies
Peer-to-peer generates replies, and replies need people. Several vendors, including Scale to Win and RumbleUp, publish that inbound messages are free, which is good. The cost is staffing, and on a persuasion program it is often larger than the messaging spend.
What a real program costs
Round numbers, using published SMS rates, single-segment messages, and excluding registration and staffing. Treat these as arithmetic, not quotes.
| Program | Messages | At 1.5¢ | At 2.5¢ | At 3.5¢ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Municipal race, one GOTV push | 25,000 | $375 | $625 | $875 |
| Competitive state house seat | 150,000 | $2,250 | $3,750 | $5,250 |
| Congressional, full cycle | 1,000,000 | $15,000 | $25,000 | $35,000 |
| Firm running 40 downballot races | 2,000,000 | $30,000 | $50,000 | $70,000 |
Two things fall out of that table. First, at small volumes the difference between vendors is not what decides your outcome: $250 across a municipal GOTV push is not the variable to optimize. Second, at firm scale the per-segment rate is real money, which is exactly why wholesale rates and volume discounts exist.
Price your own program
Or skip the arithmetic. This is our live calculator, the same one at gotv.com/texting-calculator: pick a message type, set your universe and touches, and it prices the whole program at our published partner volume rates, including the all-in cost per voter contact.
How many voters you want to reach.
How many times you will text each voter over the program.
Total messages set the rate, and the rate applies to the whole program.
$3,750
$3,750 for 150,000 SMS messages at 2.5¢ each.
- Universe
- 50,000
- Texts per person
- ×3
- Messages
- 150,000 SMS
- Rate
- 2.5¢ per message
- Message cost
- $3,750
- Mobile data
- Your own, no fee
- All-in cost per voter contact
- 2.5¢
Opens your quote as a page you can save as a PDF or print.
Published partner volume rates. The tier your total messages reach prices the whole program, and final pricing is confirmed on your order. Requesting an order does not create a charge.
If you are reselling, the math is different
A consultant buying at wholesale and billing the client is solving a different problem. You need your client to get a competitive rate and a program that runs properly, and you need to be paid for the strategy and the accountability you are providing on top of the messaging. Both of those are legitimate, and a wholesale rate is what makes both possible at once: the client gets a good price, and your firm is compensated for the work around it rather than only for forwarding an invoice.
What matters then is your wholesale rate, whether the tooling and reporting can carry your firm’s name, whether adding clients adds fixed cost, and whether the vendor might approach your client directly.
FullPAC publishes 2.5 cents for partners with volume discounts below that, no per-seat fees, and no charge per sub-account, so a firm’s cost does not climb just because it added clients. The Partner Protection Guarantee is the written commitment that we do not go around you. The full comparison of services covers who else is structured this way.
What to ask before you sign
- Is the quoted rate per segment or per message, and does it include carrier pass-through fees?
- What does MMS cost, and is video extra on top of MMS?
- Are inbound replies billed?
- What are the registration fees, are they marked up, and who pays if a filing is rejected?
- Is there a platform fee, a minimum, or a rental, and at what volume does it stop mattering?
- What does it cost to have you run the send rather than my team?
- Do unused credits expire?
- Who do I reach at 7pm the night before an election, and will they know my program?
FullPAC’s full rate card is on the pricing page, including where volume discounts start. If you want someone to work through your actual program and what it would cost, fifteen minutes will do it, and you can bring a current vendor invoice to compare against.