MMS picture messaging

MMS lets you attach an image or short video to a message. It costs 2 credits instead of 1, and it is the right choice when the picture is the message.

When MMS earns the extra credit

• A menu, a flyer or an event poster people would otherwise have to open a link to see
• A product photo, especially for a back-in-stock alert where the item is the point
• A map or a diagram: a parking layout, a detour, a seating plan
• Anything where a link would lose people, because a proportion of recipients will not tap one

When it does not

If the image is decorative, it is not worth double the cost and it makes the message slower to load on an older handset. A plain SMS that says the thing clearly beats a picture of the thing said unclearly.

What counts as one message

SMS is billed by segment: plain text up to 160 characters is one credit, and longer messages are split into segments that each draw a credit. Special characters such as curly quotes, em dashes and emoji can push a message into a different encoding and shorten the segment, which is the usual reason a message costs more than expected.

MMS is a flat 2 credits regardless of length, so a long message with an image is often cheaper than the same message sent as several SMS segments.

See pricing for the current credit rates, and message delivery for what happens when a carrier will not carry an attachment.