We've been asked by a customer whether it is possible to send a free text message to a subscriber. They would like to know if there is a way to not charge the recipient for an inbound text message?
We work with a couple text messaging services and I don't see that as an option. My assumption is that you would need to partner with each carrier and send the message from their system in order to accomplish this.
Are there any 3rd party service providers that have this capability?
Not this is country and carrier specific.
In Europe the receiver of a cell phone call or SMS is never charged.
In the US I am charged for receiving on my PAYG plan but not on my monthly plan, the sender has no way of knowing what plan I am on.
In the United States the recipient is responsible for delivery charges, while the sender is responsible for sending charges. In Europe the sender is responsible for both.
Using online mechanisms the sender is generally not paying anything. However with Verizon I believe in the U.S. you will be charged for sending to someone's inbox no matter how you send it.
So unfortunately to answer your question: If you are in the U.S. there is no way unless you call up the carrier directly and offer to assume the delivery charge if the recipient does not have unlimited text messaging as far as I am aware.
Apparently this is possible. You need a provider that supports Free to End User (FTEU) messages, such as mBlox. There are a few of them out there, but some do not support all carriers yet (I'm not sure if mBlox does or not, we're waiting to hear from them).
http://www.mblox.com/products/mobile-messaging/free-to-end-user/
Another provider and interesting project we are looking into is http://privatelabelsms.com/ they appear to have the ability to send FTEU messages as well, in addition to other standard text messaging services.