What an SMS costs in credits
What this covers
Why one text costs more than another, and how to work out what your own guest mix costs you.
Requires the manage-billing permission to see your balance and history.
The cost depends on the destination
A text is not one flat price worldwide. Mobile networks charge different amounts to deliver a message depending on which country the receiving number belongs to, and those differences are large — several times over between the cheapest and the most expensive.
Tabledoo passes that structure through rather than averaging it into one high price. Countries are grouped into a handful of tiers, and each tier costs a set number of credits per message. In practice a message costs between 1 and 3 credits.
What decides it is the guest's number, not your location
This is the part people get backwards. The cost is set by the country code of the mobile number you are texting. Where your restaurant is makes no difference.
So a restaurant in a "cheap" country texting mostly foreign visitors pays the higher rates, and a restaurant in an expensive country texting local regulars pays the lower ones.
How the tiers are shaped
The grouping is maintained centrally and follows carrier pricing. Broadly:
| Tier | Typical cost |
|---|---|
| Lower-cost European destinations | 1 credit |
| Standard and premium European destinations | 2 credits |
| Rest of the world | 3 credits |
Treat those as the current shape rather than a price list. The groups and their costs change when carrier pricing changes, which is the point of grouping them — it means a carrier increase does not have to become a price change for you.
Two consequences worth planning around:
- A number from a country not in any group is charged at the highest rate. This is deliberately cautious — better to overcharge a credit than to send at a loss — and it is another reason to budget at the top of the range if your guests are international.
- The exact per-country figures are not listed in the app. If you need them — because you are budgeting seriously, or a particular market matters to you — ask support for the current grouping (link Reporting a problem).
Working out your own average
You do not have to guess, and after a month you should not. Your credit history records every message and the credits it spent, so your real average is arithmetic on your own data:
- Open Property Settings → SMS Credits and look at the Recent Activity list.
- Add up the credits spent across the Sent entries.
- Divide by the number of those entries.
That figure is your true cost per message. Use it for every estimate from then on — it beats any table, because it already reflects exactly who your guests are.
What this means for different restaurants
| Your guests | Expect | Advice |
|---|---|---|
| Almost all local | The lowest rate, consistently | Budget at 1–2 credits per message. An allowance goes a long way |
| Mixed local and European | Mostly 1–2 credits | Budget at 2. Your average will drift with the seasons |
| Tourist-heavy, many countries | Frequently 3 credits | Budget at 3 and expect your balance to move roughly three times faster than a local venue's |
| Hotel restaurant or resort | Almost entirely the highest rate | Consider whether email confirmations plus SMS reminders only is the better mix |
A tourist-heavy restaurant sending the same number of messages as a local one spends about three times the credits. That is not a penalty — it is the actual cost of reaching those handsets — but it does mean a plan allowance sized for a neighbourhood bistro will not stretch as far in a resort.
Getting more out of fewer credits
- Pick the message types that earn their keep. Reminders reduce no-shows; waitlist texts recover tables. Confirmations are pleasant but the email already covers it.
- Keep email on for everything. Email is free and unlimited, so there is no reason to economise there (link Turning messages on and off).
- Record opt-outs properly. Every text to someone who did not want one is a credit spent on annoying a guest (link Guests who opt out).
- Do not press Notify twice on a waitlist entry — each press is another charge.
Good to know
Credits are taken when the message is sent, and returned automatically if the provider rejects it. Both movements appear in your history, so a failure never silently costs you (link Your credit history).
Length is not a factor. Every Tabledoo text is written to fit a single message, so there is no way for a longer message to cost you extra (link SMS: what's different).
A landline number costs nothing, because it fails. The credits are taken and returned. It still means the guest was never told, so a number saved in the wrong field is worth fixing.