Premium SMS is an easy method for invoicing via the cell phone. The customer initiates the purchase by sending an SMS. The customer will be charged for the premium SMS on his ordinary phone subscription invoice. SMS payments up to 200 SEK is possible per SMS. The service is very intuitive with no need for cash or bank cards, simply pay by sending an SMS from the cell phone.

How SMS payment works:

• The customer sends a short code, for example, “code” by simply typing the word “code” in an SMS and sends it to 7216. A SMS-reply is promptly received. The SMS-reply can contain numerous things, such as an URL address to the purchased content or a text acting as a receipt of the payment.
• This SMS-reply is charged up to 200 SEK.
• The customer will find the fee for this SMS-reply on the next phone subscription invoice.

What is premium SMS?

A premium SMS is a ordinary SMS sent to the cell phone with the sole difference that this SMS is charged for via the cell phone subscription. The customer must opt-in by first send an SMS in order to make it legal to send a premium SMS. This is to prevent abuse. Swedish practice is to have the second digit in the five digit short code determine whether it is a premium SMS or not. The digit “2” (72xxx) as the second digit indicates it is a premium SMS. The digit “1” as second digit (71xxx) indicates it is free of charge, i.e. non-premium.

Applications

Premium SMS is highly suited for various types of advertising campaigns. Setting up SMS competitions where the participants gets the chance to win prices results in potential customers engaging in your brand. For instance, to increase the status level associated with your brand, the price of winning the completion can reflect this. A well planned and executed advertising campaign using this channel has great potential.