UK SMS options for my Web Application

Question

I am looking to integrate SMS into my web application. My customers will be businesses, who will use the web application to keep their customers updated.

I have looked at several providers in the UK, and a typical price per message is 5p. Given the number of SMS messages I expect one of my customers to send to their customers in a single day, this price is impractical. I can't pay the bill, my customers won't pay the bill, but perhaps my customers customers will.

Given this problem, what are my options? I was thinking I could send out SMS messages, and the receiver would pay? does such a mechanism exist?

Twitter must send out millions of SMS messages a day, how do they pay for it?

Answer 1

Look at Tropo: they offer UK numbers and have a reasonable API that you can integrate into your website.

Twitter just pays money, and lots of it: I'm sure at their volume they get decent discounts, but it is still a ton of money.