[Someone1234]

They didn't talk at all about costs which is odd for such a feature.

[cjk2]

I think it's free (for now) like the emergency SOS. Well not free, you pay for it when you buy the phone.

[notatoad]

the emergency SOS was only promised to be free for two years, which is coming to an end soon for iPhone 14.

i suspect adding iMessage to the service is an effort to make it valuable enough to start charging for it.