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by nixme 6265 days ago
How do you manage to provide such a low rate?

I also can't seem to find the TechCrunch mention that's claimed at the bottom of the front page. Can you provide a link?

2 comments

Penny SMS is the API from a site I built a few years ago, www.ohdontforget.com.

TC mentioned it here: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/27/mobaganda-a-dead-simple...

CrunchBase Profile for ODF: http://www.crunchbase.com/company/ohdontforget

My CrunchBase Profile: http://www.crunchbase.com/person/jason-stirman

I wanted to use the press mentions for ODF, since it's the exact same technology, which is why I mentioned "The PENNY SMS technology has been featured on"

Does it come off as bad form?

Bad form? Nah.

How do make money with such a low rate?

They are going to make up for it in volume?
That's the plan :)
So it seems you're using a bunch of GSM-modems with SIM-cards on "sms flatrate" contracts. Apart from the obvious scalability concerns I really wonder whether (or rather: for how long) the carriers will let you get away with that?
No, we went down the GSM modem path a while back with ohdontforget.com. Not scalable, affordable, or customizable :)
Then how do you realize the low rate?

It's so much lower than what even the high volume gateways can afford that you're obviously not working on regular contracts.

Abusing their E-Mail/Web interfaces?

Sorry for coming across negative but I'm very wary about the reliablity here.

SMS sending is most often used for some sort of user-validation and usually during a critical phase of the conversion process (signup, transaction checkout etc.). Reliability is crucial at that point, which is why most SMS gateways offer fairly strict SLAs.

Do you provide any kind of guarantee that my penny transaction will result in an actual delivery? I'm asking because random hit & miss or "sorry, the t-mobile web sender was acting funny the other day" doesn't bring my lost customers back.

All valid concerns, and I'll tell you that we take reliability very seriously. We have been in business, as ohdontforget.com, for over 4 years, and have learned a lot in that time.

We are not abusing e-mail or web interfaces. We spent months getting contracts set up so we could access the same data that major cell carriers use to route their text messages.

For one cent a message, give it a try, I think your concerns will be remedied :)