Sending international text messages (SMS) can incur huge costs if you aren’t careful. If you want to send an international text message without seeing your bills increase astronomically, there are ways you can stay in touch with friends and family in other countries without emptying your bank account.

Send Text Messages Internationally From Your iPhone

If you have an iPhone you can send an international text message using a variety of apps. Some assign special text-only phone numbers to each of your contacts; others are more of a chat service that can eat up your data plan. If the person you are contacting also has an iPhone, you can use the iMessage function to send free texts between phones no matter where you are (just be aware that it will use uses your data plan if you aren’t on Wi-Fi).

Sending International Texts Using Other Mobile Devices

Wi-Fi options also exist for people with Windows or Android phones, and like with iOS there are some great options out there. The new Facebook Messenger app has a chat functionality that serves as a form of text messaging, and WhatsApp is used widely due to its efficiency, speed and simplicity in firing over messages, pictures and sound-bites.  What needs to be considered with such services is two-fold. Firstly, how great an affect is this having on your data-plan?  Some limited data packages can be eaten up quickly here. And secondly, such services are wholly dependent on a data connection (i.e. Wi-Fi or 3G) so this means that the people you are looking to contact also need to be connected ‘online’ in order to receive your messages. 

Because of this there remains a strong need to send an ‘old-school’ text message (SMS), straight to the phone number of the recipient.  This can cost money using your normal sim-card, so what other options exist?

Rebtel is one provider here, with possibilities to send international texts across multiple devices. Rates are extremely low and there is a special functionality where Rebtel creates local numbers for your chosen contacts, so you can send an SMS all over the world quickly, easily and cheaply.

Your recipients would then receive the message as though it is coming directly from your phone number and the great thing here is that they also receive a link to an online page where they can reply to you using the same service.  This means that there are no huge international costs to them when replying and they don’t even have to register with Rebtel themselves to use the link.

Send an International Text Message Online

If you spend a lot of time in front of your computer and prefer to send text messages online instead of from your phone, online SMS is a great deal. Services like SendSMSNow allow you to arrange your contacts and send individual SMS free - although extra features (such as group texting) require a paid upgrade.