I'll in the process of starting a txt based sercvice and am amazed at the difference in price to access providers sms gateways.
Companies vary from $1500 to $3000 to get short codes for a year from the 2 providers and also vary from $50-$350 a monthly as a hosting fee.
I would be interested to find out what SMS gateways people are using and what are the costs.
I understand that clickatell is always recommended here but I have heard it can take up to 24 hrs to deliver the message when busy.