{"id":3031,"date":"2026-09-21T13:09:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T07:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.smsgatewaycenter.com\/blog\/?p=3031"},"modified":"2026-09-21T13:11:37","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T07:41:37","slug":"reconciling-messaging-invoice-four-channels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.smsgatewaycenter.com\/blog\/reconciling-messaging-invoice-four-channels\/","title":{"rendered":"Reconciling a Messaging Invoice Across Four Channels: Credits, Currency and the Rate Plan API"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Your wallet moves in credits, your delivery reports report currency, and no endpoint converts one into the other for you. Here is the complete cost contract for SMS, RCS, Telegram and WhatsApp, and a reconciliation job that balances to the rupee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Four<\/a>
Four channels, four cost representations, one invoice. The conversion between them is yours to build.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Table of Contents<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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  1. The Short Answer<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. TL;DR<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. The Four Cost Representations at a Glance<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Why the Wallet and the Report Disagree<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. The Rate Plan API, the Only Bridge You Get<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  6. SMS: the Line Total Is a Multiplication You Perform<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  7. RCS: Four Decimals, Two of Which Carry Information<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  8. Telegram: Two Decimals and No Published Rate Card<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  9. WhatsApp: Aggregate Outbound, Per Message Inbound<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  10. Billing Fires at Submission, Not at Delivery<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  11. The Account Endpoints and What They Leave Out<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  12. Envelope and Type Differences Across the Billing Surfaces<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  13. The Invoice Lines That No Endpoint Returns<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  14. A Reconciliation Schema That Survives All Four Channels<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  15. The Reconciliation Algorithm, Step by Step<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  16. Four Language Samples, Four Different Traps<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  17. Decimal Handling and Rounding Strategy<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  18. Ten Mistakes That Produce a Wrong Total<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  19. Which Source to Trust When Two Disagree<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  20. Production Checklist<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  21. Unspecified Behaviour and How to Code Around It<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  22. FAQs<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    The Short Answer<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Four channels report cost four different ways, and only three of them will cost a single message for you. SMS returns amount<\/code> as an unquoted float that is the price of one part<\/strong>, alongside cost<\/code> as an unquoted integer that is the part count<\/strong>, so the line total is a multiplication you perform yourself. RCS returns amount<\/code> as a quoted string with four decimals, already whole. Telegram returns charges<\/code> as a quoted string with two decimals, already whole. WhatsApp returns no cost field at all on its per-message delivery row; outbound WhatsApp cost arrives only as an aggregate amount<\/code> from the analytics endpoint, grouped by billingModel<\/code>. The one place WhatsApp does cost a single message is the inbox, where each inbound row carries charges<\/code>. So on the only channel that bills you for receiving, receiving is the only direction you can price message by message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Underneath all of that sits a unit mismatch. Your wallet is denominated in credits<\/strong>, integers, visible through SMSApi\/account\/readcredithistory<\/code>. Your delivery reports are denominated in currency<\/strong>. The only endpoint that converts between them is SMSApi\/rateplan\/read<\/code>, it is read-only, and it publishes two<\/strong> rates for every route, rate<\/code> and dltRate<\/code>, so in India the conversion depends on whether the message carried a DLT template identifier. Build your reconciliation on the per-message rows, key every cost column to a decimal type parsed from the string form, treat submission rather than delivery as the billable event, and reconcile the credit ledger separately from the currency ledger rather than trying to make one explain the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\n\n\n

    TL;DR<\/h2>\n\n\n\n