Why a Telegram number costs $0.10 in Indonesia and $0.50 in the UK
A look behind the curtain at how temporary-number pricing is built — upstream costs, country differences, and the markup we add on top.
Open the same service on jiema.my across countries and the prices vary by a factor of five or more. Indonesia is cheaper than Germany, Telegram is cheaper than WhatsApp, OpenAI is cheaper today than it was last week. The pricing isn't arbitrary; it reflects a stack of real costs and supply constraints. Here's the breakdown.
The four layers of the price you see
From the bottom up: SIM cost → operator's SMS termination fee → upstream aggregator margin → our markup. The number you see on the country card is the sum.
- SIM cost. Someone has to acquire and renew physical SIMs in each country. In low-CPI countries (Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines) prepaid SIMs sell for a dollar or two and stay active without recharge for months. In high-CPI countries (Germany, Norway, UAE) the cheapest SIM is in the $10–$30 range and may need monthly activity to stay live.
- Operator termination fee. When a platform sends a verification SMS, it pays its own SMS gateway, who pays a fee to the destination operator to deliver the message. This is the "interconnect" cost. UK, US, and EU operators charge dramatically more than SEA or LatAm operators — sometimes 20–30× more. That cost is borne by the platform sending the SMS, but it determines whether the platform will send to a given country at all. Countries with very high termination fees often get throttled.
- Aggregator margin. The upstream service that maintains the actual SIM pool charges a margin on top of their costs. Their margin is bigger when supply is tight (newly popular services, blocked-country rebalancing) and smaller when supply is overflowing.
- Our markup. This is configurable — currently 20% by default — and is what funds the retail experience: the website, support, refunds for failed orders, server costs, and so on.
Why the same service costs different amounts across countries
Consider Telegram. It's a single service globally, but on our catalog the price ranges roughly $0.05–$0.40 across countries. The variance comes from upstream supply: countries with abundant clean SIM pools and high anti-abuse tolerance (Indonesia is the perennial example) yield cheap, reliable numbers. Countries where Telegram aggressively filters or where SIMs are expensive (Germany, UK, US) get more expensive numbers and lower stock.
Why the same country costs different amounts across services
Compare WhatsApp Indonesia vs Telegram Indonesia: WhatsApp is typically 2–3× more. The reason is risk-of-rejection: WhatsApp's anti-spam will silently drop SMS to flagged ranges, which means the upstream sees a higher failure rate and prices in the expected wastage. Telegram's anti-spam is lighter, so the same physical SIM yields more billable activations and lower unit price.
Why prices move week-to-week
Three forces:
- Platform anti-abuse cycles. When OpenAI tightens, OpenAI-on-Indonesia stock thins out and price rises. When the tightening ends and operators recover, the price drops back.
- Currency moves. Many upstream contracts are denominated in local currency. A 10% depreciation of the Indonesian rupiah against USD makes Indonesia numbers cheaper in USD terms.
- Seasonal demand. AI product launches, gaming releases, crypto airdrops all create demand spikes that briefly raise prices for the affected services.
What about the "discount" line on country cards
The struck-through "before" price you sometimes see is calculated from a configurable markup baseline — currently 18% above the final price. It's a presentation choice; the amount you pay is the final price.
How to pay less without losing reliability
- For services where any country works (Telegram, Discord, most AI services), pick the cheapest country with healthy stock — it's almost always SEA or LatAm.
- Avoid US/UK numbers unless the service specifically requires them — they're typically the most expensive and the least reliable for cross-border use.
- Check the time of day. Anti-abuse sweeps tend to run during peak hours in the target country; off-peak orders complete more often, which keeps total spend lower because fewer cancellations.
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