topic Re: First EE Mobile bill charges in Contracts & Billing

First EE Mobile bill charges

eliminator_pest — Sun, 17 May 2026 09:42:10 GMT

My first bill coming from O2 and amazed to see I am charged for picture message and using "emoticons" as these are classed by EE as pictures ??? Is that normal ? Should i keep strictly to pure text and never use emoticons again......new to me....and at @ £1 per message could add up nastily....my bill says this ~

"Picture messages may not be included in your plan. Sometimes, texts to large numbers of people or texts that use emoticons are automatically converted into picture messages"

Re: First EE Mobile bill charges

Northerner — Sun, 17 May 2026 10:53:51 GMT

His @eliminator_pest

Yes emojis are classed as picture messages and chargeable on EE. Either use data messaging services or buy a picture messages add-on.

Thanks

Re: First EE Mobile bill charges

Ali_A — Sun, 17 May 2026 10:59:13 GMT

Hi @eliminator_pest

Welcome to the EE Community Forums!

Many smartphones today allow you to bring your messages to life with pictures, animations and many more features. When you send messages containing such features to other phones, they might be sent as photo messages.

When a photo message is sent instead of a text message, it's because of the device you’re using, the device you’re sending a message to or the messaging platform you’re using.

EE has no control over this but here's some more information to help you avoid further charges.

Great news is that there is no charge for adding those standard yellow emoticons in your text messages on modern phones. That's because your phone actually converts it into a code, which the receiving phones reads and turn it back into an emoticon.

As your bill says, the most common way to incur charges is if you add an emoji/gif (the bigger pictures, or animated ones) to your message, or if you send a group message- your device will usually notify you the message is being converted into an MMS (picture message).

You can find out more at Text Messages Converting to Photo Messages | Help | EE, where you can also find details about adding Photo Messaging option to your line.

If you have an Apple or Android phone, you may want to activate RCS/chat messaging. If the recipient also has this activated, you can usually include images into your messages without incurring extra charges between compatible devices.

Ali

Re: First EE Mobile bill charges

eliminator_pest — Sun, 17 May 2026 12:16:29 GMT

Thank you

I'm new to my android phone

I'll try and find way to turn off anything apart from text

Or remember pure text only, which is a little saddening but I can't afford EE so needs must at @£1 per pic !

Re: First EE Mobile bill charges

Ali_A — Sun, 17 May 2026 12:24:12 GMT

@eliminator_pest

You can cover yourself with an add-on so you can enjoy sending them with an add-on.
Buy 200 photo messages for £6 a month (only 3p per photo message).
To buy an add-on TEXT 200MMS to 150 (pay monthly only).

Further information about photo messaging and buying a photo message add-on is available on our photo messaging help page. Pay monthly customers can also log in to EE and buy a photo message add-on.

Alternatively, you can restrict any additional out of bundle charges by adding a Spend Cap.
You can activate and manage your spend cap by texting text SPEND CAP to 150

All details and other ways to manage can be found on out EE Support page at How do I set up and manage Spend Cap

Ali

Re: First EE Mobile bill charges

eliminator_pest — Sun, 17 May 2026 13:04:29 GMT

Thank you

Sadly in these modern times of enhanced devices / pictures etc I have turned everything off I can to stop all visuals except plain text and set spend cap to zero .

When on O2 with my iPhone I never had a worry about the odd smiley face and didn't give it a second thought.....now I am telling everyone not to text me !!!!

Ever regretted swapping networks …...

Re: First EE Mobile bill charges

Ali_A — Sun, 17 May 2026 13:28:42 GMT

@eliminator_pest

Apple devices usually have iMessage switched on by default, so you'll still be able to send images in messages to other Apple devices as well as Android devices that have RSC/Chat messaging activated, without it being charged as a Picture Message.

Once you switch off Multi Media messaging in the iPhone settings (settings > messages > mms), you'll not need to worry about accidentally sending picture messages.

However, sending a😊wouldn't usually cause your message to be billed as a Picture Message.
Have you checked the message that you sent at the time/date shown on your bill to see what it contained?

Just one thing- does the itemised detail show the mobile number the message was sent to, or does it have a 12-digit number you don't recognise?
If it's a number that begins 0100 it means the message was sent to an email address rather than the mobile phone number, which will explain why your iPhone converted it to a Picture Message.

Ali

Re: First EE Mobile bill charges

XRaySpeX — Sun, 17 May 2026 14:51:43 GMT

O2 also charges for Picture Msgs (MMS) which would include emojis.

Re: First EE Mobile bill charges

eliminator_pest — Sun, 17 May 2026 15:42:46 GMT

Thanks but in 16 years with o2 i never had a picture message charge. So far 2 weeks with EE and im £1.96 in

Re: First EE Mobile bill charges

eliminator_pest — Sun, 17 May 2026 15:44:47 GMT

Thank you, solid advice I'll go check that. Will be interesting to see what generated a picture charge. I haven't sent photo's, pictures so would be an eye opener just what is classed as picture....

Re: First EE Mobile bill charges

bristolian — Sun, 17 May 2026 17:26:27 GMT

Android phones can be configured to use the Unicode text set, meaning that all modern emoji are sent over SMS and thus included in text message allowances.

This won't apply to animated-GIF, but an Android phone should always give an on-screen warning of "converting to MMS" whenever you're inserting content not supported by SMS.