I did an analysis of my family text messaging usage over the past six months to see if the release of iMessenger between our iPhones made any difference.  If you’re not familiar with iMessenger, it’s an update to the texting app on the iPhone that recognizes when you are messaging another iMessenger user and sends the message as data rather than as a carrier text message.  I think the graph below pretty much speaks for itself.

While this is automatic with iMessenger, I’m sure you could get similar results if you used data based messaging apps such as WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger rather than SMS when possible.  It also explains to me why AT&T eliminated the middle tier text messaging payment plan.  It’s now $20 for unlimited or pay as you go.  Since we have three people on our plan it’s still cheaper for the unlimited, but if it was just me I’d be giving it second thoughts.