Will I be charged to my Sprint bill if they texted me saying it costs $0.50 to send and $0.15 to receive a message but I'm using iMessage?

iMessages are not sent through the carrier. You won't be charged as long as it's an iMesssage.

Just remember that iMessage will ONLY work when you are sending/receiving message with someone with an iDevice running iOS 5.x and has activated iMessage. If you text someone with say an Android phone that will go as a text message and you will be billed $.50 (apparently you do not have a text plan), and $0.15 if they send you one.

Also if you have the "Send as SMS" option turned on then if the person you are sending to for some reason can't connect to the iMessage server it will be sent as a plain text.

I don't understand why everyone believes this, but on my sprint bill each text message including iMessages were on the bill. Luckily I'm on the unlimited text plan but let there be no mistake...iMessages count as texts. To be sure I called sprint last night and the lady confirmed on the phone that it counts and that I shouldnt worry cause I'm on the unlimited plan like I had known.

Everyone believes it because it is true. None of my iMessages even show up on my bill. None.

Must be an issue with your iPhone, iMessage uses either WiFi or cell data and would not be visible to Sprint's voice SMS system.

Maybe your carrier doesn't but Sprint does. No issues with my phone, it sends iMessages in blue and SMS in green. I realized this first when I checked my bill, there were too many texts listed and so I called them and was confirmed. Call Sprint yourself and ask.

iMessage uses DATA, not SMS/MMS services.

What can and does happen, is if for some reason the data has any issues, the messages will and can be sent as an iMessage AND SMS message, showing up on your bill.

I often get duplicate messages - sent (received on my end) as Text and iMessage.

Sprint, like all carrier reps, don't usually know much about what they're talking about.

Here's a test: turn off cellular data, connect to WiFi, and send some iMessages. Mark the date and time the messages were sent. Check your bill. There will not be any SMS charges showing on the bill, since iMessages were sent as data, not SMS/MMS.

That is absolutely correct, they have no clue what they're talking about. Both times they said the same thing. Thanks, I'll do that test