While not always true internationally, at least in the US most jurisdictions won't charge for rescue as long unless you weren't careless and reckless. Even where state law allows for recovering rescue costs, it's a high bar before they'll actually send out a bill... they normally don't want to discourage people from calling from help until it's too late, if it's truly needed. (Keep in mind that rescue in the wilderness can easily take 12-48 hours.)

That said, laws allowing the state to recoup rescue costs are becoming more common as satellite messengers have become more prevalent, leading to more non-emergency nuisance calls.

See: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/06/us/rescue-hikers-cost.htm...

Cost of rescue really depends where you're at though. In a national park like Mt. Rainier you aren't actually charged even if they have to helicopter you off the top of the mountain--rescues are paid for by the cost of a climbing permit that everyone pays to go above 10k feet. In other places SAR teams operate like volunteer fire departments and get funding from the county. But yeah, in some places a helicopter rescue is going to cost you directly and it is not cheap--at Mt. Shasta the rangers were telling me it was about $14k per incident.

I have a Zoleo device and pay for the $40/yr coverage. You just register your device's IMEI with them.