Calling, SMS, & Phone Number Usage
Calling, SMS, & Phone Number Usage
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Your team's phone number rentals, calling, and SMS usage is deducted from your usage credit balance. Calling and SMS are enabled for all users on any plan, but you can restrict the use of communication for specific users via Roles & Permissions. To view and manage your team's usage credit balance, go to the Usage tab in your Billing settings.
Usage rates for Calling
Calls are charged per minute and phone numbers are charged monthly according to Twilio's "Pay-as-you-go" Voice pricing. Per Twilio's pricing, all phone calls are rounded up to the nearest minute and cent (a 70-second call is charged as a 2-minute call).
Be smart: Call rates may vary
Call rates vary by country and phone number type. The per-minute rate for a call may vary based on the number being called and the number being used to make the call.
EEA Countries
Check Twilio's In Depth pricing section when looking at the particular country's voice pricing for potentially cheaper rates when making calls within the European Economic Area (EEA). For example, there may be a significant difference in cost when making a call within Germany compared to calling from the US to Germany.
How forwarded calls are charged
When an incoming call is made to one of your Close phone numbers and gets forwarded, you will be charged for two separate calls according to the rates associated with those calls:
The incoming call that was made to a Close phone number.
The outgoing call that is being placed from Close to the phone number in your Call Forwarding settings.
How transferred calls are charged
When you transfer a call within Close, there are at least three separate calls being made:
The original call that was made (outbound/inbound).
The outbound call that is made by the person transferring the call to another user.
Once the call is answered by the other user, that counts as an incoming call.
In the event that a call is transferred more than once, these charges will repeat each time a call is transferred. Calls are charged according to the specific rates associated with those calls.
If you transfer a call to a number outside of Close, you will only be charged for two calls: The original call and the outgoing call being made to initiate the transfer.
How Caller ID calls are charged
When you use an external phone number set as a Caller ID in Close, you will be charged based on that number origin. For example, if you have a United States phone number set as a Caller ID and you are calling Australia, the international US to Australia calling rates will apply.
Usage rates for Phone Numbers
The price of a phone number depends on the country and type (local, toll-free, etc.). For a comprehensive list of phone number types and costs, click here.
The cost of Phone Number rentals comes from the organization's telephony budget. When a number is added or changed, the monthly cost for that number is charged immediately.
Rented numbers are renewed each month on the calendar day before the rental, so a number rented on January 2nd would be renewed on February 1st. If the billing day doesn't exist in the current month, it is billed on the last day of the month.
If a user or phone number is removed from the organization, the phone number will not be renewed, and cannot be retrieved (there is a short grace period when a number can be repurchased, if you have removed your number by mistake reach out to us at support@close.com as soon as possible, we may be able to help you retrieve it).
Usage rates for SMS and MMS
Close supports sending and receiving SMS messages with SMS-enabled phone numbers in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Belgium, Denmark, France, Israel, Puerto Rico, and South Africa. SMS usage is charged according to Twilio's current SMS pricing, rounded up to the nearest cent.
SMS messages cannot be sent between phone numbers from different countries (except for the US, Canada, and Puerto Rico). To determine if your Close phone number is SMS-enabled, please contact Support.
A note about SMS "units"
SMS rates are charged per SMS "unit," not per message. An SMS sent via Close can consist of one or more units. If you're only using characters in the English alphabet, each unit is 140 characters. Otherwise, if you're using foreign characters or emojis, a unit can contain as little as 33 characters.
Close currently supports sending and receiving MMS in the US and Canada. Our current rates based on Twilio's pricing are below:
Country | Per Outgoing MMS | Per Incoming MMS |
|---|---|---|
United States | $0.03 | $0.01 |
Canada | $0.03 | $0.01 |
A2P 10DLC registration fees
A2P 10DLC is a messaging standard introduced by major US carriers that requires all companies sending A2P(Application to person) SMS traffic to be registered. This is the case regardless of whether you are sending a bulk sales campaign or you just use SMS for occasional transactional messages. This only applies to companies messaging in the US and US territories using 10-digit long code phone numbers (like your Close phone numbers).
It allows businesses to send Application-to-Person (A2P) type messages. Carriers in the US consider all Close traffic to be A2P.
Campaign registration carries the following one-time fees (a brand and a campaign is registered together):
$4 for Low-Volume Standard Brands (organizations sending less than 6000 messages a day
$44 for Standard Brands (organizations sending more than 6000 messages a day).
$4 - Sole Proprietor Brands without EIN
$15 - One time Campaign verification fee for all of the 3 above.
A Campaign registration has a $1.50 ($2 for Sole Proprietor Brands without EIN, $10 for organizations that send more than 6000 message segments per month) recurring monthly fee after being approved.
What to expect on invoices
Your usage invoices will be separate from your plan subscription. On usage invoices, you can expect to see a break-down for the period leading up to a new usage credit re-charge.
This break-down will include the amount of usage credits allotted towards SMS, calls, and phone number rentals.
