Your team's Calling & SMS usage is deducted from your Usage credit balance. Calling and SMS is 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 page in your Billing settings.
As a Close customer, we reload free Usage credit into your account every month. This free credit resets every month and does not roll over.
Once your free credit is used, we'll start to deduct from your Usage credit balance. You can adjust your monthly limit and auto-recharge settings on the Usage page in Billing.
Here are the free Usage credit amounts by Plan:
Starter
$3/month
Basic
$10/month
Professional
$10/month
Business
$10/month
Calls are charged per minute and phone numbers are charged monthly according to Twilio’s Voice pricing. Per Twilio's pricing, all phone calls are rounded up to the nearest minute (a 70-second call is charged as a 2-minute call).
For reference, here are some example phone number and per minute rates based on Twilio's current pricing:
US / CA (+1)
$1 / month
$0.013 / min
$0.0085 / min
GB - Local
$1 / month
$0.015 / min
$0.01 / min
GB - Mobile
$1 / month
$0.029 / min
$0.01 / min
DE - Local (+49)
$5 / month
$0.015 / min
$0.01 / min
DE - Mobile
$5 / month
$0.055 / min
$0.01 / min
AU - Local (+61)
$2.50 / month
$0.024 / min
$0.01 / min
AU - Mobile
$6 / month
$0.075 / min
$0.01 / min
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. For specific advice on making or receiving calls in specific countries, contact our Support team.
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.
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's 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.
Close supports sending and receiving SMS messages with SMS-enabled phone numbers in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia. 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 and Canada). To determine if your Close phone number is SMS-enabled, please contact Support.
For reference, here are our current SMS rates based on Twilio's current pricing:
United States
$0.01
$0.01
Canada
$0.02
$0.01
United Kingdom
$0.04
$0.01
Australia
$0.06
$0.01
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 emoji, a unit can contain as little as 33 characters.
To see your current usage balance, go to "Settings" within Close, scroll down to "Billing", and then choose "Usage".
The top section will show you the amount of usage in your billing month.
The middle section will show the remaining balance in your account. This lets you know when you can expect a new charge to occur, based on the settings you've chosen in your Monthly Spending Limit.
By default, we set your team's Monthly Spending Limit budget to $100 per month. To adjust or increase your budget, go to the "Usage" page in your Billing settings:
Setting a Monthly Spending Limit for your team.
Make sure that your team can continue to make calls and send SMS without interruption by adjusting your Auto-Recharge settings. Once your Usage credit balance drops below a certain amount, we'll automatically top off your balance according to your Auto-Recharge Settings:
Adjust your Auto-Recharge Settings to automatically top off your Usage credit balance.
If you find yourself running out of usage credits before the reset term, make sure to increase the Monthly Spending Limit. The Auto-Recharge field does not control your monthly spending limit - it only controls in what increments you'll be billed.
For instance, if I see that my team is getting low on usage credits for the month and I have the budget set to $100, I need to increase my Monthly Spending Limit above $100 to give them more usage credit. Let's say I set it to $200.
Once I do so, the Auto-Recharge field kicks in to determine how I'll be charged for that $200. If I have my Auto-Recharge field set to $50, I'll be charged two increments of $50 to hit the $200 Monthly Spending Limit.
For the recharge amount, we recommend setting this to 20-25% of your max Monthly Spending to avoid a lot of small incremental charges on your credit card (that could potentially flag your bank's alert team).