How texting is billed
Every seat includes 250 pooled text segments a month. What a segment is, what counts, and what happens past the pool.
Texting works the same way calling minutes do: every seat contributes to one shared pool, and you only pay for what you send past it.
The pool
Each seat includes 250 outbound text segments per month, pooled across your whole organization. A 4-seat account gets a 1,000-segment pool, and it does not matter which seat sends them — a quiet seat covers a busy one.
The pool resets on the first of each month and does not roll over. Segments you did not use this month do not carry into next month.
What a segment is
A segment is one carrier-sized chunk of a message, not one conversation and not one "text" as you might count it.
- A plain-text message up to 160 characters is 1 segment.
- Longer messages are split by the carrier, so a 200-character text is 2 segments and a 400-character text is 3.
- Using emoji or accented characters lowers the limit to 70 characters per segment, so a short message with an emoji in it can still be 2 segments.
- A picture message (MMS) counts as the segments the carrier bills it as, which is more than one.
If you want your pool to go further, keep messages short and skip emoji in high-volume automated sends.
What counts and what does not
Counts toward your pool: every outbound segment your organization sends, whatever sent it. That includes texts an agent types in the inbox, appointment reminders and other automated sends from a call flow, and messages sent by the AI receptionist. Automated sends carry no extension, so in the per-person breakdown on your usage report they are grouped as "Unassigned" rather than attributed to somebody.
A text the carrier refuses is not counted. Only messages we actually handed off to the carrier draw on your pool.
Does not count: inbound texts are free and unlimited. Nothing a customer sends you is counted or charged, ever.
Past the pool
Outbound segments beyond your pool bill at 2¢ per segment, in arrears, plus applicable taxes. They appear as one line on your next invoice, the same way minutes past your calling pool do, reading something like "Texts past your pool — 230 segments × $0.02 — June 2026".
If you stay inside your pool there is no texting line on your invoice at all. You will not see a $0.00 line confirming it, because a line worth nothing is never added. The absence is the confirmation. Your Billing page is where to check the number: it shows a live meter with segments used, the size of your pool and how it is made up, and anything you have run up past it this month.
Making the pool bigger
Two ways:
- Add a seat. Each one adds 250 segments to the pool.
- Add a text bundle. If a text bundle is available on your account, you can turn it on yourself from the Billing page under "Add-ons you can enable". It adds a fixed block of segments to your pool every month for a flat price, and you can remove it again at any time.
Registration fees are separate
Carriers require your business to be registered before your texts get delivered, and they charge their own one-time and monthly fees for that. Those are not part of your text pool — see Text registration fees for what they cost and why.