How Marsello Bills Customers for SMS
Before you can begin sending SMS campaigns and automation to your customers, you will need to select an SMS billing plan.
📝 Note: SMS is an add-on feature to the Marsello Pro plan and is billed separately from Marsello Pro.
In this article:
Understanding how SMS billing works
- SMS campaigns are not included with the Marsello Pro plan pricing. SMS campaigns are an add-on feature and fall under a different pricing model. This allows you to choose an SMS plan that suits your SMS-sending needs. SMS pricing contains a variety of tiered monthly subscription plans with different amounts of SMS credit allocations to choose from.
- SMS Credits are the 'cost' of sending an SMS Campaign. Each time that you send an SMS Campaign, it will use a certain number of credits which are based on the location of each individual customer. Certain locations cost more credits than others.
- You will reach your plan's limit when you have either hit the maximum number of profiles or sent the maximum number of SMS messages, whichever comes first.
📝Note that failed deliveries do count towards your SMS billing plan's limits.
Cost of credit per message sent
The number credits an SMS costs depends on where the country the message is being sent from. The table below breaks down the number of credits per location.
💡Tip: A complete listing of credit cost per SMS message sent by location is available in your Marsello app admin
Important: Be mindful that special characters and emoji shorten the message count. For instance, adding an emoji reduces the character count for an SMS from 160 to 70.
Choose Your SMS Billing Plan
1. In the upper right-hand corner of your Marsello app admin, select the drop-down menu to the right of your business name and select billing.
2. Select the SMS billing tab.
Here you will see all available SMS plans. Select choose plan to begin using the plan that will work best for you.
📝 Note: that the prices listed in the plans section are listed in USD and do not include sales tax.
When choosing an SMS plan, you should consider two things:
- Customers who can receive SMS marketing
SMS marketing laws and regulations require you to have the customer's permission in order to send them SMS campaigns. The customer must also have a valid mobile number (that includes their country code) in their Marsello customer profile.
- SMS Campaigns Frequency
SMS Campaigns best practice recommends sending 2 - 4 SMS campaigns per month.
You can send more or less, however, it is important that you set clear expectations with your customers on how many campaigns they will receive from your store.
4. Confirm your SMS plan
Your credit card will then be charged according to your selected SMS plan and you'll receive the associated SMS credit allocation.
Important things to note:
- SMS is a monthly subscription: every month, on the date that you subscribed to your SMS plan, your credit card will be charged and the SMS credits will be added to your account.
- Rollover credits: don't worry if you don't use all your credits in a month, these credits will roll over into the next month. SMS Credits only roll over one month at a time, these credits won't roll over into the 2nd month!
🤓 Example: If you receive your SMS credits on the 15th of January, they'll expire on the 15th of March. - SMS credits are non-refundable
Updating your SMS plan
You can upgrade or downgrade your plan based on your SMS Campaign sending habits.- Upgrade: If you need more SMS credits to meet your sending needs, you can upgrade to the next plan. This will automatically charge you the difference between the two SMS pricing plans and give you the difference between the pricing plan credits.
🤓 Example: If you are on a $50 plan with 1,500 credits, then you upgrade to the $100 plan with 3,100 credits. You will be charged the difference, $50, and then receive 1,600 additional credits. Then, on your next billing cycle, you'll be charged $100 and given 3,100 credits.
- Downgrade: If you want to downgrade your SMS plan, you can downgrade it at any time. There is no charge associated and you'll keep your current SMS credit balance until your credits expire.
🤓 Example: If you are on a $100 plan and you downgrade to the $50 plan, you will not be charged and will keep your current SMS credit balance. Then, on your next billing cycle, you'll be charged $50 and receive 1,500 credits.
- Cancel: If you no longer want to subscribe to an SMS plan, you can pause your SMS account by downgrading to the $0 plan with 0 credits. There is no charge associated and you'll keep your current SMS credit balance until your credits expire. You will no longer be charged.
SMS Payment Details
You can only have one credit card per Marsello account. If you pay for SMS using a different credit card than for email, it will change the default credit card for your account. The account owner will be notified via email if a payment fails.
📝 Note: Visa and Mastercard only.
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