Details
Running out of SMS credits during a campaign can be a real pain. This is especially true for automations or scheduled sends that may be running outside of work hours. A scheduled send will be paused until more credits are purchased and the send is resumed. An automation send that runs out of credits will fail.
With the smart top-up feature enabled you will be able to send your SMS campaigns and automations with the confidence that they will be delivered without interruption.
If you run out of SMS credits the system will automatically purchase credits to finish the send. The system will either purchase enough credits to complete the send or purchase the number you have specified when setting up the feature.
For the below two examples, we've set up the top-up feature to buy 50 credits.
- Scenario A: The account currently has 2,000 SMS credits. An SMS send is scheduled that will go to 2,031 contacts.
- Scenario B: The account currently has 2,000 SMS credits. An SMS send is scheduled that will go to 4,000 contacts.
In Scenario A, the system will purchase 50 credits as this is what was specified from the top-up menu. In Scenario B, the system will purchase 2,000 credits to allow the send to complete.
If the top-up is triggered due to an automation, the credits that are purchased for the automation to continue are held in reserve for the automation to use for one hour. This ensures that your automation has enough credits to continue to run and will not be interrupted by other SMS campaigns.
Although the system will select the correct amount of credits to complete a send, it may still be beneficial to set this top-up amount to a higher value. The reason for this is that the cost of SMS credits becomes cheaper when purchased in bulk. For instance, if you were to set the top-up amount to 100, irrespective of the number of times this top-up is used, the cost per credit would be $0.20. However, if you were to set the top-up to 11,000 credits, the cost per credit would be $0.16.
Please note that the SMS top-up will use the credit card that is associated with your account to purchase credits.
You can review the cost of SMS credits on the SMS pricing page.
Enabling Auto Top-up
- Open the Account area (⚙️ icon, at top right).
- Select SMS Credits from the sidebar.
- Enable the Smart Top-Up toggle.
Only the owner or a full access user may enable this feature.