Voice, Sidekick, and SMS Usage Costs

Your monthly telephony invoice includes the cost to buy and maintain phone numbers and telephony usage fees.

Fees for phone numbers and usage depend on several factors. These may include:

• Type of phone number – Toll-free, local, mobile, or national

• Capabilities – SMS, Voice, or MMS

• Country – The country the phone number is based in

Telephony usage costs

A new local and toll-free US and CA number with Voice and/or SMS capabilities typically costs $0.30 / month. International rates vary.

Local and toll-free numbers for the US

Local and toll-free numbers for Canada

Contact Gladly Support your CSM, or your Gladly Account Executive for international rates.

SMS UCS-2 and GSM encoding costs (Segments)

SMS rates are calculated per segment. Segments calculate the number of messaging chunks measured in bytes. For example, GSM encoding allows for 160 characters per segment, which means 161 or more characters create two messaging segments. 480 or more characters are three Segments, etc. Each segment of 160 characters utilizes 7 bits to encode.

SMSes are subject to UCS-2 and GSM encoding based on the characters used in each message.

UCS-2 encoding allows for characters such as emojis but requires more data bits to encode (16 bits) and is limited to 70 characters. For example, a UCS-2 encoded message of 140 characters equals two segments. This would only be one segment with GSM encoding. Besides emojis, be careful with accented characters including accented characters such as ñ, à, and ö, but not including others such as á, í, or ú. Keeping text messages as plain as possible within the GSM basic character set can reduce the need for multiple segments.

Encoding 'gotchas'

• 1600 characters are the maximum limit for the entire SMS message. Message delivery may fail or an error may appear if this limit is reached.

• The kinds of characters used in an SMS determine the encoding used (GSM or USC-2). Try to be cognizant of the characters used before sending messages. You can also use this segment calculator to check or test how messages will be encoded and how many segments they may use.

• Hyperlinks, extra characters — as well as emojis — are counted as characters and directly influence segments.

See Segments for an in-depth explanation, along with how characters are encoded.

Voice input phrases

Certain nodes, like the Menu node, allow callers to say their option (e.g., "1, won, one") using the Voice Input Phrase field along with pressing their selection via DTMF (i.e., press 1). Voice entry utilizes voice recognition technology, which is charged separately on top of other voice charges you may incur.

Sidekick Voice usage costs

When Sidekick Voice engages a call, a $0.06216 per-minute fee applies in addition to the standard telephony rate. This fee accounts for the resources that help Sidekick actively listen, transcribe, understand context, manage interruptions, answer questions, take action, and adapt in real time to ensure a high-quality user experience.

Below are additional examples using the toll-free telephony rate for illustrative purposes.

Purchase phone numbers

To purchase new phone numbers for Voice, see Purchase and Configure Voice Phone Numbers.

To purchase new phone numbers for SMS, see Purchase and Configure SMS Phone Numbers.

Automatic mobile phone number identification lookup rate

Gladly charges a per-lookup fee for the API that allows automatic mobile number identification.

^{*Estimates shown are for a typical call and include Call Conferencing, Quality Monitoring, Recording, and Storage. Actual charges will vary based on usage (international rates vary). Rates are subject to change.}