Aloware is a cloud-based telephony software system. As such, our billing mechanism has two components: Subscription and Usage. In this article, we will go deep into our billing practices, and explain the terms you'd see on your invoices, inside the application, and while talking with your account managers.

In short, your subscription is a recurring charge (monthly, quarterly, annually) that gives your team members access to our platform, to make and receive calls and send and receive text messages. Your subscription also covers your à la carte items such as local and toll-free phone numbers, and local presence packages.

Your usage covers any automated action that you may or may not do within our platform. Aloware, considering it's highly advanced integrations, allows you to create SMS marketing campaigns, bulk messages, automatic 2-legged calls and the like originating not by your agents, but by your CRMs. These items are billed in the "usage" category.

Our unlimited calling and texting pledge

Unlike our competitors, all of our iPro, uPro and xPro plans come with unlimited calling and texting on local lines for your agents, inbound and outbound. It's important to understand what this covers, and what it does NOT cover.

Our unlimited inbound & outbound calling pledge covers any call, or text, that is initiated by a consumer to a local phone number on Aloware, or is initiated by a human agent on Aloware, on a local phone number to a consumer.

By that definition:

All calls and texts on toll-free lines are paid and not covered under the unlimited calling/texting policy,
Any automated text messages sent from CRM bulk actions, Aloware broadcast, Sequence+, API, and the like are NOT "human agent initiated" and thus not covered.

Our current plans are detailed on our pricing page.

Your Aloware Subscription

Like most Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies, we have a Pay Per License model. This means that each user on your account counts as one license and is billed according to your plan term. This is your recurring cost of using Aloware.

What is a license?

Each user that logs in to Aloware needs a license. This license allows your user to interact with our platform, make calls, and send texts.

Your license is on a Plan (iPro, uPro, xPro) that has a Term (monthly, quarterly, or annual). All Aloware licenses are non-refundable during their term and automatically renew for the next term, unless deleted. You can add licenses as needed.

If a user leaves your team, their license can be reassigned to another user until the end of the term. For more details about suspending or deleting users, see this guide billing implication of paused and suspended users.

What is a plan?

Your plan covers the features you can use within our product. In general, we have 3 prime plans, iPro, uPro, and xPro, detailed on our pricing page. Higher plans give you more advanced features, such as Power Dialer, advanced queues, drip campaigns, and reduce your per-minute rates for automations.

Your plan consists of 4 things:

Plan price
License count
Add-ons
Rates

What is a minimum license count?

When you sign a quote or contract with Aloware, you agree to purchase and renew a minimum number of licenses. This guide explains how the minimum license count works and what it means for your billing and user management.

What is an add-on?

Add-ons are additional products or packages that you buy from Aloware and renew based on your plan's term. Generally, there are 3 types of add-ons to Aloware:

Phone numbers - including local numbers, toll-free numbers, international numbers, and local presence packages;
Compliance recurring fees - brand registration and A2P 10DLC campaign maintenance fees;
Additional products and services, such as AloAi text bot, AloAi voice analytics, AloAi voice bot, and the like.

When you go on a plan, it comes with pre-defined rates for your add-ons that are visible on our pricing page. For example:

If you are on our xPro plan, each local US phone number costs $4/month, whereas the same phone number costs $6/mo if you are on iPro.

Your Aloware Usage Fees

So far, we have covered all the charges pertaining to your users making calls and texts on the Aloware platform, plus your "telco" expenses (phone numbers, local presence) and additional products you buy from us.

Now, we're going dive deep into ad-hoc charges that apply only when you use our platform for automated calling and messaging, (e.g., drop campaigns and CRM-driven broadcasts), API, A2P compliance fees, and the like.

Automations include outbound calls and texts initiated by Aloware's automation tools, enabling agentless sales activities. These are charged per segment.

SMS/MMS sent via Aloware—whether agent-based or automated—incurs carrier fees from major US carriers, typically $0.005-$0.015 per segment. These fees are separate from the cost-per-SMS and passed through without markup. See this guide for a full list of fees.

Understanding your credit balance

As a billing admin, when you login to Aloware, you'd see a (usually blue) box showing your credits. These are funds you have deposited into Aloware to be used for ad-hoc charges. Check out this guide for managing your credits.

What are ad-hoc charges?

There are various costs and fees that apply to your actual everyday use of Aloware. These charges only apply when you actually use the product (for example send a bulk message or when you import contacts, a Local Routing Number (LRN) lookup fee of $0.002 per number scanned may apply) and are not a subscription that renew. These charges will "deduct" your Aloware credits, until your credits hit zero. For more details on ad-hoc charges, see our comprehensive guide to ad-hoc charges.