Aloware is a cloud-based telephony system. As such, our billing mechanism has two components: Plans and Rates. Plans cover your access to the platform, and Rates cover your minutes & SMS usage. Our current plans are detailed on our pricing page.
What is a plan?
A plan is a subscription to use the platform. Like most Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies, we have a Pay Per Seat model. This means that each agent on your team counts as a seat and will be billed every month. This is your recurring cost of using Aloware.
Our iPro, uPro, and xPro plans come with many perks, most notably unlimited local inbound calling minutes! All Aloware Pro series plans include unlimited inbound calls on local lines. For outbound calls, the iPro plans will charge you by the minute, while uPro and xPro cover unlimited outbound calling as well. Inbound text messaging is free on all plans, and outbound text is always paid per text.
This article goes over the details of your Aloware bill. For the differences between our Pro plans and what is considered unlimited minutes, please see this article.
Higher plans give you more features, such as PowerDialer, advanced queues, and Aloware drip campaigns, and reduce your per-minute rates. Also, if you have high volumes or need a custom quote, our sales team can put that together for you.
What is a rate?
Like a telephony system, Aloware charges for outbound minutes, toll-free minutes, SMS, and phone number rental. Each plan comes with its own rate, as shown on the second half of our pricing page. Higher plans have cheaper rates. Also, some plans offer unlimited outbound calling.
Your rate determines what you pay when you use the Aloware platform. Minute and SMS charges come out of your Aloware credits like a pre-paid system. Your credits are the money that you deposit into your account for future usage. Your credits never expire.
Local Presence
Our local presence package is a set of phone numbers you use for outbound calling and texting. Aloware automatically matches the outbound caller id to the nearest area code. The most popular local presence package is one phone number per area code in the US, and it includes between 280 to 320 phone numbers, depending on availability.
The package is billed separately from your phone number rental fees to make it more affordable and is a fixed fee per month.
How is my usage billed?
As we said above, your minute & SMS charges depend on your plan. Here is a list of items to look for based on the Aloware Pro plan (most popular):
Local & Toll-free Phone numbers are billed at the moment they are purchased and will renew every month until canceled.
Local inbound calls are free under Aloware Lite, Pro, and uPro.
Local toll-free calls are billed per minute under all plans.
Local outbound calls are billed per minute under Lite and Pro and free under uPro.
Inbound SMS messages are free under Aloware Lite, Pro, and uPro.
Outbound SMS messages are billed per text under all plans.
Regardless of your plan, we always charge you for the items below.
Inbound toll-free calls are always charged at a low rate, depending on your plan.
Outbound SMS blasts are always charged per text and do NOT fall under our unlimited commitment. Automations and Drip Campaigns are always charged per minute and per text and do NOT fall under the unlimited plan.
Example – Aloware Lite Plan + Outbound Calls
Take a small company handling about 10,000 calls with a team of 5 agents. About half are support calls (inbound), and the rest are sales (outbound).
They go with the Aloware Lite plan, priced at $35 /seat/month. Their monthly charges will look like this:
5 agents x $35 = $175 / mo
5,000 inbound minutes, included in plan = $0
5,000 outbound minutes x $0.03 = $150
10 local phone number x $3 = $30
So their total cost would be around $350 per month. In reality, this would be much lower because we offer steep pre-pay discounts.
Example – Aloware Pro Plan + SMS Blasts
Many businesses have discovered that SMS has a much higher open and retention rate, and their consumers prefer text over calls. Let’s say our team decides to send some SMS blasts to drive inbound calls. They opt for Aloware Pro, which comes with a Broadcast feature. Their bill will look like this:
3 agents x $75 = $225 / mo
10,000 outbound texts x $0.015 = $150
5,000 inbound minutes, included in plan = $0
10 local phone number x $2 = $20
Their total cost per month would be somewhere around $400. You’d also see that by going for a higher plan, the rate actually decreases dramatically.
Example – Aloware uPro Plan + PowerDialing Campaigns
Aloware is a powerful tool for sales teams. Imagine a team of 10 people on the phones running a calling campaign. They decide to use Aloware uPro, which comes with free inbound and outbound minutes. With the PowerDialer, each agent makes around 100 to 200 calls a day, or roughly 5,000 calls per month. Their bill will reflect this:
10 agents x $99 = $990 / mo
5,000 outbound calls x 10 agents, included in plan = $0
5,000 inbound minutes, included in plan = $0
50 local phone number x $1 = $50
So the cost of a completely unlimited plan for this team of 10 becomes around $1,000 per month. Our unlimited calling plan is truly unlimited, with no limitation for agents making outbound calls using the Powerdialer.
A note on Non-agent outbound activity
Aloware has APIs and tools that can automate the work of your agents and create outreach workflows. All outbound activity that is not initiated by an agent is billable according to your rates, regardless of what plan you are on.