Voice and SMS Phone Number Costs

Phone numbers for use with Voice and SMS can be purchased directly in Gladly. The cost to purchase and maintain phone numbers, along with usage fees, are included in your monthly telephony invoice.

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

Phone number costs #

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

Rates for local US and toll-free numbers #

Every number provisioned and used has recurring costs associated with it. Below are estimates for typical calls and usage.

Rates for local Canada and toll-free numbers #

Contact Gladly Support or your Gladly Account Executive for CA and 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.

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 that is charged separately on top of other voice charges you may incur.

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 used to allow 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.}