What is Twilio?

Twilio is a cloud-based communication platform that enables businesses to engage with their customers through various messaging channels. For our software, which facilitates guest messaging for hotels, we specifically use Twilio’s SMS and MMS capabilities. This ensures seamless and reliable communication between hotel staff and guests. Think of Twilio as your virtual phone number provider!

What are Overages?

Every text message sent through Twilio incurs a cost. The cost varies based on the message type (SMS or MMS) and the geographic locations of the sender and recipient. You can review Twilio’s pricing details here: Twilio Pricing.

Text messages are priced per segment. A segment is always 160 characters long.

Overage charges occur when you exceed your allocated messaging credit for the month. To monitor your usage, navigate to Admin > Settings > Twilio > Usage in HelloShift. This dashboard provides real-time insights into your remaining credit and spending.

Understanding Messaging Costs

To illustrate how messaging costs are calculated, consider this example message used in your Pre-Stay automation:

“Hi {firstName}, welcome to The GrandBudapest Hotel! It’s a pleasure to have you here. Please respond to this message if you need anything throughout your stay.”

You can use this tool to calculate the number of segments in your message: Message Segment Calculator. Simply paste your message into the tool to determine its length in segments.

For example, if this message is 160 characters long and you’re sending it to a US number, the cost is $0.0079 per segment. If your HelloShift subscription includes $55 in messaging credit per month, you’ll avoid overage charges as long as your total monthly spending stays within this limit.

As you can see, the text contained here is 160 characters long. If this is a US number, the pricing table would be the one below: 

Cost Estimation Example:

Assume you operate a 71-room property with a $55 monthly messaging credit. You send 3 automated messages daily.

  • At full occupancy, you send 213 messages per day.
  • Over a month, this totals 6,390 messages.
  • With each message costing $0.0079, the total cost would be approximately $50.48, keeping you under your $55 credit and avoiding overages.

Tips to Reduce Overages

Have you experienced recurring overages due to your current setup? Here are a few examples on how to reduce costs! 

Optimize Character Count: Use the segment calculator tool to keep your automated messages as short as possible. Tools like ChatGPT can assist in rephrasing to reduce segment length.

The example above is an overlong snippet, this one has 9 segments, we can reduce the amount of segments and still get the same information across.  

“Welcome to Paradise, {{firstName}}! Let us know if you have any requests for your upcoming stay at Grand Budapest. Check-in is at 4 pm, but you can share your arrival time in advance. Don’t miss out on booking a cabana with a $250 food & beverage credit: [link]. View events here: [link]” 

[Checkin plan]

Being intentional about your character length on each snippet can significantly reduce costs, especially on automated messages! 

emojis, smart quotes, and non-GSM spaces 

Monitoring Spending:

In HelloShift, you can always monitor your spend in real-time, this way you can make sure how close you are to incur an overage. Navigating to Admin>Settings>Twilio>Usage, you’ll find the dashboard below. 

Here you can view your active Usage for the month, how much credit you have for your site, and how much of an overage you’ve accumulated, if any! 

This way there are no surprises and you can always turn off automations or reduce the amount of broadcast or promotional messages you are sending if you’re getting close to spending your overage. 

Overage Invoices

Overages are charged to your account on the second of every month. You can review your receipts or invoices from Admin>Subscriptions and click on the View Past Invoices button! 

Twilio Overages - HelloShift

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What is Twilio?

Twilio is a cloud-based communication platform that enables businesses to engage with their customers through various messaging channels. For our software, which facilitates guest messaging for hotels, we specifically use Twilio’s SMS and MMS capabilities. This ensures seamless and reliable communication between hotel staff and guests. Think of Twilio as your virtual phone number provider!

What are Overages?

Every text message sent through Twilio incurs a cost. The cost varies based on the message type (SMS or MMS) and the geographic locations of the sender and recipient. You can review Twilio’s pricing details here: Twilio Pricing.

Text messages are priced per segment. A segment is always 160 characters long.

Overage charges occur when you exceed your allocated messaging credit for the month. To monitor your usage, navigate to Admin > Settings > Twilio > Usage in HelloShift. This dashboard provides real-time insights into your remaining credit and spending.

Understanding Messaging Costs

To illustrate how messaging costs are calculated, consider this example message used in your Pre-Stay automation:

“Hi {firstName}, welcome to The GrandBudapest Hotel! It’s a pleasure to have you here. Please respond to this message if you need anything throughout your stay.”

You can use this tool to calculate the number of segments in your message: Message Segment Calculator. Simply paste your message into the tool to determine its length in segments.

For example, if this message is 160 characters long and you’re sending it to a US number, the cost is $0.0079 per segment. If your HelloShift subscription includes $55 in messaging credit per month, you’ll avoid overage charges as long as your total monthly spending stays within this limit.

As you can see, the text contained here is 160 characters long. If this is a US number, the pricing table would be the one below: 

Cost Estimation Example:

Assume you operate a 71-room property with a $55 monthly messaging credit. You send 3 automated messages daily.

  • At full occupancy, you send 213 messages per day.
  • Over a month, this totals 6,390 messages.
  • With each message costing $0.0079, the total cost would be approximately $50.48, keeping you under your $55 credit and avoiding overages.

Tips to Reduce Overages

Have you experienced recurring overages due to your current setup? Here are a few examples on how to reduce costs! 

Optimize Character Count: Use the segment calculator tool to keep your automated messages as short as possible. Tools like ChatGPT can assist in rephrasing to reduce segment length.

The example above is an overlong snippet, this one has 9 segments, we can reduce the amount of segments and still get the same information across.  

“Welcome to Paradise, {{firstName}}! Let us know if you have any requests for your upcoming stay at Grand Budapest. Check-in is at 4 pm, but you can share your arrival time in advance. Don’t miss out on booking a cabana with a $250 food & beverage credit: [link]. View events here: [link]” 

[Checkin plan]

Being intentional about your character length on each snippet can significantly reduce costs, especially on automated messages! 

emojis, smart quotes, and non-GSM spaces 

Monitoring Spending:

In HelloShift, you can always monitor your spend in real-time, this way you can make sure how close you are to incur an overage. Navigating to Admin>Settings>Twilio>Usage, you’ll find the dashboard below. 

Here you can view your active Usage for the month, how much credit you have for your site, and how much of an overage you’ve accumulated, if any! 

This way there are no surprises and you can always turn off automations or reduce the amount of broadcast or promotional messages you are sending if you’re getting close to spending your overage. 

Overage Invoices

Overages are charged to your account on the second of every month. You can review your receipts or invoices from Admin>Subscriptions and click on the View Past Invoices button!