At Cal.com, SMS and WhatsApp messages can be sent to keep attendees informed about bookings, reminders, and cancellations. While these messages can be funded through various methods (e.g., organization-level billing), credits are one of the available ways to manage usage—especially for teams and smaller accounts.

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Overview of Messaging Credits

Credits are used as a flexible payment method to send:
  • SMS messages (booking confirmations, reminders, updates)
  • WhatsApp messages (booking alerts, confirmations)
While many organization-level accounts may fund messaging centrally or directly via integrations like Twilio, credits serve as a prepaid way to power messaging, especially on smaller plans.

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Credit Allocation by Plan Type

The number of messaging credits available to your account depends on your plan type:

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Organizations (Enterprise)

  • Unlimited credits
  • Messaging costs are typically covered through your organization’s billing method, making credits unnecessary

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Team Plan

  • 750 credits per team member per month
  • Credits reset at the start of each billing cycle
  • You can purchase more credits from Team Settings as needed

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Free Users

  • No free credits included
  • You can purchase credits manually from your Billing Settings

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Credit-Based Messaging Costs

The cost depends on the recipient’s location and the delivery method:

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🇺🇸 United States & 🇨🇦 Canada

  • SMS and WhatsApp messages are free on the Teams Plan in these regions
  • Credits are not deducted

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🌍 Other Countries

  • One credit = $0.01 USD
  • The total credit cost per message is based on:
    • Twilio’s region-specific SMS rates
    • A standard 80% processing fee
📌 Example: If Twilio charges $0.05 per SMS to India, your effective cost is: 
0.05 + (0.05 * 0.8) = $0.09 = 9 credits
You can check up-to-date Twilio pricing here: Twilio SMS Pricing

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Segment-Based Billing

Credits are charged per segment, not per message. Most SMS messages are broken into segments based on character count:
  • Standard segment: up to 160 characters
  • Messages with emojis or special characters: up to 70 characters per segment
Each segment is treated as a separate message, and credits are then calculated based on the information above. 📎 Want to check how many segments your message will use?
Use Twilio’s Segment Calculator to estimate credit usage before sending.

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Behavior When Credit Balance Is Exhausted

  • Low credit alerts: We’ll send email warnings when your balance gets low (all admins are notified for teams)
  • Exhaustion fallback:
    • If credits run out, SMS/WhatsApp messages will automatically stop
    • Cal.com will fall back to email delivery only for affected messages
This ensures bookings still go through, but real-time alerts may be delayed if recipients rely on SMS/WhatsApp.
Credits are not the only way SMS/WhatsApp are funded — they’re just the default mechanism for smaller accounts and teams