Billing, plans & add-ons

Overview

Your hotline runs on a prepaid balance plus a monthly plan. You put money on the account, the plan and everything you use is charged against it, and on the 1st of each month the plan renews. Everything you can buy lives on one page, Plans & Add-ons, which works like a shopping cart: add the pieces you need, check out once.

Two pages in the Billing group of the sidebar cover all of it: Billing (balance, cards, your current plan) and Transactions (your full history). Plans & Add-ons is the third.

The prepaid balance

Your balance is real money sitting on the account. Everything the hotline charges you comes off it:

• Your monthly plan, billed on the 1st
• One-time purchases the moment you buy them
• Per-minute costs such as overflow-channel calls ($0.10 a minute)
• Transcription (see Transcription charges below)

When the balance cannot cover a purchase, your saved card is charged for the difference. See Balance first, then your card.

The Billing page

Billing → Billing ("Billing & Payments") is where you look after money and cards.

Account Overview

Three tiles across the top:

• Account Balance — what is on the account right now, in your account currency.
• Current Plan — the plan name, or No Plan. The small i button opens a popover with the plan name, its monthly price, and the cancellation date if one is set. Next to it sit Cancel (or Manage Cancellation) and, when a cancellation is pending, Undo Cancellation.
• This Month — helper text "Total charges". The total of everything charged to the account so far this calendar month.

What your plan includes

A panel below the tiles, shown once you have a plan. It spells out what you are currently entitled to:

• Channels — how many callers can be on the hotline at once
• Menu levels — how deep your menus can nest
• Transfer minutes — your monthly allowance, plus any pay-as-you-go minutes on top
• Storage — shown in MB or GB
• Automatic behaviors — a one-line summary of your choices: overflow channels on or off, whether storage auto-grows, whether minutes top up automatically, and how many custom code and payment extensions you have

To change any of it, use the Plans & Add-ons button in the page header.

Your cards

The table lists every card saved to the account:

To add a card, scroll to the Payment Methods section under the table and enter it there. A newly added card automatically becomes the default. You can also add a card directly on the Plans & Add-ons page, in the cart sidebar.

Each row has three actions:

• Add Funds — top up your balance with that card. See below.
• Set as Default — make that card the one used for all future charges. Only shown on cards that are not already default.
• Remove — delete the card from the account. If you remove your default card and another card is on file, that other card is promoted to default automatically.

Add Funds

• The amount is entered in US dollars, with a minimum of $10.00.
• If your account currency is not USD, the helper text updates as you type: "Your card will be charged approximately €X EUR." The conversion happens at the current rate when the charge is made, so the final amount can differ by a little.

Open Stripe Portal

A header button that opens Stripe's own billing portal in a new tab, on a signed one-time link. Use it to manage cards and see Stripe's own receipts.

Copy Payment Update Link

The small link icon in the header copies a shareable link to that same Stripe portal. Useful when the person who holds the card is not the person logged in: send them the link and they can update the card without an account here. Each visit opens a fresh portal session.

"Add Stripe Customer" and "Refund" also appear in the header, but they are support only.

Plans & Add-ons

Billing → Plans & Add-ons is the catalog. Add items to the cart on the right, then check out once. The subtitle says it well: "Put together your plan like a shopping cart — one checkout."

Your first order: three steps

Until you have a plan, the page walks you through it:

1. Hotline Base is already in your cart (it cannot be removed).
2. Choose a phone number — this is required. A hotline nobody can dial is no hotline, so the first order must include a number: pick a country under Phone numbers (shown first, marked "Required · pick one"). If your account already has a number, this step shows as done. The Buy button only appears once a number is in the order, and checkout refuses an order without one — before anything is charged.
3. Add anything else you want, then buy.

Once you have a plan

The top of the page becomes your plan panel — a green "Your plan is active" card showing the monthly price, since when, what you have (channels, menu levels, minutes, storage, your phone numbers, and the state of the three switches) and what you bought (every add-on on the plan, how many, at what price, and when it was last bought — the receipt that makes up the monthly total). Everything below it is what you can still add; each add-on card says where you stand ("You have 3 channels → 8 after this order").

Hotline Base

Every hotline starts here. $12 a month, and it is locked into your cart until you have a plan. It includes:

• 1 menu level
• 3 channels
• 15 transfer minutes a month
• 500 MB storage
• No advanced options (custom code or payment extensions)

Add-ons sit on top of the base plan. You cannot check out add-ons without it.

Menus

Your plan includes one level of menus, the main menu callers hear first. Each extra level adds one more depth: a key on your menu can open another full menu.

Channels

A channel is one live call. With 3 channels, 3 callers can be on your hotline at the same time and a 4th hears a busy tone. Channels are shared by everything: listeners, transfers, and broadcasts.

The 20-pack rides on the 5-pack. The page will not let you add it until you have 8 channels between your plan and your cart, and if you later remove the 5-pack from the cart the 20-pack is removed with it.

Monthly minutes

Transfer minutes are used when your hotline forwards a call to a real phone (Forward call or Dial out). Monthly packages renew with your plan.

Pay-as-you-go minutes

The same transfer minutes, bought once instead of monthly. They never expire, and they are used after your monthly allowance runs out. A little pricier per minute than the monthly packages.

Broadcast minutes

Used when your hotline calls out, for broadcasts to your contact list. One minute of credit per minute per recipient. Bought once, never expire, and the bigger the top-up the more bonus minutes you get.

Phone numbers

Every number is a real local phone number connected to your hotline. The monthly price depends on the country.

Your first US number comes with the base plan, and extra US numbers carry no monthly cost. Each order includes one number, in one country — to buy a second, place a second order. Need a country that is not listed? Contact us; we can connect most of the world. See Phone numbers & test PIN for what happens after you order.

Advanced options

Capabilities beyond the base plan, $20 a month per extension. Buy one per extension you need.

Storage

Space for your recordings and your callers' messages. The base plan includes 500 MB.

Roughly 15 to 20 hours of recordings per GB.

Your choices

Three switches near the top of the Plans page. They cost nothing to turn on or off, and you can change them any time. If you do not have a plan yet, your choices are remembered and applied when you check out.

Overflow channels, $0.10 per minute

Off by default. When all your channels are busy, extra callers hear a busy tone.

Turn it on and those extra callers get through anyway. Each overflow call is billed 10¢ per minute from your balance, rounded up to the whole minute, and appears in your charges as "Overflow channel call".

When storage fills up

• Block uploads (default) — when you are over your storage allowance, new uploads and new caller messages are refused and we email you.
• Auto-grow ON — we add 1 GB for $2 a month automatically as often as needed and email you. Uploads never stop.

When transfer minutes run out

• Just email me (default) — we let you know when your minutes are used up. Call forwarding stops working until you buy more.
• Auto top-up ON — we buy a 200-minute pay-as-you-go pack ($10) automatically and email you. Forwarding never stops.

This is a different thing from the balance auto top-up in Account settings — that one tops up money, this one tops up minutes.

Checking out

How "due now" is worked out

• The base plan is charged in full for the month you buy it, whatever day you buy it.
• Every other monthly add-on is prorated to the days left in the month, today included. The cart shows the math ("14 of 30 days left, 47%").
• One-time items (pay-as-you-go minutes, broadcast minutes) are charged in full.
• From the 1st of next month, you are billed the full monthly amount.

Charge in

The confirmation modal has a Charge in dropdown: US Dollar ($), Euro (€), British Pound (£) or Israeli Shekel (₪). All catalog prices are listed in US dollars and converted at checkout at the current rate.

Whatever you pick here also becomes your ongoing billing currency for the account, so choose the currency you want to be billed in from now on.

Balance first, then your card

1. Your balance pays for as much of the order as it can.
2. Your default saved card is charged the difference, and you get a notification saying how much went to which card.
3. If there is a shortfall and no card is on file, the order is refused with "Insufficient balance". Add a card in the cart sidebar or top up on the Billing page and try again.

The cart sidebar always shows, before you press the button, exactly where the money will come from.

Your price

If we have agreed special pricing with you, that offer shows its own price with the list price struck through next to it and a small your price badge. Nothing else about it changes.

Price changes and grandfathering

Every purchase snapshots the price you paid. When a catalog price changes, existing subscribers are not affected — you keep paying what you agreed. If an offer is retired it simply stops appearing for new customers; yours keeps running.

Transfer minutes and where you call

Minute packages are priced for US calls. More expensive destinations burn more credit per real minute:

• United States and Canada — 1 minute of credit per minute
• United Kingdom — 2 minutes of credit per minute

Every other destination is charged at the US rate. A 10-minute call to a UK number uses 20 of your transfer minutes.

Cancelling your plan

Cancel Plan sits in the Billing page header, and the same action is on the Current Plan tile. It asks When should the plan be cancelled?

• Cancel immediately — the plan ends now and goes inactive.
• Schedule cancellation for a future date — pick a Cancel On date (today or later). Your plan stays fully active until that date, and is cancelled automatically when it arrives.

Once a cancellation is pending, the Current Plan tile reads "Cancels on …", the button relabels itself Manage Cancellation, and an Undo Cancellation button appears. Undoing removes the cancellation date and the plan carries on as normal.

When a plan is cancelled, a phone number that came with it is released back unless it was pinned or reserved for you.

Billing History

Billing → Transactions opens a page titled Billing History with two tabs.

Transactions

Money moving on and off the balance.

Searchable on Description, sortable, newest first.

Charges

The individual line items that make up those transactions.

The Charges tab has an Export button that downloads the list as an Excel file. The Transactions tab does not export.

Auto top-up of your balance

Set up in Account settings under Auto Top-Up Settings, not on the Billing page:

• Enable Auto Top-Up — the master switch. The two amounts only appear when it is on.
• Threshold Amount (USD) — when your balance drops below this, we top up.
• Refill Amount (USD) — how much we add.

Both amounts are entered in US dollars and converted to your account currency when the card is charged. The helper text shows a live estimate of what the card will actually see.

When a top-up fails

• Temporary problems (insufficient funds, a processing error, "try again later", the issuer unavailable, approve-with-ID) pause auto top-up for 3 days and send you an "Automatic Top-Up Paused" email. It resumes by itself afterwards.
• Hard declines, any other Stripe error, or no default card on file switch auto top-up off and send you an "Automatic Top-Up Disabled — Action Needed" email. Fix the card and turn it back on in Account settings.

A successful top-up clears any pause and failure reason.

Transcription charges

Transcribing a recording is charged at $0.0001 per YiddishLabs credit (roughly a few cents per minute of audio) against your account balance. The charge shows in Charges as "Transcription for: …".

If you put your own YiddishLabs API key into Account settings, YiddishLabs bills you directly and nothing is charged here. See Recordings, uploads & text-to-speech and Audio player (Library).

Emails we send you

When you order a phone number, our support team is emailed so they can get it connected.

The monthly cycle

On the 1st of every month, two things happen: the month's outstanding charges are rolled into a single transaction against your balance, and your plan is charged for the new month. That is why a mid-month add-on is prorated, and why your first month on the base plan is charged in full.

Tips

• Top up the balance before you buy, and the whole order comes off the balance with no card involved.
• If a lot of callers hit a busy tone, compare the cost of overflow channels (10¢ a minute, only when you exceed) against another channel pack (a flat monthly fee, always there).
• Keep a card on file even if you normally pay from the balance. It is what auto top-up, storage auto-grow and minute auto top-up rely on.
• Watch Storage Used on the Statistics page so a full disk never surprises you.