Coach Builder Pro Account Messaging Credits for SMS, Email and more

Introduction and Overview: If you are seeing unknown charges from Coach Builder Pro and are unaware what they are for, no need to worry! These charges on your card are for your accounts messaging credits.

Messaging credits inside of your account go towards sending SMS messages, emails and a few other things mentioned below.

Your account has a messaging credit wallet that automatically refills itself after you have used up all of the credits, resulting in occasional transactions to refill the wallet and avoid any delays in your communications being sent out.

There is information about how this works in the LWL Funnel Modules but with all of the information in the modules, we understand that it can be easy to miss some things. For your convenience we have put together some information on this topic below. 😊

Detailed Explanation About How the Messaging Credits Work: Just like a personal phone number for a mobile device, there are costs involved with owning and operating a business phone number in your Coach Builder Pro (CBP) account.

CBP will bill you a small amount (per usage) for SMS messages and phone calls using the business phone number. These charges are initiated by the telecommunications carriers behind the scenes that actually provide the phone number and integrate with the platform. These charges are NOT initiated by CBP but are rather simply passed along through the system and billed through your account for convenience. The same goes for email communications and any AI services you choose to use in your account.

Cost for Calling, SMS and Email: We've been told that charges will vary slightly depending on carriers (from what we understand, location is a factor) but here are the estimated amounts that they've told us:

- SMS Messages are approximately:
$ 0.0158 / segment (1 segment is equal to a SMS (text) of 160 characters)

- Outgoing Calls (Making Calls) are approximately:
$ 0.028 / min

- Incoming Calls (Receiving Calls) are approximately:
$ 0.017 / min

- Sending Emails are approximately:
$0.002025 / email

So all minimal amounts - just a cost of doing business but info that is good to know nonetheless. With the nature of your business and the volume of texts, emails etc. being sent out, these fees will typically add up to only small amounts each month and well worth the benefit.

And again these are business expenses that can be tax deductible. As a business owner there are just going to be costs to run your business online.

But when you get even just one or two clients, these very small amounts are well worth the cost.

If you are worried about these costs, remember that you are a business owner and remember to adjust your financial thermostat. Our recommendation would be to focus your time and energy on promoting your challenges, focus on generating awareness and becoming an expert at the loving invitation call sales process. The same time and energy put towards worrying about saving $10-$20 here and there can be more efficiently used to generate thousands of dollars in new front end clients and changing the lives of others.

FREE Monthly Credits: At the time of writing this guide, your plans include $5 worth of complimentary credits each month which should cover around 316 texts or 294 mins in calls or 2469 emails!

Phone Number Costs: Similar to paying for a phone plan for your personal phone, there is also a monthly cost involved with owning this business phone number that the telecommunications carriers charge. It is typically a small monthly fee but the actual amounts can vary based on location and type fo number (local area code or toll-free). The cost of this number will have been shown when you first purchased the number in your account.

SMS Compliance Costs: Any carrier fees associated with your A2P-10DLC registrations or Toll-Free Number verification will be paid for using your accounts messaging credits.

The upfront one-time costs of registering/verifying your phone number will be greater than the ongoing monthly costs of having your phone number verified. Keep this in mind when looking at the amount of credits used in the beginning stages of setting up your account.

The exact amounts that will be charged for SMS compliance will be shown to you when going through the verification/registration process for your number. (A2P-10DLC Registration or Toll-Free Verification)

Automated Wallet Recharge: There is a setting in the account - that if your credit balance goes below $0, it will refill your "wallet" with $10 worth of credits (for SMS, Phone, Email etc.) to ensure that all messages, call reminders and other communications still get delivered to avoid any costly issues and missed opportunities with your day to day operations. If your wallet balance dips below zero into a negative balance, the next automated recharge will add the equivalent amount of negative balance to the typical recharge amount. Example: Balance of -$5.00 with your automated recharge set to $10 will result in a $15 charge.

Negative balances occur when messages are sent out or credits are used up after your wallet balance reaches zero but before the system can process the recharge. Negative balances can also be a result of failed transactions on your card. It is important to keep a positive balance of messaging credits in your wallet otherwise your messages may stop sending as intended.

Transparent Log of All Transactions in Company Billing Settings: There is an easy way to find a transparent list of all transactions that your messaging credits are used for.

This is found by going to "Company Billing" within the "Settings" of your account. If you click on "See Transactions" in this Company Billing section, you can see a detailed list of all transactions and exactly what your messaging credits are being put towards.

In the Company Billing section you can also increase your "auto recharge" amount if you'd like to refill your wallets messaging credits with a larger amount instead of having more frequent, smaller transactions.

Final Notes: Remember that this business number and the other communication features in your account are very useful to have for your business. Especially for SMS communications and the custom call reminders for your calendar appointments. In our experience, the benefits of easy communication with leads/clients and increased show up rates FAR exceed the cost as it allows you to easily attract more leads and nurture them into more clients.

THPA just uses the business phone number for SMS (text) communications (including call reminders) but not for any phone calls.

To minimize these costs, you can do all of your calls on Zoom (like Dr Shaunna has always recommends) or you can use your personal phone if you are really against using Zoom for specific applications.