Understand SMS marketing billing

Who is this article for?

• Gegsy merchants who send text-message (SMS) marketing through Automations and want to understand what's included, what overage costs, and how to keep spending predictable.

About SMS billing

Text messaging (SMS) reaches customers directly on their phones. Every billing period your plan includes a set number of free message segments; anything you send beyond that is billed at cost. You can preview what an automation will cost before it sends, and set a monthly cap so text spending never runs past a limit you choose.

You'll find these controls in the Text messaging (SMS) panel on the Automations page (Marketing → Automations) and in the Cost estimate panel when editing an individual automation.

Before you begin

• Available on the Pro and Premium plans.
• SMS is off until you turn it on and agree to billing (see Turn on SMS marketing below). Email and push automations don't require this.

Turn on SMS marketing

Before you can add text messages to an automation, you agree to SMS billing once for your account.

1. Open Marketing → Automations.
2. In the Text messaging (SMS) panel, select Unlock SMS (or Manage SMS billing).
3. Review the Enable SMS marketing window. It shows your included allowance, the at-cost overage rate, and a note that longer texts count as more than one segment.
4. Select Agree & enable SMS.

Once enabled, the panel shows an Enabled badge and the SMS channel unlocks across every automation. You can reverse this any time with Turn off SMS billing — which re-locks the SMS channel while keeping your email and push automations running.

Your included SMS allowance

Your allowance is per active location and refreshes each billing period. The Text messaging (SMS) panel breaks it down:

• Included this period — your total free segments, shown as your per-location amount × your number of locations.
• Used — segments sent so far this period.
• Remaining — what's left before overage begins.
• Est. overage — the estimated cost of anything sent beyond your allowance so far.

The allowance resets at the start of each billing period.

How overage is billed

Messages above your included allowance are billed at cost, per segment. Overage is metered — you're only charged for what you actually send — and it's added to your next Gegsy subscription invoice in Stripe at the end of the billing period. There's no separate bill and nothing to prepay.

What counts as a segment

Carriers charge per segment, not per message, and a single text can be more than one segment:

• A standard text fits about 160 characters in one segment; longer messages are split into additional segments.
• Emoji and certain special characters switch the message to a format that fits fewer characters per segment (about 70), so adding an emoji can turn a one-segment text into several.

Because of this, counts throughout the SMS panels are shown in segments. Keeping messages short and limiting emoji keeps your segment count — and your cost — down.

Preview an automation's cost before you send

When you edit an automation with SMS turned on, the Cost estimate panel shows what that automation will use:

• Per text — how many segments one message uses, based on your current wording (it updates as you type, including the effect of emoji and length).
• Estimated recipients — roughly how many customers this automation reaches each billing period. It's pre-filled from recent sends when available, and you can adjust it to model a different audience size.

With an estimate entered, the panel projects the total for the automation:

• This automation — recipients × segments = total segments.
• After this period — your projected used of included once this automation's messages are counted.
• Estimated overage — the projected cost if that total pushes you past your allowance.

This lets you see the cost of a change — a longer message, an added emoji, a larger audience — before the automation goes live.

Set a monthly overage spend cap

To keep text spending predictable, set an optional ceiling on overage charges.

1. Open Marketing → Automations and select Manage SMS billing.
2. Under Monthly overage spend cap, enter a dollar amount. Leave it blank for no cap.
3. Select Save. To lift the limit later, select Remove cap.

When overage charges reach your cap in a billing period, Gegsy automatically pauses SMS for the rest of that period — your email and push automations keep sending normally. You'll see a note that the cap was reached; raise the cap to resume texts right away, and the limit resets with your next billing period.