How minutes are counted

Every plan includes a number of minutes for each billing period. Calls, text messages and chat messages all use the same minutes, so there is one number to watch. This article explains how a call is measured, when the count resets and what happens after you use all your minutes.

How a call is measured

A call counts from the moment it is answered until it ends. Each call is rounded up to the next whole minute.

The length comes from the phone company's own record of the call when it is available, because that is what the call is billed on. If an earlier report said something different, the call is corrected when the phone company's figure arrives.

Note: Rounding happens per call, not per period. Ten 20-second calls use 10 minutes, not 4.

Not every minute is the same size

On a US or Canadian local number, one minute of an incoming call uses one plan minute. Some calls cost more to carry, so they use your minutes faster:

• Toll-free numbers and numbers in other countries. An incoming call is priced by your number's country and type. A toll-free line, for example, uses more than one plan minute per minute of talk.
• Outgoing calls. These are priced by the country you call, so a call to an expensive destination uses several plan minutes per minute.
• Transferred calls. When the assistant transfers a caller, two lines are open: the caller's and the one to the person the call was transferred to. The second leg is counted as an outgoing call to that number.
• WhatsApp calls. There is no phone line to pay for, so an incoming WhatsApp minute counts as 0.8 of a plan minute. A WhatsApp call you start adds a small per-minute fee that depends on the other person's country.
• Website and browser calls. Calls from the website widget and test calls in your browser count one to one.

To see the exact rate before you use a number or call a country, open Call rates in the sidebar. It works out the cost of receiving calls on any number type, or of calling any country, in plan minutes and in credit.

What does not use minutes

• Calls that are not answered. Ringing time is not counted. A call that never connects has no length, so it uses nothing.
• Calls that are turned away. When all your lines are busy or there is no money left for the call, the caller is refused before the call is answered, and nothing is counted.

Note: Messages are not on this list. Every message, sent or received, uses a small fraction of a minute on WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and the website chat. See How chats and WhatsApp messages are counted. Texts (SMS) are counted both ways too, per 160 characters. See How text messages are counted.

Important: Test calls count. A test call from the assistant editor or to your own number uses the same speech and voice time as a real call, so it uses plan minutes, and credit once those run out. Deleting a call afterwards does not give the minutes back.

When your minutes reset

Your minutes follow your subscription, not the calendar month:

• On a paid plan, a new period starts every month on the day your subscription began. If you subscribed on the 12th, your minutes reset on the 12th of each month. This is the same on monthly and yearly billing.
• After an upgrade, a new period starts on the day you paid for the new plan, with the new plan's full allowance.
• If your plan was given to you by our team, it resets on the 1st of each month.

The reset date is shown on Billing as Minutes reset. Unused minutes do not carry over to the next period.

After your included minutes

Minutes beyond your plan are paid from your prepaid credit balance, at your plan's price per extra minute. That price is adjusted by the same number type and destination rules as above.

If your balance cannot cover at least one more minute, new calls beyond your plan do not connect, and a call in progress ends before it runs into a minute nobody has paid for. Keep some credit in your balance so calls are never refused. See Prepaid credit and top-ups.

Keeping track

• Billing shows Minutes used this period against your allowance, with a breakdown of calls, messages and texts, and how many minutes remain.
• See every call and message on the Billing page opens the usage report, with every call and message on its own line.
• Usage alerts. When your workspace reaches 80% and then 100% of its included minutes, owners and admins get an email and an in-app notification. Each alert is sent once per period. Each person can turn these off under Settings → Notifications → Usage and billing alerts.

Common questions

Why did a 61-second call use two minutes? Every call is rounded up to the next whole minute, the same way phone companies bill.

Why does the minute count on Billing differ slightly from the usage report? Billing shows whole minutes, rounded down. The usage report shows each line with decimals, because messages use fractions of a minute. The usage report also leaves out calls you have deleted, while Billing still counts them.

My call was short but used many minutes. It was probably an outgoing call to an expensive country, a call to a toll-free number, or a transferred call. Open Call rates to check the rate.