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Wallet Credits and Pass-Through Charges
Overview
brayv.ai uses a prepaid credit wallet for usage-based services. When your account uses a service that has an underlying communication or AI cost, credits are deducted from your wallet. We refer to these usage costs as pass-through charges. There are certain features you can use, which brayv.ai doesn't limit your usage of, but do have attached hard costs. We meter these costs with our wallet system, and pass them back to you by deducting from your wallet.
Your wallet is separate from your platform subscription:
- Your platform subscription provides access to brayv.ai and is billed on its regular subscription schedule.
- Pass-through charges reflect actual usage and are paid from your wallet credits.
- Wallet recharges happen when needed, so they may not occur on the same date each month.
Promotional Starting Credits
Every account begins with a one-time promotional credit balance. The number of starting credits varies by plan.
These credits are added to your wallet and can be used for pass-through charges just like purchased credits. You can see your current balance under Settings > Billing.
What Uses Wallet Credits?
Credits may be deducted for:
- Inbound and outbound SMS segments
- Inbound and outbound MMS messages
- Inbound and outbound phone call minutes
- Voice AI minutes
- Text AI input and output tokens used
- AI-generated images
- Transactional and marketing emails sent
- Email validation
For example, credits may be used when your account sends or receives a text message or when a Voice AI agent handles a phone call.
The credit cost and unit of measurement vary by usage type and plan. Long SMS messages may contain multiple segments, and calls are measured in minutes.
How Auto-Recharge Works
Auto-recharge helps keep credit-based services running without requiring you to add credits manually.
Each account has two settings:
- Recharge Threshold: The wallet balance that triggers an automatic recharge
- Recharge Amount: The number of credits added when a recharge occurs
When your balance reaches the configured threshold:
- The payment method on file is charged for the configured recharge amount.
- The purchased credits are added to your wallet.
- Future pass-through charges continue to deduct from the new balance.
Because recharges are based on usage, during high-usage periods you may recharge more often than during regular low-usage periods (example, if you typically text 100 new leads per month, and then you run a bulk outreach to to 10,000 old leads with several follow up messages for each, during that time you'll use signficantly more SMS segments than during times when you are only texting new leads). Recharge transactions are separate from your recurring platform subscription charge.
Note: If your account reaches its recharge threshold twice within seven days, brayv.ai may increase the recharge amount automatically to the next level to help avoid overly frequent charges.
Change Auto-Recharge Settings
Account admins can customize the recharge threshold and recharge amount.
Go to Settings > Billing:
- Find Subscription Details.
- Scroll to Auto-Recharge Settings.
- Click "Customize".
- Select a Recharge Threshold.
- Select a Recharge Amount.
- Click "Save Settings".
The page displays the dollar amount that will be charged for each recharge based on your plan's price per credit.
View Your Balance and Usage
Go to Settings > Billing to see:
- Your current prepaid wallet balance
- The total credits used during the selected period
- Usage by service type
- The quantity used and credits deducted for each service
To review an earlier period, use the period selector in the Usage section. This allows you to compare current usage with past billing periods.
Note: Some usage may take a short time to appear after the activity occurs.
View the Cost of Each Usage Type
The rate for each pass-through charge depends on your plan.
Go to Settings > Billing:
- Find Subscription Details.
- Click "View Plan Details".
- Review Credit Costs per Usage.
This section shows the cost and unit for each usage type, such as credits per SMS segment, credits per Voice AI minute, or credits per email.
Buy Credits Manually
You do not need to wait for auto-recharge. If your account is eligible for manual purchases, you can add credits at any time:
- Go to Settings > Billing.
- Find your Prepaid Wallet Balance.
- Click "Buy Credits".
- Enter the number of credits to purchase.
- Review the total and confirm the purchase.
If an Auto-Recharge Payment Fails
If the payment method on file cannot be charged, brayv.ai will display an alert on the Billing page and may retry when the balance reaches the final threshold. Credit-based services may be paused if the wallet is depleted.
To restore service:
- Update the payment method under Settings > Billing, or
- Use "Buy Credits" to add credits manually
Common Questions
Is a wallet recharge the same as my subscription payment?
No. Your subscription pays for platform access on a recurring schedule. Wallet recharges pay for usage-based pass-through charges and occur when your balance reaches its threshold.
Why did I receive more than one charge in a month?
Your account may have a regular subscription charge and one or more wallet recharge charges. The number and timing of wallet recharges depend on usage.
Do incoming messages use credits?
Yes. Inbound SMS and MMS activity use credits, as do outbound messages.
What is an SMS segment?
An SMS segment is a character chunk that mobile carriers and messaging providers like Twilio use to measure and bill text messages. A message may appear as one text on the recipient's phone but contain multiple billable segments behind the scenes.
The number of characters in each segment depends on the characters used:
- Standard alphabet (GSM-7): A single-segment message can contain up to 160 characters. Longer messages use up to 153 characters per segment.
- Emojis, special characters, or non-Latin scripts (Unicode/UCS-2): A single-segment message can contain up to 70 characters. Longer messages use up to 67 characters per segment.
For example, a long message or a message containing an emoji may use multiple segments and therefore more credits. The receiving phone automatically reassembles the segments into one message.
brayv.ai uses smart encoding to help as many messages as possible use GSM-7 encoding. However, some characters, including emojis, always require Unicode/UCS-2 encoding.
Ok I see the per segment cost for SMS and the per message cost for MMS, but what about "carrier fees"?
This is a question we get a lot, especially with customers coming over from HighLevel. You think your messages are going to cost one thing and then they really cost more because of "carrier fees."
With brayv it's different. We combine the twilio cost and the carrier fee into one unified cost.
With Twilio an SMS segment costs $0.0083 plus each segment you send has a "carrier fee" passed through from the end carrier (Verizon, T-mobile, etc.). Carrier fees range from $0.0035 to $0.005. This means the true effective cost to send an sms directly on Twilio (and white label platforms like HighLevel) ranges between $0.0118 and $0.0133 (more than 1 cent) even though this is typically not clearly displayed.
On brayv.ai we combine all that and only passthrough 0.0096 worth of charges (less than 1 cent) per SMS segment. What you see is what you get.
What are Text AI input and output tokens?
Tokens are small pieces of text that an AI model reads and generates while handling a conversation turn.
- Input tokens include the information the AI reads, such as agent instructions, relevant conversation history, the latest message, and information needed to complete actions.
- Output tokens include the content the AI generates while reasoning, taking actions, and preparing its response.
Token usage can vary from one message turn to another. Longer conversations, more complex requests, additional reasoning, and actions the agent needs to take may all increase the number of input or output tokens used.
Text AI tokens are charged at a per-million-token rate, with separate rates for input and output tokens. You can see how many tokens a particular message turn used in the AI Agent Logs.
brayv offers these tokens for text agents at a unified input and output token price regardless of which model you choose to run your agent. Our pricing often reflects a signficant discount (more than 50% in many cases) on API pricing for the same tokens directly from anthropic, openAI etc. Choose whichever model you want, your token rate remains the same.
Why are Voice AI calls billed per minute instead of as separate phone and token costs?
A Voice AI call involves more than a standard phone call or text conversation. During the call, brayv.ai must maintain the live phone connection, understand the caller's speech, process the conversation with AI, and turn the AI's response into natural-sounding speech—all in real time.
Each part of that process has its own underlying cost, and the amount used can change throughout a call. Instead of charging for many separate charges for every Voice AI conversation, brayv.ai combines them into one credits-per-minute rate. Voice AI conversations also often burn through signficantly more token usage than text conversations depding on a caller's conversation patterns. Our goal with pass-through costs is to make them predictable.
Normalizing to a per minute rate makes Voice AI usage more predictable for you. You can estimate the cost from the length of the call without having to calculate phone time, speech generation, AI tokens, speech transcription, and other technical services separately.
Where can I see what used my credits?
Go to Settings > Billing and review the Usage section. Select the current or a past period to see the breakdown by usage type.
Where can I see the rate for each service?
Go to Settings > Billing, find Subscription Details, and click "View Plan Details".
I anticipate very high volume, but I don't want frequent charges. What should I do?
Go to Settings > Billing and change the refill amount to something higher based on your usage patterns. Ultimately the cost will be the same, but your card will be charged less often.
Related Features
- Account Setup Prerequisites - Complete your account and billing setup
- brayv.ai Quick Start Guide - Set up your first automated lead journey
- AI Text Agents - Learn how automated text conversations work
- AI Voice Agents - Configure inbound and outbound Voice AI