Billing
What you pay for, how the monthly subscription and metered usage fit together, and where to manage it.
Billing sits at the workspace level under Plan and usage. Each workspace holds one subscription with two kinds of line.
| Kind of line | What it covers | When it is charged |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed monthly | The phone numbers you rent and any reserved call lines you hold | Every month, whether or not anyone rings |
| Metered usage | The calls and AI work you actually used | On what you used |
Both settle on the same monthly invoice. There is no plan fee beyond the fixed items. If you hold no numbers and no reserved lines, your invoice is metered usage alone.
Voice calls
Calls are the main metered charge, billed per minute of audio from connect to hang-up, rounded up to the next minute.
What the per-minute rate is made of
The rate is composed: the language model's own rate, plus transcription, plus speech synthesis.
| Agent on the default Fast model | Per minute |
|---|---|
| Standard Cartesia voice | A$0.25 |
| Premium ElevenLabs voice | A$0.40 |
Heavier model tiers cost more per minute. You choose the model and voice in the agent editor. See Model for rates.
If you never picked a voice
An agent whose voice was never chosen runs on the platform default (ElevenLabs) and bills at A$0.40/min. Picking a Cartesia voice lowers it to A$0.25/min.
Per-call metrics
Each enabled call-quality metric adds a small per-call charge (once per call, not per minute). An agent with no metrics enabled carries no metrics charge.
Calls above your concurrency
Each workspace has a concurrent-call ceiling (five by default). A call above the ceiling still connects but its whole duration is billed at 1.5x the usual rate.
If you burst regularly, a reserved call line at A$25/month raises the ceiling by one and costs less than the surcharge.
Phone numbers
Each number is charged a monthly rental from activation until you release it. Rental is a fixed line item, billed even with no calls, and not capped by the call spend limit. The exact amount is shown before you confirm a purchase. See Phone numbers.
Building your agent
AI work while building is metered by usage: builder chat, the test chat panel and processing knowledge base sources. A builder chat reply is typically a few cents. For what an evaluation run costs, see Evals.
Free credit
A A$20 credit is minted when you add a card (not at sign-up) and expires ninety days later. It applies to metered usage only: it does not offset phone number rental or reserved lines.
The credit is granted once per person. It is refused if:
- you have already claimed it on another workspace
- the same card or payment account has already claimed it
- your phone number is unverified where verification is required
Plan and usage names the reason when a credit is refused.
Call spend limit
Call spend limit governs metered call usage only. New calls pause once the cycle's usage reaches the limit; calls already in progress always finish.
Phone number rental does not count towards the limit, so a workspace can be charged more than its limit in a month.
The limit defaults to A$200 and can be set from A$10 to A$10,000.
Why the card shows a second number
The minimum limit is A$10, and two numbers can cost more than that in rental. So the card also shows the most you can be charged this cycle, which is the limit plus your committed rental.
Where to manage it
Plan and usage holds this cycle's usage, your credit balance and a breakdown by feature and model. It also holds the payment method, invoices, the call spend limit and call capacity. Use invoices for the settled monthly record.