SMS credits

SMS reminders are the best way to cut no-shows. TimeToBook sends confirmation and reminder texts to your clients automatically — you just need credits to cover them.

How credits work

A short SMS costs one credit. When a confirmation or reminder is sent, one credit is deducted from your balance.

You get credits two ways:

1. Bundled allowance — 50 free SMS per extra staff member per billing cycle, included with any paid plan. A team with 2 staff (1 billable) gets 50, 3 staff gets 100, 5 staff gets 200, and so on.
2. Prepaid packs — buy packs of 100 credits whenever you need more.

The bundled allowance is used first. Once it runs out, prepaid credits kick in. Prepaid credits never expire.

The bundled allowance resets on your billing date — the same day each month that you're charged for your subscription. Unused credits don't roll over.

Long messages cost more credits

SMS was designed around a 160-character limit. Anything longer is split into multiple "segments" by your carrier — each segment sent as a separate SMS, billed as a separate SMS. TimeToBook charges one credit per segment so your allowance and prepaid balance match what the carriers actually deliver.

Here are the exact rules we (and every carrier) use:

The split is slightly smaller in multi-part messages because 7 bytes per segment are reserved to stitch them back together on the recipient's phone.

Examples

• A 158-character reminder in plain text → 1 credit.
• A 180-character reminder in plain text → 2 credits (exceeds 160, so splits into 2 × 153).
• A 320-character plain-text message → 3 credits (needs 3 × 153 to fit).
• A reminder with an emoji 🎉 → the whole message becomes Unicode, so even 80 characters becomes 2 credits.

Keeping messages to 1 credit

• Stay under 160 characters after placeholders like {service}, {staff_name}, {client_name} and {location} are filled in — the longest actual values will push you over.
• Avoid emoji, curly quotes, and accented characters, which force the whole message into Unicode mode and drop the limit to 70.
• You can see the final character count and credit cost on the Messages page — multi-segment messages are tagged with an amber badge showing how many credits they used.

Buying credits

1. Go to Settings → Notifications.
2. Scroll to SMS Credits.
3. Click Buy Credits.
4. Choose how many packs you'd like (1–10 packs of 100 credits each).
5. Click Continue to Payment — you'll be taken to Stripe to complete the purchase.

Credits are added to your account instantly after payment.

Pricing

Pricing depends on your region:

Checking your balance

Your SMS balance is shown in Settings → Notifications under SMS Credits. You'll see:

• Bundled allowance — how many of this cycle's free SMS you've used, and when the cycle resets (your next billing date).
• Prepaid balance — credits you've purchased (never expire).
• Total available — both combined.

When your total drops below 30 credits, a low balance warning appears to nudge you to top up before you run out.

Auto top-up

Don't want to think about it? Turn on auto top-up:

1. Go to Settings → Notifications.
2. Under SMS Credits, toggle Auto Top-Up on.
3. Set your threshold — e.g. "top up when balance drops below 20".
4. Set your quantity — e.g. "purchase 1 pack (100 credits)".

When your balance hits the threshold, we'll automatically charge your card and add credits. No interruption to your reminders.

What SMS are sent?

TimeToBook sends two types of SMS to clients:

• Confirmation — sent immediately when a booking is made, letting the client know it's locked in.
• Reminder — sent before the appointment (24 hours by default) to reduce no-shows.

Both can be toggled on or off per location in Settings → Notifications. You can also customise the message templates to match your tone.

Who gets the bundled allowance?

The bundled SMS allowance is included only with an active paid subscription. Trial users and solo operators on the free plan don't get it, but they can still buy prepaid packs. If you cancel and enter the post-cancellation grace period, the bundled allowance stops too — you'll need prepaid credits to keep sending.

The allowance scales with how many extra staff you pay for:

Credits are shared

If you have multiple locations, your SMS credits are pooled across the whole business. All locations draw from the same balance — you don't need to buy separately for each one.

Running out

If your balance hits zero, SMS sending pauses. Clients won't receive confirmation or reminder texts until you top up. Email notifications are unaffected and keep going regardless of your SMS balance.

You'll receive an email when your prepaid credits are exhausted so you can act quickly.