This article provides information about phone credits and the enhanced recharge flow in Freshcaller.

Overview of phone credits

Phone credits are prepaid cash that you can add/purchase in advance.  Freshcaller uses your purchased phone credits for the following:

• Phone number purchases
• Inbound and outbound call credits based on the Call charges
• Voicemail transcripts
• Additional features used during calls

Note: Call charges may include additional charges for call recording, call barging, transfer/conference calls, charges for calls attended on SIP phone, etc. For more details, see our call rates.

What happens when you do not have enough phone credits?

When you don't have enough phone credits, you cannot make or receive calls, or purchase phone numbers. As credits are deducted each time you make or receive a call, it's essential to recharge your account whenever the balance drops below $2 to avoid any service interruptions. 

1. If you run out of credits and try to make a call, you will see the following message on the caller widget.
   
2. When you try buying a phone number with insufficient credits, you will see the following screen.

Updated recharge flow

To be compliant with U.S. regulations governing VoIP providers which regulate all Telephony products, we have enhanced our pricing strategies and separated the charges for inbound and outbound calls.

With the enhanced recharge flow in Freshcaller, you can now recharge your phone credits and allocate them as follows:

• Inbound credits used for inbound calls
• Outbound credits used for outbound calls
• Number credits used for phone number purchases

You can check the call charges and phone numbers for different countries here.

How are the phone credits shared?

Freshcaller automatically distributes the phone credits between inbound and outbound calls and phone number purchases based on your past usage. For example, if you have historically spent more credits for outbound calls, a larger portion of credits will be added to outbound credits compared to inbound credits.

Phone number credits always start at zero. Whenever you purchase a phone number, the credits will be deducted, resulting in a negative balance. Every time you recharge, this negative balance will be normalized and reset to zero.

Note: If past usage data is unavailable, the credits will be equally divided between inbound and outbound calls (50-50), and phone number credits will be set to zero.

Example: Let's assume your current credit balance is $5, with the following distribution:

Incoming: -1 | outgoing: 10 | number: -4 

If you recharge your account with $25, the credit split will work as follows:

• Freshcaller first normalizes any negative balances. In this example, the incoming and number credits are negative.
• To normalize these:
  • 4 credits will be used to reset the phone number credits to 0.
  • 1 credit will be used to reset the incoming call credits to 0.
  • The remaining $20 will be split between inbound and outbound calls based on past usage. If your past usage was 60% for inbound calls and 40% for outbound calls, the $20 will be split accordingly: $12 for incoming and $8 for outgoing.
• Final balance after auto-split:
  Incoming: 12 | Outgoing: 18 |Number: 0

The same logic applies when you opt for auto-recharge.

Note: The negative credit balances in your account will not affect or block any Freshcaller services.

Types of recharge methods

At Freshcaller, you can add or recharge your phone credits in multiple ways.

1. Online recharge
   Recharge your phone credits with a credit card. You could do this in the following ways:
   • Recharge credits online
   • Auto-recharge online
2. Offline recharge
   Recharge your credits offline, even without a credit card. This can be done in the following ways:
   1. Offline recharge via email
   2. Offline auto-recharge

Recharge credits online

To manually recharge your phone credits:

1. Log in to your account as Admin and go to Admin Settings > Account Settings > Plan and Billing.
2. Click Buy Phone Credits. Under Phone credits, you can check your current balance and credits used for inbound and outbound calls, and number purchases.
   
3. Select the recharge amount. Based on the recharge amount, the credits are automatically split between inbound, outbound, and phone number credits. For details on how the credits are split, see New/updated recharge flow.
   
4. To share the credit amount manually, enable the Manually adjust the credit split option and Use the sliders to adjust the amount.
   Note: When you split the amount manually, ensure to not exceed the total credit amount selected.
5. Enter your card details and make the payment. If your card details are already saved, the recharge amount will be automatically deducted from your card.

Auto-recharge credits online

An alternate solution to add/recharge your credits is to use the auto-recharge option. By default, the auto-recharge option is disabled. When you enable this option, the credits are automatically renewed every month when the balance reaches $5.

1. Select the Auto-recharge option to enable automatic recharging.
2. Choose the recharge amount you want to add each month and click Update.
   
   Notes:
   1. You can auto-recharge your account for any amount between $5 and $25. If you wish to increase the amount, drop us an email at [email protected].
   2. The auto-recharge option is not available when you are on trial. You can write to [email protected] to procure the invoice.

Recharge credits offline via mail

If you do not wish to keep a credit card on file, you can choose to recharge your credits offline. You will receive an email whenever your account's credit goes below $5. You can then mail us at [email protected] with the credit amount you want to add. 

The billing team will add the credits and generate the invoice with you. Also, if you opt for offline recharge, the auto-recharge option will not work. However, if there is a credit card saved in your account, you could manually recharge.

Note: If you choose to recharge the credits offline, you will not have the option to manually split the credits and the option will not be available on the Billing page. The credits will be split offline based on the previous data.

Auto-recharge credits offline

If you wish to auto-recharge your credits offline, send a mail to the billing team at [email protected] with the following details:

• The recharge amount you wish to add with every reload
• The threshold value of credits you want to set before we reload. For example, If the threshold is $100, we will reload the credit balance each it reaches $100
• The maximum amount of phone credits per month you expect to spend

  For offline invoicing, you may have to additionally fill a SOF. Your account manager uses this to raise an offline invoice and add phone credits.

  
  

Note: If you choose to auto-recharge the credits offline, you will not have the option to manually split the credits and the option will not be available on the Billing page. The credits will be split offline based on the previous data.

FAQs