When your minutes run low or run out

Every conversation your agents have runs on your AI minutes: phone calls, conversations on your website (voice and chat), test calls and chats in Preview, test scenario runs and operations-agent runs. Your plan's included minutes renew every month; extra minutes you add stay until you use them. The Dashboard shows what is left (Available AI speech minutes), and so does Settings > Overview.

Before they run out#

When what is left drops to a fifth of your plan's monthly included minutes (5 minutes at least; on a plan with 30 included minutes, that is at 6 minutes), a notice appears at the top of every console page and we email the account owner (or, when the account has no owner contact, up to three of its account administrators). The email comes once a month at most and links straight to the two places described below. Projects have an alert of their own, set in Settings > Projects: the account owner (or, without an owner contact, up to three account administrators) hears when a project's own minutes fall to a threshold (10 minutes unless changed).

When your minutes run out#

When no minutes are left, new conversations do not start until you add minutes or upgrade your plan. For a project, that means its own minutes and, when it may use them, the account pool.

• In the console, the notice at the top of every page says your minutes are used up and how many calls and chats went unanswered this month, with one button to add minutes and one to upgrade your plan (Upgrade plan). A second email goes to the same people, again once that month.
• Callers are not answered: a new call to one of your numbers ends straight away, the way a busy or unanswered line does. No announcement is played, so a caller never hears anything about your account.
• Website visitors simply do not see the widget; nothing else on your page changes. A visitor who already had it open sees it close quietly. The page of a test link says only that the link is paused and to contact whoever shared it, and a session that could not start does not count against the link's session limit.
• Outbound calls are not placed.
• Test calls, preview chats and test scenario runs do not start either; the console shows the same two buttons there.
• Operations-agent runs are not started: each one appears in Runs marked Minutes used up, with the message Not run: your AI minutes are used up.; no step runs and nothing is billed.

Calls already in progress are never cut: they finish as usual, and the time they run past zero comes out of the next minutes you get. As soon as minutes are available again, calls are answered, the widget shows again and runs start, with nothing to redeploy.

Add minutes or upgrade#

Both are done in the console, and both are linked from the notice and from the emails:

• Add minutes: the notice's first button opens it on the Dashboard. For the account, an administrator pays with the saved card: the dialog shows how many minutes the amount gives, the invoice is issued automatically and the minutes are in the account pool at once. If the billing details or the card are not set up yet, the dialog offers just two buttons: one to add minutes now, which asks for the card and the billing details right there and then goes on to the payment, and Upgrade plan, marked as recommended. A project gets its minutes from its provider: outside white-label mode, the account administrator transfers minutes to it or lets it use the account's main pool (Settings > Projects); in white-label mode, the project's users can also pay the provider by card for its plans and minute bundles.
• Upgrade: open Settings > Subscription, pick a plan and press Upgrade to this plan. A larger plan includes more minutes every month, and choosing a plan also sets up the billing details and the card, so it is the way forward when the account has no card yet.

Adding minutes to the account and changing its plan are for account administrators; anyone else sees the same notice, asking them to contact one.