A phone number carries two charges: a one-time setup fee when you buy it, and a monthly rental for as long as you keep it. The part that catches people out is the second half of that sentence — as long as you keep it — because several things that feel like getting rid of a number do not actually get rid of it. This page covers both the fees and the ways the bill stops.
Where phone numbers live
Numbers are bought, nicknamed, routed and released at Settings → Organization settings → Phone numbers. They belong to the organisation, not to any one brand: each number is a real purchase from our telephony provider with its own billing line, and a number can only ever ring one agent, so it cannot be shared.
The one-time setup fee
The setup fee is charged once, when you buy the number, and it is not refundable. How much it is depends on the country and the type of number, and the exact figure is shown on the purchase screen before you confirm anything.
Your first charge, then the monthly rental
- The setup fee — one-time and non-refundable.
- A prorated rental covering the days left in your current billing period.
From your next billing date onwards you pay the regular monthly rental only. Like the setup fee, the rental depends on the country and the number type (local, mobile, toll-free), and both are shown before you buy.
Releasing a number — and what happens to the money
Only the organisation owner can release a number. An administrator who tries is refused. Releasing stops the recurring rental, and the unused part of the current rental cycle is credited to your Yaplet account balance — it is not refunded to your card, and it is applied against what you owe next. The setup fee is never refunded.
Occasionally the telephony provider refuses to take a number back. When that happens you get an error and nothing is removed — the number is still in your list. Be aware of what has already happened at that point: the money side ran first, so the recurring charge has stopped and any credit has been applied even though the number is still showing. Retrying the release is safe and is the right thing to do.
What does not stop the bill
- Deleting the voice agent. The deletion succeeds, its numbers are un-assigned and their routing is reset — and they carry on charging their monthly rental until somebody releases them.
- Deleting the brand. Deleting a brand deletes its voice agents, but its phone numbers stay with the organisation — unassigned, ringing nothing, still billing.
- Letting a payment fail. If the subscription is eventually cancelled for non-payment, the numbers are handed back to the provider, but you are credited nothing for the unused days. Release them deliberately instead.
Cancelling your subscription from the dashboard is the one indirect route that does work properly: it releases every number immediately and credits the unused portion of each one's cycle to your balance.
Per-minute call billing
On top of the rental, calls bill per minute from your Yaplet credits, at approximately $0.12 a minute. See Buy Yaplet credits to keep the balance topped up.
My number hasn't appeared yet
A purchase is provisioned by the provider within seconds, but the confirmation coming back to us is not guaranteed to arrive. Two things cover that. Opening the Phone numbers page re-checks every unsettled order with the provider, so simply visiting the page is usually enough to make a bought number appear. And a background sweep reconciles unsettled orders once an hour regardless, so at worst a number is late by an hour, not lost. A purchase that actually failed is never silent: the reason from the provider is shown inside the purchase dialog, and only a successful purchase closes it.