Billing

Tandem runs on a prepaid balance. Usage draws it down as it happens: calls, text messages, email, phone numbers, and AI usage. Admin → Billing is where you see the balance, set up automatic billing to keep it funded, see what your usage cost, and manage the cards your organization pays with, your invoices, and your credits.

Everything here is organization-wide and sits behind the administrator role. Every role Tandem issues today — Owner, Admin and Member — carries that role, so in practice everyone in your organization can reach this page. See Admin.

Check your balance

The figure at the top of the page is your current balance. It updates as usage is recorded, so it reflects what you have left right now rather than a monthly statement. It includes any credits you can spend now, and says how much of it is credit.

If usage runs past your balance and credits, the figure goes below zero. The line under it says how much usage isn't paid yet, and See Usage opens the Usage tab for the breakdown.

Once your balance is used up, Tandem can pause outgoing calls, texts, and email, and then incoming calls once $5 of usage is unpaid or 24 hours have passed, whichever comes first. With automatic billing on, outgoing usage continues within the same limits while the recharge goes through. A notice across the top of every page except the full-screen editors says the balance is used up and what, if anything, has paused. On other pages, its Go to Billing button opens this one. To add funds, use automatic billing: turn it on, or choose Try Again if a payment failed.

If the page shows an error instead of a number, that means Tandem couldn't reach the billing service — not that your balance is zero. Reload before acting on it. If the figure is shown with We couldn't check for unpaid usage under it, it leaves out any usage past your balance, so reload to check again.

Some accounts aren't billed against a balance at all. Those see a note under the figure saying so. Usage is still recorded.

Automatic billing

Automatic billing, on the Overview tab, keeps your balance funded. When the balance falls to the amount you choose, your default card is charged enough to bring it back up to a second amount you choose. Each charge produces an invoice under Billing History.

To turn it on, you need a default card (see Payment methods). Then:

1. Enter Recharge when balance falls to. It must be at least $5.00.
2. Enter Recharge to. It must be at least $10.00 more than the first amount, and at most $10,000.00.
3. Choose Turn On.

Once it is on, you can change either amount and choose Save, but automatic billing cannot be turned off.

If your balance is already at or below the first amount, the button names the charge (for example Turn On and Charge $75.00 Now), and your card is charged as soon as you choose it. A recharge also pays any usage that isn't paid yet, so the charge includes it. The new balance appears a few seconds later.

If an automatic payment fails, automatic billing pauses and the card shows Automatic payment failed. Check your default card, then choose Try Again, which turns automatic billing back on and retries the payment.

If your organization moves to a new billing contract, automatic billing turns off and the card says so. Choose Turn On to set it up again with the same amounts. As on first setup, if your balance is at or below the first amount, the button names the charge and your card is charged straight away.

Payment methods

Payment methods, on the Overview tab, lists the cards saved for your organization. Each row shows the card network, the last four digits, the expiry date, and the name on the card. The Default card is the one automatic billing charges.

To add a card:

1. Choose Add Card.
2. Enter your card details. Card details go straight to Stripe and never pass through Tandem.
3. To make the new card the default, check Make this the default card. Your first card always becomes the default, so the option is shown only once you have a card saved.
4. Choose Save Card.

To make another saved card the default, choose Make Default on its row.

To remove a card, choose the delete button on its row and confirm. The default card cannot be removed: make another card the default first. Saved cards cannot be edited. To change a card's details, add it again and remove the old one.

What things cost

Pricing, at the top of the page, lists what you are charged for, grouped into AI, calls, messaging, phone numbers, seats, and the compliance costs we pass through at cost. Calls and text messages show the inbound and outbound price side by side.

The figures on that page are the ones in force for your account, read from your billing contract, including any prices agreed for your account. Before your account has a contract, the page shows the standard rates and says so. This page does not repeat the numbers, because a copy in the documentation goes stale. Read them on the page.

When you buy a phone number, the dialog opens with what that kind of number costs on your contract and, if your organization pays from its own balance, your current balance. Once you pick a number, the Buy Number button names the price too. If your contract has no single price for that kind of number, or your account has no contract yet, the dialog says only that numbers are billed to your organization.

How time is rounded

Call time, IVR time and voice AI time are billed in half-minute steps, rounded up. Any part of a half minute bills as a whole one: a 13-second call bills as half a minute, and a 40-second call as a full minute.

How AI is priced

Voice AI is charged per minute, and covers the whole stack — speech recognition, voice synthesis, and the reasoning behind the reply. Digital AI, on webchat and SMS, is charged per conversation with every AI turn included, so a long exchange costs the same as a short one.

Voice AI time counts only while an AI agent has the call. It stops when the agent hands the call to a workflow, and for good when the call is transferred or a supervisor takes it over. If an agent has the call more than once, the times are added together before they are rounded. If the agent cannot be connected, there is no voice AI charge.

A web chat is charged for Digital AI once, when an AI agent first replies. Later replies in the same conversation add nothing. A chat no AI agent replies to, because a person or a scripted workflow handles it, has no Digital AI charge.

Telephony and messaging are billed separately from both, so a phone call is charged for AI usage and for call minutes separately.

A conversation handled by a human carries no AI charge.

How IVR is priced

IVR is charged per minute for the time a call spends in a workflow: menus, prompts, keypad and speech input, and the steps between them. It is charged in addition to call minutes.

• Time with an AI agent is not IVR. While an AI Voice Agent node has the call, the time is billed as Voice AI. If the agent hands the call back to the workflow, IVR time starts again.
• Time with a person is not IVR. IVR time stops for good when the call is transferred to an outside number, when an AI agent transfers it, or when a supervisor takes it over.
• A call routed straight to an AI agent carries no IVR charge, unless the agent hands it to a workflow.

IVR time is rounded up to the next half minute, the same as call time.

How a call is billed

One phone call can bill more than one line on the Usage tab, because each line covers a different part of the call:

• Call minutes, for the phone line while the call is connected. They're billed as Local call or Toll-free call by whether your number on the call is local or toll-free, and as in or out by the call's direction.
• IVR, for the time the call spends in a workflow. See How IVR is priced.
• AI Voice, for the time an AI agent has the call. See How AI is priced.

Each line is rounded up to the next half minute on its own, call by call. A 17-second call to your toll-free number that a workflow answers and ends bills half a minute of Toll-free call, in and half a minute of IVR. Ten of those calls show as 5 minutes of each.

When a workflow's Transfer to External node sends an inbound call to an outside number, its call minutes stop at the transfer, the same as its IVR time. A call an AI agent transfers stays connected through Tandem, so its call minutes run until the call ends.

A browser test call is billed like a phone call into the workflow. It has no number of its own, so its call minutes show as Local call, in.

To see which calls a line came from, open By Conversation on the Usage tab. In Call Logs, the number an inbound voice call came in on is labeled Toll-free or Local.

Fair use

Each conversation includes a token allowance, and the figure is shown on the page. Conversations that run past it — very long histories, or large knowledge-base retrievals — are charged an overage rate on the tokens above the ceiling, billed in whole thousands.

The allowance covers the whole conversation, on calls and web chats alike: a call an AI agent picks up more than once has one allowance, not one each time. On a web chat, overage is charged as the conversation goes, after each reply. On a call, it's charged when the AI agent hands the call on or the call ends.

Compliance costs

Message registration and carrier fees are passed through at cost, with no margin: 10DLC brand and campaign registration, toll-free verification, and carrier surcharges.

10DLC brand registration is a one-time fee, and campaign registration is a monthly fee for each campaign. The rates page shows both at your contract's price. Toll-free verification and carrier surcharges show as TBD while the amounts are confirmed with our carrier partner. 10DLC registration is not yet available in any case, and if you bring your own carrier you register on your own account, so none of these apply to you today.

Included at no charge

The page also lists what is not billed at all — no setup, implementation, integration or connector fees; no feature gating, so every capability is on every account; unlimited Builder and Admin seats; and no billing on failed calls, timeouts or system errors.

Usage

The Billing page has four tabs. Overview holds your balance, billing email, automatic billing, and payment methods. Usage shows how much your organization used. Billing History lists your invoices (see Billing history), and Credits lists credits granted to your organization (see Credits).

The Usage tab shows what your organization used and what it cost, at your contract's rates. Days are in UTC, and new usage can take a few minutes to appear. Usage from sub-tenants is included in their parent organization's figures.

It shows This month to start with. Pick Last month, Last 30 days, or other dates with the date range, up to 92 days at a time.

By Product, the default, has one row for each product used in the range, grouped by Pricing panel section.

Varies means the price changed within the range. Tiered is a product priced in tiers, such as seats, where what each unit costs depends on how many there were. If your contract's rates can't be loaded, the page says so and shows no rates. Costs aren't affected.

Not priced is usage your contract has no price for. It's listed on a row of its own with no cost, and the page says so. Contact support if that looks wrong. Only days from when your billing began are checked, and today is checked once the day is over, since new usage can take a few minutes to be priced. Not priced is different from Part unpriced under By Conversation, which is a conversation with a charge that has no flat price, such as one priced in tiers.

Under the table are the range's Total, how much of it was Paid from credits, and how much was Paid from your balance. Not yet paid appears when your balance ran out before the usage was covered; it's also why the balance on the Overview tab can be below zero.

By Day has one row for each product used on each day, newest first, 20 to a page, with the date, product, category, quantity, unit, rate, and cost. A tiered product's rate shows as Tiered, and Export leaves it blank. A Not priced row says Not priced in Export's rate column.

When the lines shown include calls, By Product and By Day show a note that one call can bill several lines (see How a call is billed). View by Conversation in the note opens By Conversation for the same range.

To narrow By Product or By Day, type in the search box to match a product or its category, or open Filters to pick categories and products. A narrowed view shows only Total for these products; what was paid from credits and your balance is shown for the whole range.

Export downloads the By Day rows as a CSV file, filters included, with the rate and cost in US dollars.

By Conversation lists the range's conversations with what each used and cost, newest first, 20 at a time. Load More shows the next 20, and sorting by Highest Cost puts the most expensive first.

Select a row to open the conversation; going back returns to this view with the same range and sort. The search box, Filters, and Export are for By Product and By Day.

Under the list, the range's total is split into Conversations and Account charges, the charges that belong to no conversation, such as phone numbers, seats, and email. Both come from the same figures as By Product, so they include usage the list does not show:

• usage from sub-tenants, since a parent organization lists only its own conversations;
• conversations from before per-conversation records began.

A charge with no flat price on your contract, such as one priced in tiers, has no cost for a single conversation. Its row says Part unpriced, and its cost leaves that charge out.

Before your account has a billing contract, the tab shows quantities only, without rates or costs, and says so.

Billing history

Billing History lists your invoices, newest first, 20 to a page.

Each row has two actions:

• View opens the invoice on our payment processor's site, in a new tab.
• Download PDF downloads a copy of the invoice.

Credits

The Credits tab lists credits and prepaid balances granted to your organization, newest first, 20 to a page.

A credit is Scheduled until its start date and Expired after its expiry date, and shows nothing remaining in both states. Used up means the credit is within its dates and has nothing left to spend.

Credits you can spend now count toward the balance on the Overview tab.

Every organization starts with a $25 Welcome credit, usable for 60 days. It's spent before any balance you paid for.

If you delete the organization

Deleting an organization forfeits the remaining balance, with no refund. It also turns automatic billing off, ends the contract, and removes saved cards. See Delete an Organization.

Billing email

Our payment processor sends receipts to the address shown under Billing email on the Overview tab. This is usually your organization's owner email. An admin can change it with Change Billing Email, or go back to the owner email with Use Organization Email.

If you need a receipt you haven't received, contact support.