What this helps you do
Understand which text messages Bloomber sends for free, which ones draw from your Bloomber Credits (BC) balance, and how much each type of send actually costs.
Before you start
- SMS has to be set up and registered on your account before Bloomber can send any text message, free or paid. If you haven't done that yet, start at Settings → SMS · 10DLC.
- This page covers SMS specifically. Custom one-off emails you compose to a client also draw a small number of credits, at a separate (lower) rate — not covered here.
The short version
Bloomber's rule: you're never charged to run your business — only to grow it. Every outbound text falls into exactly one of two buckets:
- Run — transactional, appointment-triggered messages. Free, unmetered, and never blocked by a low balance.
- Grow — messages you or a campaign send to bring in or re-engage business. Billed in Bloomber Credits (BC).
What's always free
None of the following touch your BC balance, no matter how low it is:
- Booking confirmations
- Appointment reminders (the 24-hour and 1-hour reminder texts)
- Cancellation and reschedule notices
- No-show notices
- Payment and deposit/balance/refund receipts, whether delivered by SMS or email
- Payment-action-required alerts
- Review requests
- Every inbound message a client sends you
- Your replies inside an active conversation — roughly within 24–72 hours of the client's last message, or any time inside their appointment's booking window
What uses Bloomber Credits
Anything you (or a campaign) initiate to grow the business, outside an active conversation, draws from BC:
| Send type | Cost |
|---|---|
| Manual one-off SMS to a client | 5 BC per 160-character segment |
| Marketing campaign / broadcast SMS | 4 BC per recipient |
| Dedicated SMS number, billed monthly | 1,200 BC/mo |
| One-time 10DLC brand & campaign registration | 500 BC, or pay cash instead |
At Bloomber's Starter credit pack (1,000 BC for $10, or $0.01 per credit), that works out to roughly 5¢ per manual SMS segment and 4¢ per campaign recipient. Larger packs (Growth, Pro, Enterprise) lower your effective cost per credit to as low as $0.007.
The monthly SMS number fee (1,200 BC) covers 10DLC carrier compliance, message routing, and message access — the same rate whether you got a new Bloomber number or are hosting your own existing business line. If you host your own number, your carrier still bills you separately for voice; Bloomber only bills the SMS side.
How segments are counted
- One segment covers up to 160 characters.
- Bloomber automatically appends a compliance footer (a STOP/HELP-style line) to outbound texts if your message doesn't already include one — that footer counts toward the character total, so a message that looks short on screen can still land as two segments.
- Messages are capped at 480 characters total (3 segments), including the footer.
- Before you send a one-off message from Outreach → Inbox → + New message, Bloomber shows you the live segment count, the BC cost, and your current balance so there's no surprise at send time.
Checking your balance and usage
Go to Settings → Billing → Credit balance & refill. That page shows:
- Your current BC balance
- A month-by-month SMS usage breakdown, by feature (manual sends, campaigns, the monthly number fee)
- Your full credit ledger and transaction history
- Auto-refill: turn it on and pick a threshold (Conservative, Balanced, Aggressive, or a custom number) so a credit pack purchases automatically before you run out
Common problems
- A campaign didn't send anything at all. Bloomber checks your BC balance against the full estimated cost before dispatching a campaign. If your balance can't cover every deliverable recipient, the whole campaign is marked failed up front instead of sending partway through.
- A manual message failed but didn't use any credits. If your balance ran out mid-send, or the recipient has opted out (replied STOP) or is in quiet hours, the send fails without charging BC.
- My message used more segments than I expected. Check for the compliance footer Bloomber appends automatically — it adds to your character count and can push a message over the 160-character line into a second segment.
- I'm getting low-balance emails. Bloomber emails you automatically as your balance nears zero (three escalating thresholds tied to your monthly SMS costs), at most once per threshold every 24 hours. Turning on auto-refill from the Credits page stops these once your balance stays topped up.
- A reminder or confirmation I expected to cost credits didn't. That's by design — booking confirmations and reminders never draw from your BC balance, even though your account still shows a listed rate for them.