Skip to main content
Cal.com workflows can send SMS and WhatsApp reminders, confirmations, and follow-ups to attendees. To cover the cost of these outbound messages, Cal.com meters them as credits. Most accounts include a monthly credit allowance, with optional top-ups. Enterprise plans and Platform organizations receive unlimited credits and are never charged for workflow messages.

​
How credits work

Every SMS and WhatsApp message a workflow sends is counted against your credit balance. Each account has:
  • Monthly credits — included with your plan and reset each billing cycle.
  • Additional credits — purchased on top of the monthly allowance and roll over until used.
When your balance gets low, Cal.com sends a warning email so you can top up before messages stop. If you run out of credits, workflow SMS and WhatsApp messages aren’t sent as text messages until the balance is restored or your billing cycle resets. See When messages are skipped for details.

​
Plans with unlimited credits

The following plans are not metered for workflow SMS or WhatsApp messages:
  • Enterprise plans — every team or organization on an Enterprise subscription has unlimited credits.
  • Platform organizations — organizations on a Platform plan have unlimited credits across all teams in the organization.
For these plans, Cal.com does not deduct credits, send low-balance warnings, or block message delivery based on credit balance. The “Billing” page in Cal.com shows an “Unlimited” badge instead of a remaining balance.
Unlimited credits cover Cal.com’s per-message billing only. Standard Twilio carrier fees still apply.

​
Check your credit balance

Use the credits API to read the current balance for the authenticated user (or their team/organization):
Example response for an Enterprise team:
Example response for a metered team:
When balance.unlimited is true, your account is on Enterprise or a Platform organization and credits never decrement.

​
When messages are skipped

A scheduled workflow SMS or WhatsApp message isn’t sent as a text message when the account is on a metered plan and has no credits available at send time. For timed SMS and WhatsApp reminders, attendees get the message by email instead (see Timed SMS and WhatsApp reminders). Cal.com checks credits in this order:
  1. Unlimited plans (Enterprise, Platform organization) always send.
  2. Active or past-due subscriptions with monthly credits remaining send normally. Past-due accounts keep sending so reminders aren’t interrupted while you update billing.
  3. Trial or unsubscribed teams can only send if they have purchased additional credits. Monthly trial credits alone do not unblock SMS until the subscription becomes active.
  4. If the monthly allowance is exhausted, the team falls back to purchased additional credits until those run out.
Email steps in the same workflow are unaffected. Once a subscription activates or credits are topped up, future messages send normally.

​
Timed SMS and WhatsApp reminders

For SMS and WhatsApp reminders scheduled before or after an event, Cal.com waits until the scheduled send time to prepare the message. At that moment it renders the text from the booking’s latest details and the workflow step’s current message (for WhatsApp, the step’s selected WhatsApp template), then checks the credit balance of the user or team that owns the workflow. If no credits are available at send time:
  • SMS or WhatsApp to attendees is delivered to the attendee by email instead, using the same message text.
  • SMS or WhatsApp to a specific number is skipped.