How Subscription Works

Channel Talk's subscription plans are based on the plan subscribed and usage. Your subscription begins when you select a plan based on your business size and make a first payment.

You can add more amount of seats and add-on usage that you need in two ways:

• Postpaid billing

• Prepaid for usage

You can combine these with your preferred payment method. Please see more details and examples below.

Channel Talk’s service subscription is divided into plan payments and usage-based payments. After checking the plan’s included usage that fits your channel, you can start your subscription by selecting the plan that matches your business size.

If you exceed the included usage, you can pay for the additional usage in two ways:

• Postpaid (pay after use)

• Prepaid (top up in advance)

You can freely combine plan and usage payment methods to suit your needs. For more details, please refer to the service subscription examples below.

Each plan comes with a set amount of included usage, and you can choose between monthly or annual subscriptions.

MU, seats, and add-ons are billed as you exceed the limit of your plan. You can prepay for your usage or can be billed postpaid. The rates are reduced by usage range, allowing you to save more if you use more.

MU (Managed Users)

• MU usage is calculated based on the total number of customers stored in your Contact list.

• If you use over the amount your plan includes, you'll be charged by usage range.

• The higher the number of stored customer profiles, the lower the unit price

• MU usage may increase when you add customers individually to the Contact list or update multiple records at once by uploading a CSV file.

• All customers saved in your Contact list at least once during the billing cycle are counted toward MU usage.Therefore, even if you delete customer records or set an MU limit within the billing cycle, they are not excluded from your usage count.

• Example

  • If you saved an additional 3,000 MUs in your growth plan (for a total of 6,000 MUs)

    1,000 users X $0.03 = $30.00

    2,000 users X $0.02 = $40.00

    The total additional cost is $70.00, which is the unit price per tier as shown above.

    

Seats

• Basic Seat (General Member)

  • When joining a channel, you are added as a Basic Seat by default.

  • You can use Team Chat.

  • You can view and check customer inquiry history.

  • You can participate as a follower in customer conversations, enabling communication through both customer chats(Reply section) and internal chats(Internal Note section).

• Operator Seat (Agent)

  • Among managers with a Basic Seat, operator permissions can be granted.

  • Operators can be assigned as the person in charge of inquiries, handling both phone calls and chats. (→ Learn more about Operator seats)

• Notes:

  • Seats are purchased per manager, not per channel.

  • Once added, a seat is immediately counted toward usage.

  • An activated seat cannot be transferred to another manager.

  • Even if a manager who has been counted toward usage is removed from the channel, their usage is not deducted.

  • The minimum billing unit for seats is one month. Once activated, the seat is billed for the full month, regardless of when it was activated.

    

Add-Ons:

• Number of Workflow Activations

  • Each time a trigger set in your workflow is activated, it counts as one activation.

  ExampleFor a workflow using the “Start a new chat via chatbot” trigger:If a customer clicks the Channel Talk → Start a new chat button and views the workflow, it counts as one activation.

  

• AI Agent (ALF) Resolved Chats

  • A case is considered resolved when ALF provides a meaningful answer and the customer does not connect with an agent within 24 hours of that meaningful final answer.

    • Meaningful answer: An answer provided by ALF using commands, FAQs, or generated responses(RAG using FAQ or document information).

    • Example:

      • Customer's question (10:23) → ALF’s non-meaningful answer (10:24) → Customer's follow-up question (10:33) → ALF’s meaningful answer (10:34) → Customer leaves.

      • In this case, if the customer does not connect with an agent within 24 hours of the meaningful answer time (10:34), it is counted as resolved.

  • Report: If you believe ALF’s answer is incorrect, please report it to the Channel Team within 24 hours of ALF’s last meaningful answer.

    

• Number of Marketing Sends

  • This refers to the total number of marketing messages delivered to customers.

  • You can check the send count in the statistics for each individual marketing campaign or one-time-message.

    

Monthly Subscription:

• You'll pay the base cost of your plan on the billing date every month

• Any usage that exceeds the usage included in the plan will be billed the next month

  • Example case:

    • Overusage in January will be paid in February

    • February payment = February plan cost + January over usage

Yearly Subscription

• Yearly subscriptions are offered at a 25% discount over monthly subscriptions

• The 12 months for the plan's base cost is paid at once

• Any over-usage during the subscription period will be billed postpaid each month separately from your plan cost

Postpaid Bill

• For MU and seats: calculate based on usage over the plan’s limit

• For add-ons: calculate at a tiered unit price based on the number of actions/activations

• Current usage checking is available in [Billing] → [Subscription].

  (→ Manage Subscription Guide)

Prepaid Usage

• You can purchase a 12-month usage for MU, seats, and each add-on

• A 25% discount is applied for prepaid usage (the cost of sending SMS is not included)

• Prepaid usage has the monthly minimum/maximum usage limits and you can use them within the limit range.

(→ Learn more about Prepaid Usage)

Manual Limits

• You can forecast your usage and set a limit for each feature in advance

• Manual limits can be changed or deleted at any time, so we recommend adjusting them in advance if you have a plan to use more than the limit.

You can combine monthly/yearly subscriptions and postpaid/prepaid usage to suit your business situation.

• Example case:

  • You want to use a yearly plan with Workflow only, but you will need to use the marketing feature in June.

  → You can design your subscription as the yearly plan plus prepaid Workflow usage, and later in July you will get a postpaid bill for marketing usage used in June.

1. Go to [Channel settings] → [Billing] → [Subscription] → [Change subscription]

2. Select [Monthly] or [Yearly], the plan you would like to use, and click [Change subscription]

3. Check the calculation for the amount of changes and click [Confirm]. If you don’t have any payment method registered, a registration request may appear.

   

4. After changing the plan, you can set a manual usage limit or prepay for usage.

When you want to set up a plan renewal or change a scheduled plan, follow the steps below:

1. Go to [Channel Settings → Billing → Subscription] and click “Set Plan.”

   

2. Click the [Schedulds] tab, select the monthly/annual and plan, then click “Schedule a Plan Change.”

   

3. When you schedule a plan change, the upcoming plan will be shown in the Subscription, and the new plan will take effect on the next renewal date.