Client billing overview

Client billing lets you sell each client a monthly plan of call minutes, plus minute packs when they need more. Voice AI Portal counts every call across all of the client’s agents, whichever provider runs them: ElevenLabs, Retell AI and Vapi. It tells you and your client as minutes run low, collects payment the way you choose, and can stop new calls when the minutes run out.

Client billing is included on every Voice AI Portal plan. See Pricing.

What client billing does

Sell monthly plans. Each plan has a monthly price, included minutes, optional overflow minutes and rules for unused minutes. See Create client plans.
Sell minute packs. Extra minutes a client can request, buy by card or have bought automatically when they run low. See Create minute packs.
Count usage across every agent and provider. Calls and text conversations are read from the client’s provider account every minute and shown by day, agent and channel.
Get paid your way. Every bill carries your bank details and a link to a payment page your client can pay from without logging in, and you confirm payments in a few clicks. Add portal invoices and monthly statements if you like. Or collect through your own Stripe account with Stripe invoices or automatic card payments. See Get paid without Stripe and Connect Stripe.
Warn before minutes run out. Usage warnings and overflow alerts go to your team and, if you choose, to the client’s billing contacts.
Stop calls when you choose. With Track and enforce, new calls stop when the client’s minutes and overflow are used up, and start again within a minute of new minutes arriving. See When minutes run out.

Where to find it

Menu item	Where	What it is
Client billing	Your agency menu	Everything you sell to clients: Overview, Plans, Minute packs, Payments due, Stripe and Settings tabs.
Billing	Inside a client, in the Agency only box, next to Client settings and View as client	That client’s plan, minutes, payments, usage and enforcement. See Bill a client.
Client billing section	Inside a client, Client settings, under Access & integrations	The client’s billing setting, plan and options.
Platform subscription	Your agency menu	Your own Voice AI Portal plan, usage and payment details. It is separate from client billing.

The Overview tab shows your Monthly plan revenue, Billed clients, how many clients are 80%+ used or in overflow, how many are Stopped or paused and your Overdue payments. Below it, the Clients table lists each billed client with its billing setting, plan, plan minutes used, status and renewal date. A status reads On track, 80%+ used, In overflow, Calls stopped, Paused or Off.

When client billing is on

Two switches decide whether a client is billed:

The agency switch. The agency owner turns on Client billing in Client billing, Settings. While it is off, no client is metered, emailed or blocked, and clients see no billing. Plans, packs and history are kept.
The client’s setting. For each client, the owner or an admin chooses Billing for this client in the client’s Client settings:

Setting	What happens
Off	Nothing is metered, emailed or blocked. Balances and history are kept. Every client starts here.
Track only	Usage is counted and emailed. Calls are never stopped.
Track and enforce	Calls stop when minutes and overflow run out, or while you pause them.

Switching a client on needs a plan, or No plan: minute packs only. A plan starts its first period on the day you switch it on.

Who sees what

Person	What they see
Agency owner	Everything, including the Client billing switch, the Settings tab and connecting Stripe.
Agency admin	Client billing (plans, packs, payments due) and every client’s Billing page and Client billing settings. Admins cannot change the Settings tab or connect Stripe.
Agency member	No billing pages, including in View as client.
Client billing contact	The client’s Billing page in their menu, while you show billing to that client.
Other client users	No billing.

A billing contact is a client user with the Billing contact switch on in the client’s Client settings, under Users with access. Billing contacts also receive the client’s billing emails. See Invite a client user.

View as client shows the client’s Billing page exactly as a billing contact sees it, read only, so you can check it without changing anything. It shows billing only to owners and admins.

How minutes are used

Every grant of minutes is kept separately, with its own expiry date. When a call ends, its minutes come from the grants in this order:

Order	Minutes	Notes
1	Plan minutes, including minutes carried over from the last period	Included in the plan each month.
2	Trial minutes	Given once, the first time a client gets a plan, if the plan offers them.
3	Minute pack	Earliest expiry first.
4	Added by agency	Minutes you add by hand.
5	Overflow	A buffer after everything else, then calls stop (with Track and enforce).

The client’s Billing page sums this up as: plan minutes first, then packs and extras (earliest expiry first), then overflow.

Over the limit

Sometimes usage goes past every minute the client has: on Track only, when calls already in progress finish after the minutes run out, or with unlimited overflow. The portal records this as Over the limit. On a plan with an overflow price, it is billed at renewal at that price. Otherwise it is taken from the next minutes the client receives, such as next month’s plan minutes or a pack.

Billing periods

Periods are monthly and start on the day the plan was assigned, in the client’s timezone. A plan assigned on the 14th renews on the 14th of each month. The client’s Billing page shows the current period, the renewal date and Resets with the date the plan minutes refresh.

At renewal the portal adds the new period’s plan and overflow minutes, carries over unused minutes if the plan allows it, and creates the period’s payment, or Stripe raises its invoice.

Text conversations

Chat, SMS and WhatsApp text conversations never use minutes. Each one is counted, and appears under Usage as text. A plan can include a number of Chat conversations per month and, optionally, a price for each extra conversation, billed at renewal. See Create client plans.

What is billed

Client billing counts calls from the agents the client owns, from the moment billing is switched on for that client.

Billed	Never billed
Connected call time on the client’s agents, rounded up by the plan’s rounding	Calls that never connected
Inbound and outbound calls, phone and web	ElevenLabs dashboard test conversations
Calls placed by outbound campaigns	Anything that started before billing was switched on for the client
Text conversations (counted, never charged as minutes)	Agents that belong to another client

Each agent can belong to one billed client. If an agent is also selected for another client, the portal asks you to remove it from one of them before billing is switched on.

Privacy

Billing keeps only IDs, times, durations, channels and money. It never stores call content: no recordings, transcripts, summaries, caller names or phone numbers. Payment notes cannot contain bank account or card numbers.

Set it up in this order

Switch it on and choose your defaults. See Set up client billing.
Create your plans. See Create client plans.
Create minute packs (optional). See Create minute packs.
Add your payment instructions, and choose your reminders, invoices and statements. See Get paid without Stripe.
Connect Stripe (optional) to send Stripe invoices or charge cards. See Connect Stripe.
Bill your first client. Choose its billing setting, plan, billing contacts and billing email addresses. See Bill a client.
Check what happens when minutes run out, and what your client sees. See When minutes run out and Client billing for your clients.