HighLevel usage costs: SMS, email, calls, AI (dated)

HighLevel’s plan price is not your whole bill. Texting, email, calls, phone numbers, some AI and some automation steps are charged by usage on top, and the money comes out of an agency wallet. As of 2026-10-31, HighLevel’s help center lists US and Canada SMS at $0.00747 per segment [1], email at $0.675 per 1,000 [2], a local number at $1.15 a month [1], and outbound calls at $0.0166 a minute [1]. This guide lists those rates, what is passed through at cost, and what an agency can mark up.

We quote only rates that appear on HighLevel’s own pages, with a source number and the date we read them. Pages change. HighLevel’s AI pricing page itself says to confirm current in-app pricing before quoting [4]. For plan prices, see HighLevel pricing explained.

How we researched this

We read HighLevel’s help center articles on 2026-10-31. We have not run a HighLevel account for this guide, so we did not measure a real bill. The worked example below uses the published rates and assumptions we state.

How does HighLevel bill usage?

HighLevel uses an Agency Wallet. When a sub-account sends an email or text, makes a call or uses a paid AI feature, the cost is deducted from the wallet. When the balance falls below a minimum, HighLevel charges the agency card on file to refill it [3]. Common wallet-funded services include phone, email, email validation, AI usage and workflow premium features [3]. The subscription is billed separately and can’t be paid from the wallet [3].

One FAQ in the phone guide shows what this looks like: a user was “billed $20 right away” with no calls made, because the wallet auto-recharged when it dropped below its threshold [1]. Check your recharge amount and minimum balance in Agency View, then Settings, then Billing, then Wallet & Transactions [3]. If you are setting up a new account, you can start HighLevel’s 14-day trialaffiliate (opens HighLevel in a new tab) and read these wallet settings before you connect a client; usage fees may apply during the trial [7].

SMS and MMS

US and Canada rates per segment [1]:

	Outbound	Inbound
SMS (US and Canada)	$0.00747	$0.00747
MMS (US and Canada)	$0.0220	$0.0165 local / $0.0200 toll-free

HighLevel says a 10% discount is applied to a $0.0083 list price for SMS [1]. Charges are per segment, and longer messages use more segments [3]. You are charged for inbound as well as outbound texts [1].

Carrier fees are added on top, and vary by carrier. Examples from the guide, per SMS out: AT&T $0.0035, T-Mobile $0.0045, Verizon $0.0050 [1]. HighLevel charges for every message where a delivery attempt was made, whatever the final delivery status, and says refunds are not given for undelivered SMS [1].

A2P 10DLC registration

US texting from a local number needs A2P 10DLC registration. The LC Phone guide lists [1]:

Type	One-time fee	Monthly campaign fee
Sole proprietor	$22.50 (includes $3 fast track)	Up to $2.10
Low volume	$22.50 (includes $3 fast track)	$1.50 to $10.50
High volume	$64.00 (includes $3 fast track)	$10.50

Submitting a campaign starts both fees regardless of the review outcome, and the $3 fast-track fee is non-refundable [1]. The page says campaign resubmissions have been free since 2026-02-01 [1].

HighLevel’s dedicated A2P fees article (updated 2026-09-24) agrees on the one-time fees but lists different monthly fees: $2.00 for a sole proprietor campaign, $10.00 for standard use cases, $1.50 for low-volume mixed, $3.00 for charity and $5.00 for emergency services, plus $15.00 for each additional campaign under the same brand [8]. It calls all A2P fees passthrough charges with no HighLevel markup [8]. The phone guide’s higher figures may reflect the 5% pass-through markup described below, but neither page says so. Check the fee shown in the Trust Center before you submit, which is what the A2P article itself advises [8].

Email

LC Email is HighLevel’s built-in sending service. Rates [2]:

• Sending: $0.675 per 1,000 emails, on all plans. Incoming and outgoing emails, including To, CC and BCC, are charged.
• Verification: $2.50 per 1,000 checks.
• Forwarding: the same $0.675 per 1,000.

New sub-accounts also follow a ramp-up: 250 emails on day one, rising to 10,000 on day seven, then a daily limit that depends on shared or dedicated sending [2]. That article gives two different figures for the dedicated-domain ceiling, so confirm the limit with HighLevel if volume matters. A dedicated email IP is a separate $59 a month, on the $297 and $497 plans only [3].

Phone numbers and calls (LC Phone)

LC Phone is HighLevel’s built-in phone system, available on all plans [3]. US and Canada rates [1]:

Item	Rate
Local number	$1.15 a month
Toll-free number	$2.15 a month
Outbound call	$0.0166 a minute
Inbound call (web, mobile or desk phone)	$0.01165 a minute
Inbound call to a US toll-free number	$0.0198 a minute
Call recording	$0.0025 a minute
Call recording storage	$0.0005 a minute per month
Call transcription	$0.024 a minute
Voicemail drop	$0.0180 a minute

Calls are billed in full minutes, with partial minutes rounded up [1]. Unanswered calls without a voicemail are generally not charged [3]. Stored recordings keep incurring storage charges, billed daily per sub-account, until deleted [1].

HighLevel’s pricing guide says LC Phone pricing is “precisely the same amount as Twilio” [3], while the phone guide lists a 10% discount on several US and Canada categories [1]. Those two statements don’t quite agree. Check Twilio’s current rates if the comparison matters to you.

AI usage

Some AI assistants (Ask AI, AI Studio and others) are free to agency users on all three plans, subject to fair use. AI agents such as Conversation AI, Voice AI and Reviews AI are paid [4].

Options for sub-accounts [4]:

• Pay-per-use: no subscription. Conversation AI is billed on tokens by model. Example: a model priced at $1.25 per 1M input tokens and $10.00 per 1M output tokens is cited at an estimated $0.375 for 100,000 input and 25,000 output tokens.
• AI Employee Starter ($20 a month), Growth ($50) and Unlimited ($97), each per sub-account. Starter is open only to agencies on Founder. Growth includes 1,000 Conversation AI responses and 100 Voice AI minutes a month; Unlimited is unlimited subject to fair use [3][4].

Voice AI speech-to-speech models list per-minute rates of $0.10, $0.12 and $0.20 depending on the model [4]. Phone charges still apply to the call itself, even on the Unlimited AI plan [3][4].

By default, usage beyond an AI Employee plan’s allowance is paused until you turn on Extra Usage [4].

Other usage-billed items

From the pricing guide [3]:

• Workflow premium triggers and actions: $0.01 per execution. Standard steps are not charged. Workflow Pro tiers cost $10, $25 or $50 a month for the agency, with lower overage rates.
• Email validation: $2.50 per 1,000.
• WhatsApp: $10 a month per enabled sub-account, plus per-conversation usage.
• Domain purchases: vary by domain and TLD.

Rebilling and markup

Rebilling lets an agency pass usage costs to client sub-accounts. HighLevel charges the agency wallet first, then the agency charges the client through its own Stripe account [5].

Plan	Rebilling
Starter ($97)	Not available
Unlimited ($297)	At cost, no markup
Founder ($497)	At cost or with markup, as part of SaaS mode

Source: [3]. The help center adds that on Unlimited, phone rebilling only works for sub-accounts using LC Phone, not their own Twilio account, and that a default 1.05x multiplier applies to cover Stripe fees [6]. Separately, pass-through categories (A2P fees, carrier fees, verified caller ID) get a fixed 5% markup at the sub-account level when rebilling is on [1]. Rebilling AI Employee usage requires Founder [3]. Details on the margin side are in HighLevel SaaS mode pricing.

A worked example

This uses published rates and assumptions we picked. It is arithmetic, not a forecast. Say one sub-account sends 5,000 emails and 2,000 single-segment SMS in a month, and holds one local number:

• Email: 5,000 / 1,000 x $0.675 = $3.375
• SMS: 2,000 x $0.00747 = $14.94, before carrier fees
• Number: $1.15

Total: about $19.47 before carrier fees and A2P fees. Add your own carrier mix and call minutes. To compare it against the tools you’d replace, use the software stack savings calculator. If the numbers fit, you can look at HighLevel’s current plansaffiliate (opens HighLevel in a new tab).

Who should not rely on these numbers

• High-volume senders. Check your carrier mix and A2P tier.
• Outside the US and Canada. The rates above are US and Canada. Other countries are in country-specific pricing files attached to the phone guide [1].
• Anyone budgeting a fixed bill. Wallet charges follow usage.

Pros and cons

For: rates are published and itemised [1][2]; LC Email works without a third-party email provider such as Mailgun or SendGrid [2]; rebilling lets Unlimited and Founder agencies recover costs [3].

Against: usage sits on top of the plan price; carrier and registration fees add to the base rates [1]; pages overlap and sometimes disagree [1][3].

Read the free trial guide before you start, since usage fees may apply during the trial [7].