Basically, a credit is a unit of cost used when sending or receiving text and voice messages.
THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF CREDITS
Non-rollover (NRO) credits are your monthly or yearly credit allotment. They do not roll over automatically and expire according to your billing cycle. Unused monthly NRO credits will expire monthly. Unused yearly NRO credits will expire yearly. This is the default for all plans.
Forever Rollover (FRO) credits never expire. All one-time purchased credits are FRO and thus, will never expire. Rollover credits have a big advantage: even if your account expires, your rollover (FRO) credits remain. They are removed only when an account is marked as spam. So if you changed your mind, they would be waiting for you when you returned to PastorsLine. All plans can purchase an ROP subscription which guarantees your credits will never expire.
How would NRO vs FRO credits work?
NRO (non-rollover) credits will be noted clearly on your account. These credits work like money in a checking account—the credits are 'deposited' by PastorsLine each month or year; they are 'withdrawn' by you when you message your people.
FRO (forever rollover) credits are like your savings account at your bank—they are basically 'inactive'. They are used last and only if your 'checking account' NRO credits are depleted. In other words, if you have no more NRO credits, PastorsLine will use your FRO credits to cover the costs of your messages.
You can switch, upgrade, or downgrade at any time and never lose your FRO credits. And even if you cancel, you can come back, add any plan and access those credits.
All plans can purchase a ROP (rollover protection) subscription which guarantees your credits will never expire.
All one-time purchased credits are FRO and thus, will never expire.
To sum up, you can protect all of your credits by purchasing a ROP subscription.
2023.12.15 UPDATE: Additional reminders
To help you better manage your credits, PastorsLine has added some helpful messages.
If you have rollover protection...
On your Billing page, hover over the question mark on the Non-Rollover Credits (Checking) line to see the following message: 'Any remaining unused credits at the end of the billing cycle will be transferred back to the main account's FRO (savings) section.'
If you do not have rollover protection...
On your Billing page, hover over the question mark on the Non-Rollover Credits (Checking) line to see the following message: 'These credits will expire at the end of the billing cycle on [date]'
Here is current pricing information:
MMS / Picture messages:
-These cost 2 credits (per person you send it to)
Texts / Calling:
NOTE: Credit costs vary by country. Check our website international page for non-US rates.
IN THE U.S.
Outgoing texts (Send a text): 1 credit per 160 characters or less per text sent (per person).
Incoming texts (Receive a text): Free (no cost).
Send a voice message (Voice Broadcast) - 2 credits per minute plus machine detection if used. The cost of machine detection is an additional flat rate of 0.5 credits per number called.
Send a video - It's treated as a MMS message where it's maximum 2 credits for US/CA per video message regardless of the length of the texts included. Video length is 1 MB for local numbers or 0.6 MB if it's the shortcode or the toll-free. The maximum length is 25 seconds per video.
Outgoing calls - 2 credits per minute.
Toll-free outgoing texts will cost 1.5 credits per 160 characters per text sent (per person).
Reprocessing from toll-free numbers is now 1 credit per message [160 characters]. This is a setting you control (on or off).
The use of the shared short code is optional as it’s being replaced by the A2P numbers. You can turn on the short code use in your account by either paying an additional $5/m or reserving at least one premium short code keyword. [NOTE: You do not need the shared short code as before. A2P is now implemented which means less carrier filtering.]
Call forwarding - 3 credits per minute.
***It is 1 credit more IF the caller left a voicemail recording - fixed charge per voicemail.
***If cost 4 credits more to transcribe the voicemail to text - fixed charge per voicemail.
The costs shown above are estimates. It could be more, but it could also be less. Make sure you have enough credits to cover you if the cost does go up into the next rate.
Here is another way to look at it...
How do you know how many credits your message is using?
You are in the message box. Let's look at the Credit Estimate info (brown box in image below). As you type your message, the Credit Estimate value will change.
To find out more about the calculation, click on the ? (turquoise arrow in image above). The calculation menu will open, showing you more details about the cost.
Anywhere you type a message will have a similar "ticker" to let you know how many credits and characters your message is using.
The voice broadcast also lets you know how many credits it will use before sending it:
For Individuals (see brown box in image below)
For Groups (see gold box in image below)
