What is the Usage page for?
Usage allows you to track all the message sending that you’ve done within Spoke. The page breaks down your texting usage in terms of SMS segments, SMS messages, and MMS messages (picture messages) sent in graph form by date. Because we charge per segment, not per text message, we wanted to provide additional visibility into your monthly usage so you can easily calculate your spending for the month.
At the top of the page, you’ll see your metrics for a date range, which is set by default to show the current month. The graph directly below these stats further breaks down your usage by day.
Above, an image of an account’s monthly stats and a day-by-day breakdown in graph form. A table below that displays segments and messages sent per text campaign.
You can modify the date range by clicking on the dates shown in the upper right.
The date range can be changed through the dropdown menu in the upper right corner of the page.
Below the graph is a list of campaigns from the selected date range and the number of SMS segments, SMS messages, and MMS messages sent per campaign.
Example of the display for campaigns started in a date range.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are my segments higher than the texts that I’ve sent? As your contract outlines, we charge per segment (a measurement of data), not per text. A segment, on average, is 153 characters. Some characters may take up more than one. Texting special characters (i.e. emojis, accents, symbols) results in a different encoding and will take up additional characters. This means a text you’ve sent may contain multiple segments. When creating your script on the campaign edit page, the number of characters and estimated number of segments is displayed in real time to help you make adjustments to your messages.
Example: If you plan to send 10,000 initial texts, but each text contains two segments, you are actually sending 20,000 initial segments, and will be billed for each of those segments.
In addition to standard SMS, we offer picture messaging ($0.05 per outbound message). Read more about SMS segments here and picture messaging (MMS) here.
Does this usage portal update live? The portal is next-to-live and updates every 3 minutes.
How do I calculate my current costs? Take the rate you’re billed at and multiply that by the number of segments shown on the Usage page you will be billed for. If you’ve sent any MMS, be sure to include that in your calculation as well.