SMS Settings
How the SMS settings page shows the number your texts go from, lets you choose one of your own numbers, explains the 4.5p SMS credit rate, and how replies are handled without using credits.
Open Settings > SMS to see the number your texts go from, choose one of your own numbers for a business, or check how outgoing text messages are charged. If you manage more than one business, choose the business at the top first: each one has its own sending number.
Sending Number
- Reply Number: The number customers see your texts come from and reply to. Texts Go From shows it, or, for the billing owner of an account with numbers of its own, Send Texts From.
- The shared Work Planner number: Without a number of its own, a business sends from the dedicated Work Planner reply number, shared by every business on Work Planner. When a customer replies, Work Planner matches the reply back to the text it answers, so it appears in Communications and on the related customer or job.
- Your own number: With the Business Mobile Number bolt-on, a business texts from a UK mobile number of its own. Customers can reply to it or text it any time, and those texts reach the business even when they aren't replies.
- Choosing the number: Send Texts From lists the Work Planner number and your account's own numbers. Each of yours says which businesses use it: Only this business, Also used by or Used by other businesses, or Not used by any business. The note under it describes the number picked, and Save makes the change. Several businesses can share a number, or each can have its own. A number being set up shows as Being set up until it's ready.
- Who can change it: Only the account's billing owner. Anyone else sees the number in Texts Go From and who to ask.
- Add a Business Mobile Number: Shown to the billing owner when the account has SMS but no number of its own yet. It opens the bolt-on on the Bolt-Ons page.
- Reply costs: Replies are included, to the Work Planner number and your own numbers alike, and do not use SMS credits.
SMS Credits
- Credit Price: SMS credits cost £4.50 per 100, which works out at 4.5p per outgoing SMS part.
- Credit Balance: Shows the current SMS credit usage and remaining balance available through Work Planner.
- Part-based charging: Credits are consumed by rendered SMS parts after variables are filled in, not just by recipient count. A longer or personalised message can therefore use more than one credit for one recipient.
- Credits carry over: Credits are a balance, not a monthly quota. Anything you do not use stays on the account and is still there after your billing period renews.
- Manage SMS Credits: Keeps the top-up flow inside Work Planner. Customers still buy the existing SMS credit bolt-on here rather than managing SMS credits anywhere else. Credits can only be bought once the account has SMS messaging, from its plan or the SMS Messaging bolt-on.
A short plain-text message to one customer will often use one credit, but the character counter in the send flow is still the best place to check before you queue a longer or more personalised message.
What This Affects Elsewhere
The information on this page applies to the SMS actions used across customers, jobs, debts, worksheets, and the Work > Communications page. It does not decide who receives a message; those later screens still use the customer and job phone data selected at send time.
Replies coming back from customers are linked to the original outbound text where possible, then copied onto the related customer and job so the conversation can be followed from the communications history as well as from the detail views. A reply to the shared Work Planner number that can't be matched confidently goes to Work Planner's own triage instead of guessing which business it belongs to. A text to one of your own numbers always reaches your business, as the number says which business it's for.
Related articles
- Settings Overview: Useful if you want to see where this direct settings page sits in the wider setup picture.
- Business Mobile Number: What a number of your own costs, sharing one between businesses, and cancelling it.
- Communications: The main page where new SMS and outgoing email history are shown together.
- Message Customers Popup: Where texts are written and sent, with the credits they use checked before they go.
- Customer Detail View: Shows where the customer-level Communications tab now appears.
- Job Detail View: Shows the job-level Communications tab that carries job-linked replies.