Messaging Balance¶

The Messaging Balance is the central financial hub for your messaging operations in Abelo, providing real-time visibility into available funds, active campaign reservations, and itemized transaction histories.

Because Abelo operates on a transparent, prepaid credit model, maintaining an active balance ensures that both scheduled broadcasts and automated API messages dispatch without interruption. You can monitor your balance directly in the Billing area or at any time by clicking the wallet badge in the top navigation bar.

1. Available Balance Card¶

The header card displays your organization's current financial standing:

• Balance Amount: The total cleared funds currently available in your account, formatted in your organization's active currency (e.g., €150.00).
• Description: Confirms the funds that can be utilized for campaign dispatches and API messaging.
• Add Funds Action: A prominent Add funds button directs you straight to the Payments section, where you can view bank coordinates or submit proof of payment.

2. How Message Costs are Calculated¶

Abelo calculates message costs based on the delivering channel, destination country, and message size:

• Viber Business Messages: Billed per delivered message session within the configured Time-to-Live (TTL). Messages that fail delivery or expire without reaching the handset incur no delivery charge.
• SMS Messages: Billed per SMS segment based on character encoding:
  • GSM-7 Encoding: Up to 160 characters for a single segment; multi-segment messages use 153 characters per segment for concatenation headers.
  • Unicode (UCS-2) Encoding: Up to 70 characters for a single segment; multi-segment messages use 67 characters per segment.
• Viber with SMS Failover: When failover is enabled on a Viber campaign, billing reflects only the final channel that delivered the message. If the message delivers via Viber, the Viber session rate is charged; if it fails over and delivers via SMS, the SMS segment rate is charged.

3. Balance Reservations & Safety Checks¶

To prevent broadcasts from failing mid-flight due to credit depletion, Abelo uses an automated pre-flight reservation system:

1. Pre-Flight Estimation: When configuring a campaign, Abelo calculates the maximum possible cost based on targeted profile count, segment count, and destination carrier pricing.
2. Balance Hold: The estimated credit amount is temporarily held in reservation when the campaign is queued or sent.
3. Delivery Settlement: As carrier delivery reports (DLRs) arrive, actual message charges are settled against the reserved funds.
4. Instant Release: Any unused reserved balance—such as for undelivered, invalid, or expired numbers—is automatically released back to your available balance upon campaign completion.

4. Balance History & Transaction Log¶

The Balance history table provides a chronological record of all balance movements across your organization.

Table Columns¶

• Name: Description or category of the balance change (e.g., Top Up, Messaging Consumption).
• Date: Exact date and time the transaction was processed, formatted with timestamp.
• Amount: The financial impact of the transaction, highlighted with color-coded badges:
  • Positive Amounts: Funds credited to your account (e.g., bank top-ups, promotional credits).
  • Negative Amounts: Funds debited for messaging consumption or adjustments.

Transaction Types¶

The transaction log tracks several distinct transaction types:

• Top Up: Cleared credits added to your balance following approved bank transfers.
• Messaging Consumption: Deductions for messages delivered across Viber and SMS campaigns.
• Adjustment: Manual balance adjustments or reconciliations applied by Abelo administrators.
• Promotional Credit: Complimentary credits applied during onboarding or promotional campaigns.
• Viber Minimum Consumption: Monthly minimum network commitments where required by destination operators.