By Alpit Patel and the aibrevo team · October 13, 2026 · 12 min read
GoHighLevel Usage Rates: SMS, Voice, Email and AI Per Unit
GoHighLevel usage rates are the per-unit prices HighLevel charges on top of your plan: $0.00747 per SMS segment plus a carrier fee, $0.0166 per outbound voice minute, $0.675 per 1,000 emails, $1.15 per local number, and token or per-minute pricing for AI. This page lists every rate from HighLevel's own help pages and totals three worked monthly bills.
Part of the guide: GoHighLevel pricing
Key takeaways
- Plan fees ($97, $297, $497) do not include usage. Texts, calls, numbers, email and AI are metered per unit and drawn from the wallet, per HighLevel's pricing guides.
- One US text segment costs $0.00747 from HighLevel plus a carrier fee of $0.0035 to $0.0050 outbound, so a delivered outbound segment is about $0.011 to $0.0125. Inbound segments carry their own carrier fee, $0.0025 to $0.0100.
- Voice is billed in full minutes, rounded up: $0.0166 outbound, $0.01165 inbound, $0.0198 inbound to a toll-free number. Recording, transcription and storage are separate meters.
- AI is priced three ways: pay-per-use tokens, AI Employee Growth at $50 per enabled location, or AI Employee Unlimited at $97 per enabled location. Voice AI speech-to-speech is $0.10 or $0.20 per minute depending on the model.
- Three worked bills using these rates (illustrative volumes): a solo shop lands near $117 a month, a one-location clinic near $460, and an 8-client agency near $1,000 before rebilling.
What are GoHighLevel’s usage rates in 2026?
GoHighLevel’s usage rates are metered per unit: $0.00747 per US SMS segment, $0.0166 per outbound voice minute, $0.675 per 1,000 emails, $1.15 per month for a local number, and AI priced by tokens, minutes or a per-location plan. All of it draws from the wallet, separate from the $97, $297 or $497 plan fee. The table below is the whole rate card in one place, each row from a HighLevel help page opened on October 13, 2026.
Most pages ranking for this topic repeat one or two rates. What this page adds is the full card including carrier fees by network, the voice side-charges (recording, storage, transcription, voicemail drop), the AI meters, and three worked monthly bills with the arithmetic shown. For the plan tiers themselves, see the GoHighLevel pricing hub.
| Meter | Rate | Billed per | Source page |
|---|---|---|---|
| Local number (US/CA) | $1.15 | month | LC Phone guide |
| Toll-free number (US/CA) | $2.15 | month | LC Phone guide |
| SMS outbound and inbound (US/CA) | $0.00747 | segment | LC Phone guide |
| MMS outbound (US/CA) | $0.0220 | segment | LC Phone guide |
| MMS inbound (US/CA) | $0.0165 local, $0.0200 toll-free | segment | LC Phone guide |
| Voice outbound | $0.0166 | minute | LC Phone guide |
| Voice inbound (web, mobile, deskphone) | $0.01165 | minute | LC Phone guide |
| Voice inbound to toll-free | $0.0198 | minute | LC Phone guide |
| Voice inbound to a forwarding number | $0.02 | minute | LC Phone guide |
| Call recording | $0.0025 | minute | LC Phone guide |
| Call recording storage | $0.0005 | minute, per month | LC Phone guide |
| Call transcription | $0.024 | minute | LC Phone guide |
| Answering machine detection | $0.0075 | call | LC Phone guide |
| Voicemail drop | $0.0180 | minute | LC Phone guide |
| LC Email | $0.675 | 1,000 emails | Pricing guide |
| Email validation | $2.50 | 1,000 validations | Pricing guide |
| Workflow premium actions | $0.01 | execution | Pricing guide |
| $10 | month per enabled sub-account, plus conversation charges | Pricing guide |
Checked October 13, 2026. The LC Phone guide was last modified October 12, 2026; the pricing guide August 22, 2026. HighLevel’s voice section lists the outbound total as $0.0166 in one place and $0.0180 in another; the components ($0.0126 carrier leg plus $0.004 client minutes) add to $0.0166, which is the figure used here. Confirm in your wallet.
How much does an SMS cost on GoHighLevel after carrier fees?
An outbound US SMS segment costs $0.00747 plus the recipient carrier’s fee, so $0.01097 on AT&T up to $0.01247 on Verizon or US Cellular. The carrier fee is charged per segment, which is why message length matters as much as message count.
| Carrier | SMS out | SMS in | MMS out | MMS in |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AT&T | $0.0035 | $0.0035 | $0.0090 | $0.0090 |
| T-Mobile | $0.0045 | $0.0025 | $0.0100 | $0.0100 |
| Verizon | $0.0050 | $0.0070 | $0.0070 | not listed |
| US Cellular | $0.0050 | $0.0100 | $0.0100 | $0.0100 |
| All other carriers | $0.0042 | $0.0100 | $0.0100 | not listed |
Carrier fee table from HighLevel’s LC Phone Pricing and Billing Guide, modified October 12, 2026, checked October 13, 2026. Verizon outbound SMS rose from $0.0045 to $0.0050 on October 1, 2026; see every 2026 change, dated.
Does HighLevel mark up carrier fees?
HighLevel’s A2P fees article (modified September 24, 2026) says A2P and carrier fees are pass-through charges from The Campaign Registry, Twilio and mobile carriers, with no markup from HighLevel. The LC Phone guide (modified October 12, 2026) adds that a fixed 5 percent markup applies to A2P registration fees, SMS and MMS carrier fees, Verified Caller ID and RCS carrier fees, but only when rebilling is enabled at the sub-account level. Read together: the agency wallet pays pass-through cost, and the 5 percent appears on the amount an agency rebills to a sub-account. If your own statement shows a different figure, trust the statement and ask HighLevel support.
How many segments is my message?
HighLevel’s SMS cost article (modified July 23, 2026) says a GSM-7 message holds 160 characters in one segment (161 characters is 2 segments). A message containing an emoji or non-Latin character switches to UCS-2, which holds 70 characters in one segment and 67 per segment when split. Pasted text can carry hidden characters that add a segment, so paste as plain text. Adding media makes it an MMS. Our SMS segment and cost counter does the count for you.
What do voice calls cost, and what are the side charges?
A call is billed in full minutes, rounded up, at $0.0166 outbound or $0.01165 inbound, and the extras (recording, storage, transcription) are separate meters that only bill if you turn them on. A 61-second call bills as two minutes.
The outbound rate is two parts: a US carrier leg of $0.0126 (10 percent off a $0.014 list) plus $0.004 for client minutes. Inbound is $0.00765 plus the same $0.004, which gives $0.01165. Calls to a toll-free number are $0.0198 a minute, and a call forwarded out to a regular phone adds the outgoing leg, $0.02 in total. Forwarding to international numbers uses higher Twilio international rates, which HighLevel’s guide does not itemize, so test with a short call before you route volume.
Optional meters: recording is $0.0025 per minute, storage $0.0005 per minute per month, transcription $0.024 per minute. Transcription is nearly ten times the recording rate, so enabling it on every call is a common cause of a voice bill that outruns call volume. If you record, check the law first: is it legal to record calls in GoHighLevel.
How much does LC Email cost?
LC Email is $0.675 per 1,000 emails sent, on every plan, per HighLevel’s pricing guide. Ten thousand emails is $6.75, and 100,000 is $67.50. Email validation, which checks addresses before you send, is $2.50 per 1,000, so validating a 20,000 list once costs $50 and pays for itself only if bounces were hurting deliverability. Cost is rarely the problem with email; reputation is. See why email sending gets suspended and SPF, DKIM and DMARC setup.
How is HighLevel AI priced?
AI is priced three ways, and you choose per location: pay-per-use tokens with no subscription, AI Employee Growth at $50 per month per enabled location, or AI Employee Unlimited at $97 per month per enabled location. HighLevel’s AI Product Pricing article (modified September 28, 2026) lists what each includes.
| Product | Pay-per-use | Growth ($50) | Unlimited ($97) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conversation AI | token cost | 1,000 agent responses a month | unlimited (fair use) |
| Voice AI | Voice Engine + TTS + LLM tokens | 100 minutes a month | unlimited (fair use) |
| Reviews AI | $0.01 per reply sent | unlimited (fair use) | unlimited (fair use) |
| Content AI | $0.063 per image, $0.0945 per 1,000 words | unlimited (fair use) | unlimited (fair use) |
| Managed Agents | token cost | 100 runs a month | 1,000 runs a month |
| Workflow AI, Email AI, Knowledge Base | free (fair use) | free (fair use) | free (fair use) |
Phone System charges apply separately on every option, so a Voice AI minute also pays the call rate. Rates that matter most:
- Voice Engine is $0.045 per minute from May 20, 2026, plus text-to-speech and a language model.
- Speech-to-speech is $0.10 per minute on Gemini 3.1 Flash Live Preview and $0.20 on OpenAI gpt-realtime. Choosing the second doubles the per-minute cost.
- Text-to-speech per minute: $0.015 (OpenAI, Cartesia), $0.035 (ElevenLabs V2.5), $0.170 (ElevenLabs V3).
- Conversation AI tokens per million, input and output: GPT-5 $1.25 and $10.00, GPT-5 Mini $0.25 and $2.00, GPT-4.1 $2.00 and $8.00, GPT-4.1 Mini $0.40 and $1.60.
- Workflow premium actions (Decision Maker, Intent Detection, Summarize Text, Translate) are $0.01 per execution. Workflow Pro tiers: $10 for 10,000 executions, $25 for 30,000, $50 for 65,000.
HighLevel notes that pricing and model availability may change, so confirm in-app rates before quoting. For when Growth beats pay-per-use, compare your own agent responses and voice minutes with the included amounts; the wallet shows what you actually spent. The configuration side is in our Conversation AI guide.
What do carriers and A2P registration add?
Texting US numbers from a 10-digit number needs A2P 10DLC registration, which adds a one-time fee and a monthly fee per campaign. From HighLevel’s A2P fees article (modified September 24, 2026): one-time $22.50 for Sole Proprietor or Low Volume Standard, $64.00 for High Volume Standard, each including the first campaign and a $3 Fast Track fee. Extra campaigns under the same brand are $15 each. Monthly campaign fees run $2.00 (Sole Proprietor starter campaign), $10.00 (standard use cases), $1.50 (low volume mixed), $3.00 (charity) and $5.00 (emergency services).
HighLevel’s own articles disagree in small ways on the campaign fee ranges (the LC Phone guide lists $1.50 to $10.50 for low volume and $10.50 for high volume), so total your own with the A2P 10DLC fee calculator and check the Trust Center before you submit. A rejected campaign is a separate problem: why registration is rejected and how long approval takes.
What does a real month cost? Three worked bills
Three examples with every line shown. Volumes are illustrative assumptions, not client data. SMS outbound uses the $0.0050 carrier-fee ceiling and inbound uses $0.0070 (Verizon), so real accounts land a little lower. Each line is rounded to the cent.
Business A: solo local service shop on Starter. 700 outbound and 300 inbound SMS segments, 100 inbound and 60 outbound minutes (160 recorded), 1 local number, 2,000 emails, 1 Sole Proprietor campaign.
| Line | Arithmetic | Monthly |
|---|---|---|
| Starter plan | $97.00 | |
| SMS | 1,000 x $0.00747 + 700 x $0.0050 + 300 x $0.0070 | $13.07 |
| Inbound voice | 100 x $0.01165 | $1.17 |
| Outbound voice | 60 x $0.0166 | $1.00 |
| Recording | 160 x $0.0025 | $0.40 |
| Number | 1 x $1.15 | $1.15 |
| 2 x $0.675 | $1.35 | |
| A2P campaign | 1 x $2.00 | $2.00 |
| Total | $117.14 |
Business B: one-location clinic on Unlimited with AI Employee Growth. 4,000 outbound and 1,500 inbound SMS segments, 400 inbound and 200 outbound minutes (600 recorded), 2 numbers, 15,000 emails, 1 standard campaign, 1,000 workflow premium executions, AI Employee Growth for the one location. If the clinic handles protected health information, the HIPAA add-on is extra: is GoHighLevel HIPAA compliant.
| Line | Arithmetic | Monthly |
|---|---|---|
| Unlimited plan | $297.00 | |
| SMS | 5,500 x $0.00747 + 4,000 x $0.0050 + 1,500 x $0.0070 | $71.59 |
| Inbound voice | 400 x $0.01165 | $4.66 |
| Outbound voice | 200 x $0.0166 | $3.32 |
| Recording | 600 x $0.0025 | $1.50 |
| Numbers | 2 x $1.15 | $2.30 |
| 15 x $0.675 | $10.13 | |
| A2P campaign | 1 x $10.00 | $10.00 |
| Workflow premium | 1,000 x $0.01 | $10.00 |
| AI Employee Growth | 1 location x $50 | $50.00 |
| Total | $460.50 |
Business C: agency on Agency Pro with 8 client sub-accounts. Each sub-account: 1,400 outbound and 600 inbound SMS segments, 150 inbound and 100 outbound minutes, 5,000 emails, 1 number, 1 standard campaign. AI Employee Growth enabled on 3 of the 8.
| Line | Arithmetic | Monthly |
|---|---|---|
| Agency Pro plan | $497.00 | |
| Per sub-account SMS | 2,000 x $0.00747 + 1,400 x $0.0050 + 600 x $0.0070 | $26.14 |
| Per sub-account voice | 150 x $0.01165 + 100 x $0.0166 | $3.41 |
| Per sub-account email | 5 x $0.675 | $3.38 |
| Per sub-account number and campaign | $1.15 + $10.00 | $11.15 |
| Usage, 8 sub-accounts | 8 x $44.08 | $352.64 |
| AI Employee Growth | 3 locations x $50 | $150.00 |
| Total paid to HighLevel | $999.64 |
Two things stand out. The plan fee shrinks as a share of the bill as volume and AI grow, from 83 percent to 50 percent. And in Business C the agency pays HighLevel about $353 in usage for 8 clients before it rebills anything: Unlimited and Agency Pro can rebill phone and email at cost, only Agency Pro adds markup. See sub-accounts explained and SaaS mode setup. To run your own numbers, use the GoHighLevel pricing calculator.
Where do I see what I was charged?
In the agency view, open Settings, then Billing, then Wallet & Transactions, where HighLevel’s pricing guide says you can view the balance and transaction history. How the wallet reloads, and why a charge appears on your card, is covered in the wallet and auto-recharge explainer. If the bill is higher than the arithmetic above predicts, work through the 10-point cost audit. The extras that sit outside this rate card (HIPAA, white-label app, support tiers) are in GoHighLevel hidden costs, and the plans in GoHighLevel pricing 2026 explained.
If you want a usage budget built from your actual sending volume rather than guessed, aibrevo’s GoHighLevel service scopes it as part of a build.
Sources
- HighLevel Support, LC Phone System Pricing and Billing Guide, modified October 12, 2026, checked October 13, 2026 (SMS, MMS, voice, number, carrier fee and side-charge rates; 5 percent rebilling markup statement).
- HighLevel Support, HighLevel Pricing Guide, modified August 22, 2026, checked October 13, 2026 (email, email validation, workflow premium, WhatsApp, AI Employee plans, wallet path).
- HighLevel Support, AI Product Pricing, modified September 28, 2026, checked October 13, 2026 (AI Employee inclusions, Voice AI, token and TTS rates).
- HighLevel Support, A2P 10DLC Messaging Fees, modified September 24, 2026, checked October 13, 2026 (registration and campaign fees; no markup statement).
- HighLevel Support, How to Calculate SMS and MMS Costs, modified July 23, 2026, checked October 13, 2026 (segment lengths, per-segment carrier fees).
- HighLevel, Pricing, checked October 13, 2026 (plan prices, 14-day trial, usage fees may apply during trial).