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Textline Review (2026)Backup Credits Cost 33% More

By · Researched and written with an AI assistant · who does what

The credit system has two rates: $0.03 for credits you buy deliberately and $0.04 for backup credits that fire automatically when you run out — a 33% premium for not noticing.

Best for

support and sales teams that already text customers from personal phones and need a shared, compliant inbox with a record of who said what.

Skip it if

you send marketing blasts rather than conversations — that is a different product and priced per message elsewhere; also skip it if your volume is low enough that a shared inbox on your existing helpdesk covers it.

Researched from public sourcesPrices checked 2026-10-11Updated 2026-10-11Communication & Voice

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Pricing (2026)

✓ Pricing re-verified 11 Oct 2026

The plans at a glance
PlanPriceWhat you get
Essentialsno published price600 minimum included message credits a month, three agents, three-year conversation history
Prono published price2,000 minimum credits, five agents, unlimited history, Salesforce, custom roles
Enterpriseno published pricequote

Summarised from the pricing notes below; the notes carry the conditions.

In Textline’s own words
Price read on the vendor’s pricing page on 11 Oct 2026; the notes below are our summary. Verbatim line:Being verified
Free trialBeing verified not yet matched to a line on the vendor’s own pages
RefundBeing verified not yet matched to a line on the vendor’s own pages
A quote appears here only after it matched the live page word for word on the date shown. “Being verified” means we have not matched it yet, not that it does not exist.

Amounts unchanged since 2026-08-01. Add-on message credits $0.03 each, bought in advance; backup message credits $0.04 each, Textline's automatic fallback when you run out mid-conversation. A $15 monthly 10DLC campaign fee applies if you use a 10DLC long code; the same page states that toll-free numbers do not carry a monthly registration fee. NEW since the last reading: the page now names three tiers with their inclusions but still no prices — Essentials (600 minimum included message credits a month, three agents, three-year conversation history), Pro (2,000 minimum credits, five agents, unlimited history, Salesforce, custom roles) and Enterprise (quote).

HIPAA-compliant plans are charged an additional fee. Note for future readers: the per-feature tooltips on this page are unfilled placeholder copy, so the feature names carry no explanation. Re-verified 11 October 2026: plan names, inclusions, the $0.03 and $0.04 credit rates and the $15 10DLC campaign fee are unchanged, and still no plan price is printed. Textline's help article 'All About Textline's Various Message Credits' (updated 26 May 2026, read 11 October 2026) adds what the pricing page leaves out: Add-On Credits can be bought only once per billing cycle, Backup Credits are auto-purchased in blocks of at least 250, Add-On and Backup credits roll over while unused Included credits expire at the end of the cycle, and the billing schedule changes the allowance — Essentials 600 a month month-to-month, 660 on annual billed monthly, 8,640 a year on annual paid upfront; Pro 2,000, 2,200 and 28,800. An MMS uses three credits. Plans change — always verify the live price on their site.

Category context: Communication & Voice. Across the 22 tools in this category that we researched with a public US-dollar price, the median entry price is about $30 a month (lowest paid plan as listed, per seat where the vendor prices per seat). Compare pricing conditions in the Software Cost Atlas →

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What the pricing page doesn’t say

Textline pricing page
Textline’s own pricing page Sep 2026. Prices change — always check the live page.
The catch

A $15 monthly 10DLC campaign fee appears on your bill if you use a 10DLC long code, charged by the carrier registry rather than by Textline, so no plan removes it; the same page notes that toll-free numbers carry no monthly registration fee, so the number type is the lever, not the tier. Plan prices are still not published — the page names Essentials, Pro and Enterprise and what they include, but no dollar figures.

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What Textline does

Business SMS for support and sales teams: shared inboxes, automations and compliance tooling.

Textline product
Textline, from their own site — for context, not a paid placement.

What buyers report about Textline

Hands-on: not tested by usReported by buyers: GetApp, Software Finder, SelectHub and Research, read August 2026

Themes from the buyer-review sites listed at the foot of this page, read in August 2026. We have not run Textline ourselves, so this is other buyers' experience rather than ours. We summarise it here because the complaints are usually the part a vendor page leaves out.

What they praise
  • • Support replies within minutes and reviewers describe it as friendly, knowledgeable and patient — consistently the most-praised part.
  • • The shared inbox, two-way texting and automations are solid, and the interface is easy for a team to pick up.
What they complain about
  • • Message fees are separate from the plan, and incoming messages are not free either. Reviewers read in August 2026 put the plan itself at around $20 to $50 per agent, a rate Textline no longer publishes (see the price section); either way it is the floor, not the total.
  • • The interface is dated enough that reviewers say it slows onboarding.
  • • There is no fully functional native mobile app.

Backup credits cost a third more

The page still documents the meters rather than the prices, but it does now name three plans, and that changes what you should ask for (read 2026-08-31 on their own pricing page, from a European exit). Essentials carries a 600-message-credit monthly minimum, three agents and three years of conversation history; Pro raises that to a 2,000-credit minimum, five agents and unlimited history; Enterprise is a conversation. No dollar figure appears against any of them, and HIPAA-compliant plans cost extra on top of whatever you agree.

Two meters sit alongside the plan. Message credits bought in advance are $0.03 each; backup credits, the fallback that fires automatically when you run out mid-conversation, are $0.04 — a 33% premium for not noticing, charged at the exact moment you are mid-sentence with a customer. The $15 monthly 10DLC campaign fee is the line people budget wrong, and upgrading does not touch it: the carrier registry charges it, not Textline, so no plan removes it.

The number type does. The same page states that toll-free numbers carry no monthly registration fee, which makes this a routing decision rather than a billing one.

Same price 3 months running

Our monthly capture read this vendor's pricing page every month from August 2026 to October 2026, and the amounts were the same all 3 times, including $0.03, $0.04 and $15 from the pricing above. We keep watching — the registry records what moves.

Questions we checked

Facts about Textline that would change a buying decision, and where we stand on each. An unanswered question does not mean the feature is missing; it means we have not confirmed it yet.

  • Can I add an Agent beyond my plan without moving up a tier? Sources disagree
    Applies to: Essentials (3 Agents), Pro (5 Agents).
    Why it matters: the pricing page mentions 'bonus credits per additional Agent', while the help article on adding Agents (dated February 2023) says you cannot add Agents past the limit until you upgrade.
    Answer: textline.com/pricing (read 11 October 2026) lists 'Three Agents included (Plus bonus credits per additional Agent)'; the help article 'My account isn't letting me add Agents' says that once you reach your Agent limit you cannot add more until you upgrade to the next tier. The older article may describe legacy plans; no per-Agent price is printed.
    Checked: Textline pricing page (2026-10-11); Textline help: My account isn't letting me add Agents (2026-10-11)

Have a public source that answers one of these? How we review explains how we check and correct.

How to actually use Textline

Set your Add-On amount in Credit Settings on day one. Textline's credits article (read 11 October 2026) says Add-On Credits at $0.03 can be bought only once per billing cycle, at its start; whatever you run short of after that comes from Backup Credits at $0.04, auto-purchased in blocks of at least 250. So size the Add-On order to your busiest month: the gap is 33% on every message, and unused Add-On credits roll over, while unused Included credits expire at the end of the cycle.

Decide the number type before you register anything, because the $15 monthly campaign fee follows that choice and not your plan. A 10DLC long code carries the fee; the pricing page states toll-free numbers have no monthly registration fee. Read Textline's own explainers on number types and on The Campaign Registry first, since the choice also affects how registration works. You can now compare the tiers yourself on what is included — 600 versus 2,000 minimum message credits a month, three versus five agents — so ask sales only for the two dollar figures and for what an overage costs.

Settle compliance before the first campaign: registration, documented opt-in and a working opt-out stay your responsibility whatever the platform does.

Where this section comes from: our research notes (105 words)

Vendor pricing page https://www.textline.com/pricing (read 2026-08-31, from a European exit — plan tiers, credit rates, 10DLC and toll-free fee FAQ); Textline, 'The Campaign Registry explained' https://www.textline.com/blog/the-campaign-registry-explained-how-to-register-forms-you-need-faqs (read 2026-08-31); Textline, 'Types of phone numbers' https://www.textline.com/blog/types-of-phone-numbers (read 2026-08-31). Not usable as a source: support.textline.com did not resolve on 2026-08-31. Re-verified 11 October 2026 on www.textline.com/pricing and the help.textline.com articles 'All About Textline's Various Message Credits' (12012074), 'Export a Conversation' (6660331), 'EXPORTS: Can we export Contact or Conversation data?' (6660372), 'How to cancel your account' (6660309), 'Can we port back to original provider?' (6660387) and 'My account isn't letting me add Agents' (6660253), all read 11 October 2026.

The natural comparison is Salesmsg or Zipwhip — the direct business-texting peers — compare on the per-message rate plus the 10DLC fee, since the platform fee is only part of it.

Visit Textline →

Frequently asked questions

Do unused message credits carry over?

Some do. Textline's help article 'All About Textline's Various Message Credits' (updated 26 May 2026, read 11 October 2026) says Included Credits expire at the end of the billing cycle, month or year, while Add-On Credits ($0.03) and Backup Credits ($0.04) never expire and roll over. Add-On Credits can be bought only once per billing cycle; Backup Credits are auto-purchased in blocks of at least 250 when you dip below your threshold. Annual billing raises the included allowance: 10% more credits on annual billed monthly, 20% more on annual paid upfront, which gets the whole year's credits at renewal.

What can I take with me if I leave?

Conversations one at a time and the address book. The help article 'Export a Conversation' (read 11 October 2026) exports a single conversation as CSV from its message options menu, and 'EXPORTS: Can we export Contact or Conversation data?' says contact details export from the Address Book, given the right permissions; a bulk export of all conversations is not described: not confirmed. 'How to cancel your account' (January 2026) says your data stays on file after cancelling in case you restore, and is deleted on request. A ported-in number goes back to its original provider once the Department is deleted, per 'Can we port back to original provider?'.

Who counts as an Agent, and what does adding one do?

An Agent is a team member invited to the account; Essentials includes three and Pro five (textline.com/pricing, read 11 October 2026), and the pricing page says each additional Agent brings bonus credits. The help article on adding Agents says that once you reach your plan's limit you cannot add more until you upgrade to the next tier, and that giving an existing Agent access to a Department does not add a seat. The two sources differ and no per-Agent price is printed: not confirmed.

Is this a hands-on review of Textline?

This is a researched assessment, not a hands-on test — where we've used a tool ourselves, we say so explicitly. We name what each tool is good and bad at, and we earn a commission only if you sign up, at no cost to you.

What this page is based on
  • Buyer reviews on GetApp, Software Finder, SelectHub and Research.com, read August 2026.
  • Price re-verified 2026-08-31 against the vendor's own pricing page, read from a European exit.
  • A dated screenshot of that pricing page, kept on this site as the receipt.

How we review →

Not sure Textline is the right pick? Where do the repeated questions come in? Pick one and the Tool Finder shows the tools we researched for it, with the entry price we read (one more question, no signup).
WhatsApp, SMS & social messaging · where Textline fitsA help desk, tickets or a shared inboxWebsite or Shopify chat & FAQ deflection

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