We realize that payment with a credit card is not always the most convenient option for Twilio's higher volume customers. An alternative method for consuming Twilio services is to setup billing by invoice. Invoiced customers are emailed a monthly invoice for the charges incurred, with net payment terms to pay the invoiced amount. This guide explains how Twilio customers can request invoiced billing.
Who Is Eligible for Invoiced Billing?
We provide invoicing for customers with a minimum committed contractual spend of at least $12k/year.
Any existing invoiced customer may be eligible to upgrade their newly created trial account to an invoiced one using our new self-service flow. Please see What is the process and how long will it take to activate billing by invoice? below for more details.
Can I receive invoices without setting up billing by invoice?
Every customer, including Pay-as-you-go customers, can receive and view Twilio invoices.
- Pay-as-you-go customers are provided invoices to help save a record of their Twilio usage. Since these customers pre-pay for their Twilio services, the invoice clearly state that there is no balance due.
- Invoiced customers are billed via the invoice, and are required to pay the invoiced amount based on their net payment terms.
Twilio Invoices can be retrieved at any time from the Billing Overview page in Console. For full details, see How to read your invoice.
What is the process and how long will it take to activate billing by invoice?
Activating billing by invoice is a multi-step process and takes between 2 to 5 weeks. However, if you are eligible to upgrade your trial account to an invoiced one using our self-service flow, this will only take ~5 minutes. See below for more details.
Self-service Pay by invoice
Certain eligible customers now have the option to upgrade their newly created trial account to a Pay by invoice based on a past credit check via Console. The following is the current eligibility criteria:
- Any existing invoiced customer who creates a trial account will be eligible for the self-service flow
Please note that we currently don't support Flex trial accounts, multi-account invoicing accounts, reseller/resold or .org customers.
To access Console, please use the link here.
In order to find out if you are eligible, please create a new trial account and click on Upgrade. There are two ways to Upgrade:
Method 1: In the project summary page in Console, click Upgrade for the specific trial account:
Method 2: Go to the specific trial account and click on Upgrade at the top of the page:
Once you click on Upgrade and pass the eligibility criteria, you will be presented with a dropdown of previously used addresses of the associated accounts. Please select the one you want to use to upgrade the trial account:
If you select Enter manually, you will be taken to the Pay-as-you-go flow where you will be required to top-up your balance or set up auto-recharge to draw down from the balance as you use Twilio products.
When you select an address from the dropdown and click on Continue, you will be shown two options to select:
For the self-service flow, please select Pay by invoice and complete the flow. The upgrade process takes ~5 mins and once completed, you will have access to all relevant pages for an invoiced customer where you can update your Preferences like mailing address, purchase order (PO) number and many more!
Multi-step process
To elaborate more on the process, every customer request goes through the following:
- A conversation to work through the correct pricing structure for your usage.
- A credit check process where we might ask you for additional information.
- Switching your Twilio billing setting on the backend to allow postpaid invoices.
Credit checks may require the below information:
- Legal company name
- Primary Account SID
- Accounting Contact Full Name
- Accounting Contact email
- Accounting Contact Phone #
- Dun & Bradstreet (DUNS) number
- Information on investor/private funding
- Financial Statements showing cash assets
- Service Address
Notice: this is not an exhaustive list; you may be asked for more or less information in order to perform the credit check.
I received a recharge notification although I was moved to billing by invoice. Can you help?
We recently noticed a few invoiced customers were erroneously sent recharge, credit card charge, or suspension notifications. We are working on fixing this via improved automation. Meanwhile, please disable auto recharge on your console (steps here) and create a support ticket to inform us of the issue and we will fix it.