Are you having trouble reading your Twilio invoice? Is any of the data confusing? Well, you've come to the right place. This guide will explain how to access and read your Twilio invoice.

 

Access your Invoice

Twilio Invoices can be retrieved at any time from the Billing Overview page in Console. For more details, see When and Where Can I Find my Invoice.

Invoice Overview

In the following sections, we'll introduce and explain the different components of your Twilio invoice:

• Company Name and Address
• Invoice Summary
• Product Usage Summary
• Account Usage Summary
• Payment Instructions
• Tax Details
• Bucket Details
• Usage Details

Company Name and Address

The top left of the invoice will show your business name, the service month, and your service address. The top right of the front page will show Twilio’s business name and address.

 

The address displayed on the invoice is the address used for tax determination on your usage. See When Does Twilio Charge Taxes for more details on tax determination. If your service address is incomplete or cannot be verified, your billing address will be used to determine taxes, and the same will be reflected on your invoice.

If you do not have a valid service or billing address, we cannot determine taxes for your usage, and an invoice can not be generated for you. Please ensure your address is complete and valid.

Invoice Summary

The front page of your invoice has a summary section, with a brief run-through of your account's attributes. The invoice amount, currency of the invoice, and due date are all highlighted in a box for your ease.

 

The Billing Preferences page in Console allows you to add or edit a PO number, business name, business tax ID, and more. For full details, see How do I Update my Billing Settings.

The Project Settings page in Console allows you to edit your project name. For full details, see Can I change the name of my project or View and Create New Projects in Twilio Console.

If you’ve entered any of this information, those details would also show up here in the Invoice Summary section. Please note, depending on your country's taxation requirements, you may see a Tax ID number, VAT number, or GST number.

Product Usage Summary

The product usage summary on the front page of your invoice summarizes usage across all items, linked accounts, and sub-accounts, to show a high-level summary per product group.

 

Each product listed represents the total usage costs billed in this invoice, along with the following non-product line items:

• Credits represent the total amount of sales reversed.
• Promos represent the total amount of promotional money added to your account.
• Taxes represents the total taxes charged for services billed, based on the taxation requirements in your country.
  Note: If you are not in a country we current tax, you would see a statement explaining the same and no tax line items. To see if Twilio collects taxes in your country, please see the Taxes section of our Support Help Center.

Note: Subaccount usage is not broken down in the PDF invoice for your account. To get a detailed usage breakdown of each subaccount, download the CSV version of the invoice. Please see How to Read the Twilio Invoice CSV Supplement for more information.

Account Usage Summary

Customers with multiple projects on their invoice (sometimes referred to as multi-account invoicing) will also see the Usage Summary per Account section. This section of the invoice summarizes the month's usage for each project or linked account on invoices beginning in October of 2019. Each project’s business name and project name is mentioned in this section.

Notice: Users looking for a detailed split of usage per sub-account can see this information in the Invoice CSV supplement beginning in October of 2019.

 

• For a list of your projects, see View and Create New Projects in Twilio Console.
• To adjust the account name for any linked projects, update the Business Name in Console. For full details, see How do I Update my Billing Settings.
• If you have multiple projects and want to link them together to see them on one invoice, please contact our Support team.

After the usage summary section(s), the invoice would mention statutory requirements, such as tax note and exchange rate (where applicable). Not every customer, based on account details, country, or currency, will need those disclaimers, so do not be surprised if you do not see them.

Payment Instructions

For Invoiced customers, the payment instructions page contains information required to pay by wire, as well as remittance instructions. Depending on your country and currency, you may see customized payment instructions.

 

Notice: Pay-as-you-go accounts will not have a Payment Instructions section in their invoice, as usage is billed against your Twilio balance as it occurs. Pay-as-you-go account invoices are for monthly supplemental accounting purposes only. For help finding Twilio payment receipts, see How can I get a receipt for my payments.

Tax Details

The taxes section tabulates the breakdown of services consumed by tax type, the taxes charged based on the products consumed, and the effective taxes on each item. Some services and account promotions may not be taxed; you will find details on these here.

 

This section will look different depending on what country you're in:

• Customers who consume Twilio services in Australia, Singapore, Japan, and countries in Europe, will see a similar explanation for the tax charged.
• Customers who consume Twilio services in locales we are not required to charge taxes will not see this section.
• Customers who consume Twilio services in the US will see the tax types charged shown in the Usage Details section.

To see if Twilio collects taxes in your country, please see the Taxes section of our Support Help Center.

Bucket Details

If you have signed up for a bucket pricing strategy, such as a bucket of US SMS, you will find a section explaining the bucket's information. This section starts with the label of your bucket, followed by a summary of the bucket usage for this month, and then lastly, the details of the usage in the month.

Bucket pricing is available for Twilio customers billed by invoice. For more information, please talk to your Account Manager, or reach out to our Sales team.

Usage Details

The usage details section gives you a per account breakdown of the services used, credits applied, promos applied, and taxes charged on this invoice. Within the services section, items are grouped by products and countries (example: SMS grouped by destination country). 

Usage Details begin with a total of the services used for each account. Some examples of items included here are:

• Recurring charges such as phone numbers rental fees, short code renewals, etc., which are charged on a regular basis (monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, annual)
• Charges for using Twilio products like Programmable SMS and Voice calls.
• Billing adjustments such as minimum spend commitment adjustments.
• Monthly charges for services such as enterprise plan or premium support.

  

At the end of the account's usage details, we list and credits, promotions, and taxes charged.

If you'd like to see how your Twilio usage has changed from month to month, or you're interested in manipulating your invoicing data to gain additional insights into your usage and spend, download the CSV supplement. You'll also be able to see split usage per subaccount in the CSV starting in October 2019.

Usage Details FAQ

Since seeing the usage details may prompt some additional questions, we are taking this opportunity to answer some common queries here:

Q: Why am I being charged for phone numbers, even though I didn't purchase any this month?
A: Phone numbers have a monthly rental fee that is charged each month until the phone number is released. For more information, see How much does a phone number cost.

Q: When and why are taxes charged?
A: Twilio calculates and charges taxes at the end of each month for usage incurred throughout the previous month. Taxes are assessed based on your business address provided. For more information, see When Does Twilio Charge Taxes.

Q: What is the adjustment charge on my invoice?
A: Some users may see "minimum commit" or "min spend adjustment" on their invoice (example: Messaging - Quarterly Minimum Spend). These adjustments are added to ensure your account is meeting the minimum spend amount that was agreed upon between you and Twilio in your order form. These commitments allow us to provide your with more favorable pricing.

Q: I see charges for more SMS than I sent. Why is that?
A: Long SMS are broken into smaller segments of 160 characters each by the telecom carriers. Each segment is charged at the rate of one SMS. The invoice shows the total segments used. For more information, see How much does it cost to send a message with more than 160 characters.

Q: Why do I see differences between my invoice and the Console product logs?
A: For invoicing purposes, Twilio always uses the UTC timezone. User accounts set to use a local (non-UTC) timezone will likely see differences in the usage captured in Console product logs on the first and last days of the month. For help switching to or from UTC, see Change the timezone in your Twilio project.

The billing system at Twilio works in 5 decimals places, i.e. $0.00001 precision. However, for simplicity, invoices are rounded to two decimals, i.e. $0.01 precision. This might cause a mismatch in fractions of a cent for a line item between invoices, the Usage Center page on Console, or Usage API.

Please note that you are not billed directly for your trial usage, so your invoice will not reflect any usage occurring while your account was on the free trial. The invoice will only show usage from after the time your account was upgraded. Users who upgrade in the middle of a month will likely see less billed on the first month's invoice than they would see in the Usage Center page on Console. For more information, see How does Twilio's Free Trial work.

Q: What does "Non-geographic" mean for some of the usage on my invoice?
A: Invoices show most usage grouped by the associated country - phone numbers by the country code, messages and voice by the destination, etc. Usage on software products (Taskrouter, Flex, Proxy, etc.) and billing adjustments (credits, minimum spend adjustment, etc.) are not associated to a specific country, and therefore listed as Non-geographic.

Future features

Upcoming design launches include a redesigned tax summary, a summary of information of your min spend, and a statement of account.