Pay for calls that happen. Nothing else.
Front Desk draws your shared Ounie credit wallet — 1 credit = 1¢. An unanswered call costs nothing, and every answered call refunds its unused deposit automatically.
| answered minute | 15 cr | billed in 6-second increments; calls under 15 seconds are free |
| number rental | 300 cr / mo | per phone line, settled once per line per month |
| booking captured | 5 cr | flat, only when a booking actually lands in your book |
| message taken | 2 cr | flat, only when a message lands in your inbox |
| unanswered call | 0 cr | no answer, no charge — always |
Reserve first, settle exact, refund the rest.
Before the agent answers, the call reserves a deposit of 15 × your max call minutes + 15 event headroom — 165 credits at the default 10-minute cap. At hang-up it settles the actual talk time plus any bookings and messages, and the unused remainder refunds automatically, pool-exact: monthly included credits go back to monthly, purchased back to purchased. If the deposit can't be reserved, the call simply isn't answered by the AI — your balance can never go negative.
What real calls cost.
- A 3:07 call that books a table
48 cr talk time + 5 cr booking = 53 credits ≈ $0.53 - A 40-second "are you open?" call
7 increments × 1.5 cr = 11 credits ≈ $0.11 - A call nobody answers
0 credits — unanswered and unfunded calls never charge
One wallet across every Ounie app.
Front Desk shares the same credit balance as ounie.com and the rest of the Ounie fleet — buy once, spend anywhere. Monthly included credits from your Ounie plan apply here too.
Buy credits on ounie.com →Pricing questions
What is a credit worth?
1 credit = 1¢ face value. Credits are Ounie's universal currency — the same wallet pays for every Ounie app, and you buy them once on ounie.com.
Is there a monthly minimum?
Only the number rental: 300 credits ($3) a month per phone line. There's no platform subscription, no seat fee, and no per-agent charge.
What happens if my wallet runs out mid-month?
New callers hear a brief unavailable message — they're never billed and your line is never a dead number. Unpaid rental gets a 3-day grace, then the line suspends; topping up resumes it automatically. Cancelled or unpaid lines keep their number on a 30-day hold before release.
Are dashboard reads or API calls ever charged?
No. Reading calls, transcripts, bookings, and messages is free forever, on the dashboard, the REST API, and MCP.
Everything else — deposits, ledger reasons, the rental lifecycle — is in the API docs.