SMS Variable Fee Schedule

Introduction:
PlanetDDS will begin implementing a variable SMS fee schedule to pass along text message carrier fees and monthly compliance fees to customers, similarly to our competitors. Fees will begin to be applied upon contract renewal and/or new contract sale starting March 25th, 2024.

Question: Do payment links count towards the segment tally? 

Answer:
Yes

Question: Do links from SmartAssist count towards the segment tally?

Answer:
Yes

Question: Do all appointment confirmation/reminder messages count towards the tally? 

Answer:
Yes

Question: What if an office sends 5000 but then another office sends 7000… will they still be charged for the overage? 

Answer:
The offices with separate phone lines who send 7000 will be invoiced for the extra 1000. 

Question: Who is calculating the overages and adding them to the invoice each month? 

Answer:
Overages will be calculated by Twilio each month and sent to Planet DDS. The data is converted and finance will upload the data manually. 

Question: Can you please provide more context about how this is industry standard and is done with other PMS/PRM? 

Answer:

Question: Do we know what % of our clients are NOT impacted by the overage? 

Answer:
In terms of usage fees, it will impact 13% of our customer base, so 87% of customers will not be impacted. However, the campaign fee for all customers who send text messages, about 75% of Denticon base will be impacted by the $20.00 monthly account (PGID/Domain) fee

Question: If a customer uses both Denticon and Legwork or Cloud 9 and Legwork, do they get a 6,000 allotment per product? 

Answer:
Yes, customers will get 6,000 per office per product line. 

Question: Will customers be billed on April 1st, 2024?

Answer:
No, we are publishing the agreement changes on April 1st. The campaign fee will start June 1st and usage fees July 1st. 

Question: What happens if a practice is using only 1 phone number for all locations? 

Answer:
Usage fees will be determined based on how they are paying for the product. I.E., if they pay for 5 locations, we will split the usage across 5 locations. If they are paying for 1 location, then we will calculate based on 1 location. 

Question: Will offices pay the $20 fee per product per month (i.e., $20 for Cloud 9 and $20 for Legwork)? 

Answer:
Each product line will be charged $20.00 per account. (PGID, database or legwork teams' instance) 

Question: How do I increase the character limit?

Answer:
The segment length of 160 characters is set by the carrier network and cannot be changed.

Question: What if I want to stop using texting?

Answer:
If a practice stops texting, they will not incur usage fees. It can take up to 60 days for the removal of the phone number and carrier charges.

Question: Can I get an alert when I am close to my threshold?

Answer:
Today, we do not have this capability. However, we will consider it in the future. 

Question: Are we charged if the messages are not delivered, or the numbers are invalid?

Answer:
The office will be charged for all sent messages, including non-delivered. Planet DDS does not send messages to invalid phone numbers and/or landlines.

Question: Does the max apply to both incoming and outgoing text messages?

Answer:
Only outbound messages,

Question: Does a surcharge apply to both incoming and outgoing texts?

Answer:
We are only charging carrier usage fees on outbound messages.

Question: If these are “pass through charges” then why is PlanetDDS charging us double the rate of monthly (A2P 10DLC) compliance fee which should be $10/month and not $20? 

Answer:

Question: What is a segment?

Answer:
Phone carriers measure text messages in character batches called segments. Messages longer than 160 characters are automatically split into multiple segments.

Question: Is the fee only for Connect customers or also for the email to text feature cloud 9 offers?

Answer:
For Cloud 9 it is ONLY for Connect customers.

Question: For Cloud 9 customers, is the anniversary date is equivalent to their renewal date? 

Answer:
Yes, we tend to use the terms interchangeably. For Denticon, they are the same. For Cloud 9, the T&Cs refer to the "anniversary of the Commencement Date" and have a 48-month initial term, so there are technically a couple of anniversaries before the first renewal.

Question: Is there going to be a report that indicates the number of segments sent prior to billing?

Answer:
For the first few months we intend to manually notify practices of this change. We do not have a report on any of the products that calculates the total segment counts.

Question: What is the effective date of this billing change?

Answer:
The change is effective upon the client's contract renewal or anniversary date for Cloud 9 date. 
Billing will begin begins on 6/1 with an OPTIONAL waiver to by a CSM to 7/1 for any clients who have a renewal date of 4/1, 5/1, 6/1, 7/1.

Question: In multi-location scenarios how will the calculation for usage work?

Answer:

If a practice shares a phone number, we will verify the associated costs in Salesforce and calculate based on the number of paid locations.

• For instance, if a 10-location account shares one toll-free number and is paying for messaging at all 10 locations, the calculation will be 6000*10.
• For a mobile dental practice, if they are paying for 3 Denticon Patient Communication products and have 10 locations in Denticon sending messages, the calculation will be 3 *6000.
• If the practice has 10 separate phone numbers for each location, we will assess the message volume for each location and calculate any overage costs per location (note I will also reach out to sales if they are sending messages for 10 locations and only paying for 3)

Question: How is the usage base fee calculated?

Answer:

To calculate a variable fee schedule for a shared phone number scenario:

• Verify the number of locations sold via the contract.
• Multiply the number of locations sold by 6000 (e.g., 4 locations * 6000).
• Add the two phone number segments together (e.g., 15000 and 1200).
• Subtract the (total segments sent) from the (total available units).
  • If the result is a positive number, there is no charge.
  • If the result is negative take the positive of that number and times by .0087

To calculate a variable fee schedule for a office specific phone number scenario:

• Add together the two phone number segment counts (e.g., 15000 and 1200).
• Subtract the (total segments sent) from the (6000).
  • If the result is a positive number, there is no charge.
  • If the result is negative take the positive of that number and times by .0087

To calculate a variable fee, schedule on an account who has a combinate of phone number sshared with offices and office specific phone numbers:

• The single phone line to 1 office will be calculated based on available 6000 segments
• Where offices share a phone number, identify how many offices share the phone number and times that by 6000.
• Subtract the (total segments sent) from the (6000 or more available).
  • If the result is a positive number, there is no charge.
  • If the result is negative take the positive of that number and times by .0087.

Question: Is there an option to turn off texting as an option in Denticon? Some clients do not want this on to avoid accidental overages.

Answer:
Yes, we can move them to new messaging service, and then disable Twilio

Question: Will everyone using text messaging receive the $20 fee per PGID?

Answer:

Additional information: