Every SMS sent from Cliniko uses SMS credits. These include patient reminders, follow-ups, forms, group messages, practitioner notifications, and forwarded patient replies. If your SMS costs are higher than expected, this guide will help you see where your credits are going and cut down on unnecessary spend.
In this guide, we'll discuss:
How SMS credits are charged
A credit covers one message of up to 160 characters, including spaces and symbols. If a message goes over this, it will use an extra credit for every 160 characters (or part thereof).
For instance, here's a message that has 300 characters which will be sent as 2 SMS credits:
Hi Jane Smith Doe,
Your appointment is set for Thu, 27 Aug 2026 at 11:46. It will be with John Lee.
Parking is limited at 17 Fake Street Apt. 182 Cremorne, so plan accordingly.
Please ensure that you are on time please. We look forward to seeing you on Thu, 27 Aug 2026.
Cheers,
Example Business
You can try to shorten the message to be 160 characters or under so that it costs 1 credit. Here's the same example but shortened to 156 characters:
Hi Jane,
Your appointment is on 27/08/26 at 11:46 with John. Parking is limited at 17 Fake Street. Please ensure you are on time.
Cheers,
Example Business
The cost of a credit varies depending on your country. You can head to our pricing page to check the cost of SMS credits where you are.
Practitioner SMS notifications and forwarded patient replies are capped at 1 credit each as Cliniko automatically truncates these to fit within 160 characters.
Check how your credits are being used
When drafting SMS templates in Cliniko, you'll notice a message that estimates how many credits the template will use:
That figure is merely a rough estimate, as the actual cost of the SMS sent is dependent on the text that the placeholders replace.
SMS credits are purchased in advance and drawn down as messages are sent. For a record of how many credits have been purchased, you can head to Settings → Our clinic → Cliniko subscription.
To get a sense of where your credits are going, you can head to Settings → Data & docs → Data exports to run a Communications export. Select the date range as any time to any time to get a spreadsheet of all the communications sent and received from your account since the beginning:
In the spreadsheet, you can filter it to show SMS only in the Type column, and Sent in the Direction column. This gives you a rough idea of how many SMS messages were sent from your account.
The spreadsheet won't show you the exact amount of credits used though, as this can vary depending on the length of each SMS sent. For an exact figure, you'd need to check the character count of each message in the Content column to work out how many credits it used.
Ways to reduce your SMS credit usage
If you're looking to cut your SMS usage down, there are a few options available:
Use email. Emails in Cliniko are free, so substitute SMS communications like practitioner notifications or forms for their email counterparts if possible.
Use shorter placeholders, such as
Patient.FirstNameinstead ofPatient.FullName. For example, your reminders would just say Sam instead of Sam Jamie McKnightson King. Similarly, you can useAppointment.DateShortrather thanAppointment.Dateso that the date appears as 27/08/26 instead of 27 Aug 2026.
Shorten the phrasing. If you want a patient to reply "yes" to let you know if they're coming, use something like "Reply Y to confirm", rather than "Reply yes if you're going to attend". That saves you a bunch of characters!
Check for "empty" spaces. A space counts as a character, and sometimes a few too many get into your message, causing it to tip over into 2-credit territory!
Turn off reminders for appointment types that don't need them. Not every appointment type or business location needs an SMS reminder so you can switch these off individually in your appointment type/business settings rather than sending them across the board.
Disable SMS forwarding to a mobile. Patient SMS replies can be forwarded to a mobile or email. While the mobile forwards are truncated to fit 160 characters per SMS, their cost can add up. You can head to Settings → Communication → SMS settings to disable the forwarding to mobile and keep email forwarding only. You can still view your patient SMS replies on the Dashboard or in the Communications tab.
If you have more questions about how to optimise your SMS messages, feel free to ask our support team for help. They'll be able to offer guidance!