Every Fortress Communicator paid tier comes with a bundle of outbound minutes. After you use the bundle, overage minutes debit your pre-paid balance at our wholesale-plus-margin rate. In-network calls — Fortress user to Fortress user — are always free and never count against the bundle.
Bundled minutes by tier
| Tier | Monthly cost | US/Canada minutes |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | In-network only (no PSTN) |
| Basic | $11.24 | 500 minutes |
| Pro | $18.99 | 2,000 minutes |
| Premier | $26.99 | Unlimited US/Canada |
| Team | $14.99/seat | Unlimited US/Canada |
| Business | $18.99/seat | Unlimited US/Canada |
| Enterprise | $27.99/seat | Unlimited US/Canada |
Unused bundle minutes roll over on Apple subscription renewal as long as you stay on the same tier. Switching tiers resets the bundle to the new tier’s allotment.
How overage and PSTN calls are billed
Once your bundle is exhausted (or you are on the Free tier and have added a phone number), outbound calls debit your pre-paid balance. The order of operations on every PSTN call:
- Check whether the call is in-network. If both parties are Fortress users on a verified device, the call is end-to-end encrypted and free.
- Otherwise, check your monthly bundle. Bundle minutes are consumed first.
- After the bundle is exhausted, the per-minute rate debits from your pre-paid balance.
- When the balance reaches zero, outbound PSTN calls are blocked. In-network calls, inbound calls, and SMS continue to work.
Pre-paid only. Fortress never bills for overage after the fact. If you run out of balance, the next PSTN call won’t connect — but no surprise charge ever lands on a credit card. Top up at any time from the Settings tab.
Domestic per-minute rates (US and Canada)
| Destination | Per-minute rate (overage) |
|---|---|
| US — landline | $0.014 |
| US — mobile | $0.014 |
| Canada — landline | $0.014 |
| Canada — mobile | $0.014 |
Rates are the same regardless of which Fortress tier you are on. The difference between tiers is the size of the included bundle, not the per-minute price.
International rates
International per-minute rates vary by destination country and by whether you are calling a landline or a mobile number. The rate table is published live at community.fortressdms.com/communicator/rates. Search for the destination country before placing the call; the rate is shown in dollars per minute, with the wholesale base and our markup separately disclosed.
How rate changes are announced
Wholesale voice rates change occasionally — usually because the destination carrier changed its termination fee. When that happens we update our published rate, but we never do it without warning:
- 30 days notice by email and an in-app banner before any retail rate change takes effect.
- A note posted to this Help Center under Rate Change Policy.
- Minutes already in your bundle are not affected — those are minutes, not dollars.
See the full policy at Rate Change Policy.
Good timing on this — we just got hit with a surprise bill last month because one of our staff didn’t realize international calls billed at a completely different rate. Is there a way to set up an alert or hard cap before an international call goes through, or is that something we’d have to configure on our end?
We switched tier plans last year and the overage charges on international calls caught us completely off guard until we figured out how to pull the rate lookup before approving a call. This article explains that step way better than our vendor ever did — I’m forwarding it to our comm room staff today.
We had an incident last month where a detainee’s family was hit with a huge bill after a bunch of international calls to a relative in Guatemala — nobody on our end had looked up the rate beforehand. Really glad to see this broken down clearly. Is there a way to set a per-call cap or alert before the call connects so staff can warn the caller?
Finally a breakdown that actually explains the overage structure — we got hit with a surprise invoice last quarter because a few detainees were running up international minutes and nobody knew how to check the rate ahead of time. Is the international lookup available through the inmate portal side or only on the admin dashboard?
Good breakdown — we had a situation last month where a detainee’s family was calling from the Dominican Republic and nobody at the desk could tell them what the per-minute rate was going to be before they connected. Knowing how to look that up ahead of time would’ve saved us a real headache. Will be sharing this with our communications officer.
This is exactly what I needed — our facility kept getting surprised by overage charges at the end of the month and nobody could explain where they were coming from. Quick question though: does the international rate lookup update in real time, or is there a lag if rates change mid-billing cycle?