Set up Communications Credits for your organization
If you want to use toll-free numbers with Microsoft Teams, you need to set up Communications Credits. Microsoft recommends that you set up Communications Credits for your Microsoft Teams Calling Plan (Domestic, International, or Pay-As-You-Go) and Audio Conferencing users who need to dial out to any destination. Some destinations may not be included in your Calling Plans or Audio Conferencing subscriptions.
When you sign up for Calling Plans and/or Audio Conferencing, you get some minutes depending on your country/region. For more information, see Country or region availability list for Audio Conferencing and Calling Plans.
If you don't set up Communications Credits, and you run out of minutes for your organization, those users won't be able to make calls or dial out from Audio Conferencing meetings. You can get more information, including recommended funding amounts, by reading What are Communications Credits?
For more information about plans and pricing, see the rates here.
Important
For customers with new commerce experience calling subscriptions:
The new commerce experience (NCE) allows customers to pay for services after the services have been consumed, also known as post-usage billing.
Because Communication Credits is a pre-paid budget to support outgoing minutes, it’s not available to purchase for customers with NCE calling subscriptions.
Instead, NCE customers will pay for overage outgoing minutes after they've used them. There's no need for a pool of Communication Credits.
For more information about the new commerce experience for calling subscriptions, see Enable pay-as-you-go for your subscription and New commerce overage for telco pay-as-you-go.
To set up Communication Credits for your organization, follow these steps:
Step 1: Assign an Audio Conferencing and/or Phone System with Calling Plan license to your users
Communication Credits can be enabled for users that have either an Audio Conferencing license, a Phone System with Calling Plan license, or both.
Assign an Audio Conferencing license to your users. See Assign Microsoft Teams add-on licenses.
After you assign this license, you need to set up Audio Conferencing. For step-by-step instructions, see Try or purchase Audio Conferencing in Microsoft 365 or Office 365.
Assign Phone System and a Domestic, International, or Pay-As-You-Go Calling Plan license to your users. See Assign Microsoft Teams add-on licenses.
Note
Although it's not required for Communications Credits, you still need to assign a Domestic Calling Plan, International Calling Plan, or Pay-As-You-Go license.
After you assign these licenses, you need to get your phone numbers for your organization, and then assign those numbers to the people in your organization. For step-by-step instructions, see Set up Calling Plans.
For more information, see Microsoft Teams add-on licensing.
Step 2: Set up Communications Credits for your organization
Sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin center with your work or school account.
In the left navigation of the Microsoft 365 admin center, go to Billing > Purchase Services.
Look for Communication Credits under the add-ons category or search for Communication Credits in the Search all product categories search box and select Details.
Review the service information and select Buy. (Note: A fixed number of Communication Credits licenses are automatically selected in every order.)
On the Checkout page, enter your payment information and fill in the required information:
Add funds Enter the amount that you want to add to your account.
Auto-recharge Enabling auto-recharge will automatically refill your account when the balance falls below the threshold that you set.
Microsoft recommends that you use the Auto-recharge setting to avoid any disruption of service if your Communications Credits balance reaches zero. You'll be sent an email when recharge transactions succeed, when recharge transactions fail (such as an expired credit card), and when your Communications Credits balance reaches zero.
Recharge amount Enter the amount in the Recharge with box that you want added to your account once it reaches the trigger amount below.
Trigger amount Enter the amount in When the balance falls below box that will be used to ' trigger ' the auto-recharge. Once your balance falls below this amount, the recharge amount will be added automatically to your account.
Note
Funds will be applied only to Communications Credits at Microsoft published rates when the services are used. Any funds not used within 12 months of the purchase date will expire and be forfeited.
When using the auto-recharge function, invoicing for Communication Credits is generated when the trigger amount is reached and a recharge transaction is processed. Communication credit amounts are used in a first in first out manner. To learn how to check your monthly usage, read Microsoft Teams PSTN usage report.
Select Place order.
Important
If you are a volume licensing customer, you may wish to use your enterprise agreement for payment. If you have multiple enterprise agreement numbers, you will be able to select which enterprise agreement you would like to use for payment. You will also be given an opportunity to specify a purchase order number to associate with the enterprise agreement number (if applicable) once Support enables this.
Each organization will have a different usage of Calling Plan volume and rates to consider. You need to get this type of usage data from your current service provider. Organizations already using Microsoft Teams as their service provider can get usage data by reviewing it in the Microsoft Teams admin center > Analytics & reports > Usage reports > PSTN and SMS (preview) usage report.
When you're setting up Communications Credits, you'll need to investigate call usage for your organization to determine the amounts you need. You can get call usage information by reviewing the PSTN and SMS (preview) usage report. This report lets you export the call data records to Excel if you need to store the data or create custom reports. To learn how to see usage, read Microsoft Teams PSTN usage report.
Step 3: Assign a Communications Credits license to users
Sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin center with your work or school account.
In the left navigation of the Microsoft 365 admin center, go to Users > Active users, and then select a user from the list.
Choose Licenses and Apps.
Toggle Communications Credits to On to assign this license, and then select Save.
Note
Even if you have users who are assigned an Enterprise E5 license, it's still recommended that you do this.
Tip
You can use Powershell to assign licenses and apps to multiple users with one command.
For more information
You can see more information by signing in to the Microsoft 365 admin center and going to Billing > Subscriptions > Add subscriptions.
For more information about licenses, see Microsoft Teams add-on licensing.
For more information about Calling Plans, see Set up Calling Plans and Calling Plans for Microsoft 365.
For more information about adding funds and managing Communication Credits, see Add funds and manage Communications Credits.