Clerk is free to use with 10 SMS. You can use this plan for as long as you like as long as you are within that particular limit. Under the free plan, Clerk phone number is elastic and will be released every few weeks.
If your Clerk number is SMS Only, it only supports text messages. If someone tries to call your Clerk SMS only number by default the call will be dropped and nothing will happen. Within Microsoft Teams your calling is enabled natively.
SMS count resets on the first day of the month.
The maximum number of characters per single message being sent to carriers depends on the encoding used, and the encoding used depends on the content of the message. Refer to our SMS Limits doc for a detailed breakdown.
We've built Clerk to support a variety of Slack workflows. Enterprises with a large volume of text messages might prefer to use the thread SMS functionality where all inbound SMS go into a single "triage" channel. Internal support team can then triage the conversations and move them to individual channels should they choose to.
Small businesses or organizations that have a pre-defined set of contacts or vendors might want to use the direct channel functionality and separate SMS conversations into their own individual Slack channels.
If a direct channel with a contact has been deleted or archived a new inbound message would get posted to your shared channel. You can choose to keep the conversation there or re-create the direct channel. On a new outbound message you can choose to send the message to the shared channel or create a brand new direct channel.
SMS is really hard to filter as anyone can send you random spam messages. We are working on a filter and will release it in the next few months. You can reply "STOP" to the number & they will never send you unsolicited spam again. As it is illegal to send spam SMS without the receiver's consent.