Capacity against the plan: what runs out first
Four meters — AI voice minutes, AI messages, carrier minutes and automation runs — answering one question: what stops you first if volume keeps climbing?
Four bars, one question, stated on the card itself: what runs out first if volume keeps climbing?
The distinction worth understanding immediately is that AI voice minutes and carrier minutes are different things. AI voice minutes are your plan allowance for agent time on calls. Carrier minutes are what your telephony provider charges for the call itself, drawn from the calling balance. A busy calling week consumes both, at different rates, and either can be the one that stops you.
Steps
Find the longest bar
That is your binding constraint, and it is the only one worth optimising. Improving anything else changes nothing about when you run out.
Understand AI voice minutes
Time your AI agent spends on calls, inbound or outbound. Time your team spends on calls is not metered here at all.
This is why putting an agent only on the after-hours branch is such an efficient first deployment — it spends minutes where there was previously nobody.
Understand AI messages
Messages your bot sends on chat channels. Messages your team types are not metered. Pointing a high-volume channel at a bot is what consumes these.
Understand carrier minutes separately
These are the telephony cost, drawn against the calling balance rather than a monthly allowance. They run down rather than resetting.
Understand automation runs
Counted per step, not per workflow run. A six-step workflow running a hundred times uses six hundred — which is why this bar climbs faster than people expect once a few automations are live.
Project forward before a campaign
A campaign multiplies AI voice minutes and carrier minutes together. Estimate before you launch rather than discovering it at 40% progress.
Decide between narrowing and upgrading
If automation runs are the constraint, narrowing workflows with "only if" is free. If AI voice minutes are the constraint and the calls are producing bookings, upgrading is the right answer.
Check it worked
Note all four percentages on the same day each month. Two months of that tells you your growth rate per meter, which is what turns this screen from a status check into planning.
The parts people get wrong
- Paying yearly costs ten months instead of twelve, which is often cheaper than moving up a tier for headroom you need occasionally.
- A workflow that is switched off consumes no automation runs at all.