Billing

Bento is a subscription-based platform. This page covers how your bill is calculated, what each plan includes, and how trials, cancellations, and refunds work.

How billing works

Bento has two standalone plans and one add-on. You can use either plan on its own or combine them:

Marketing Platform is billed on Active Users. An Active User is a subscribed user, or a person with an event in the last 90 days. Marketing sends are unlimited on paid plans, subject to fair use.
Transactional Email is billed on email volume, not contact count. You can use it on its own without Marketing Platform.
Bento Chat is a flat $30/month add-on. It requires an active Marketing Platform plan.

Your bill is the sum of whatever you have turned on. Usage is calculated and shown transparently in your billing portal.

Marketing Platform pricing

Marketing Platform covers email marketing, CRM, automations, forms, and deliverability tools:

$29/month for up to 5,000 Active Users.
After 5,000, volume pricing applies per Active User per month: $0.01 from 5,001 to 50,000, $0.009 from 50,001 to 250,000, and $0.008 from 250,001 to 1,000,000.
Above 1,000,000 Active Users, pricing is custom. See Enterprise pricing.

People who are unsubscribed and have no recent activity do not count as Active Users, so you are not billed for them.

Transactional Email pricing

Transactional Email covers receipts, password resets, alerts, and other API or SMTP-triggered messages:

Your first 100 emails each month are free.
After that, there is a $5/month minimum through 12,500 emails.
Above 12,500 emails, volume adds $0.09 per 1,000 emails.

There is no contact-based pricing for transactional sends. Your list size does not affect this plan.

Bento Chat pricing

Bento Chat adds shared team inboxes, live chat, SMS conversations, routing, saved replies, and AI agents:

$30/month, flat, on top of your Marketing Platform bill.
It is an add-on only and requires an active Marketing Platform plan.

What's included

Each plan includes its core tools with no feature gating:

Marketing Platform: Broadcasts, Flows, segmentation, CRM, forms, popups, A/B testing, attribution and analytics, email templates, integrations, API access, and deliverability tools.
Transactional Email: API and SMTP sending, delivery and engagement tracking, email logs, templates, webhooks, the Spam API, and bounce and suppression handling.
Bento Chat: Shared inboxes, live chat, SMS, routing, saved replies, and AI agents.

Team seats are included on all plans. There is no extra charge for additional team members or agents.

What's not included

A few things sit outside your subscription:

Web hosting
Domain registration
Professional services

Trial and cancellation

You can try Bento before committing, and leave whenever you want:

Marketing Platform starts with a 30-day free trial.
A credit card is required upfront to start the trial, but you are not charged during it.
Cancellation is self-serve with no questions asked.
You can cancel your subscription at any time.

Plans, team members, and discounts

Annual plans are available. Start a trial, then contact support to set up annual billing.
There is no extra charge for additional users or agents on your account.
We offer discounts for non-profits and startups. Contact support for details.
Switching from another platform? Share your latest invoice during the trial and we can review price matching, credits, and migration help.

Refund policy

Refunds are handled on a case-by-case basis. For full details, see the refund policy in the Platform Terms and Conditions.