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Before you start using Google Voice, one question you’d probably like to ask is: “How much do I have to pay to use it?” Well, like most of Google’s services, it isn’t that expensive in terms of money. However, know that there are other “costs” associated with it.
We’ll explain what you need to know in this article.
Google Voice is mostly free to use. It costs you no money to sign up for an account or to claim a Google Voice number. Also, calls made through Google Voice to numbers in the United States and Canada are free, with a few exceptions. Calls made through Google Voice to anywhere else will cost money.
In addition, remember that Google makes most of the money off its services not through fees and subscriptions, but through “big data” advertising – and Google Voice is no exception. So, all communication information you create through, or add to, Google Voice is collected and processed by Google for their business operations. We just want to make sure that you’re aware of this.
You can check this web page to see Google Voice’s current rates. Simply click in the box labelled “Enter Country You Want to Call” and type in the name of the country in which you want to contact someone to see its rate. Or, click Show All Rates to see alphabetically-organized tables of countries and their calling rates; click one of the letters at the top-right of any table to skip to countries whose names start with that letter.
You can also click the drop-down menus labelled “Currency” and “Billing Country” to change these, if you’re going to be calling from a specific country and/or paying in a specific currency.
There are a few other things that you may want to keep in mind when using Google Voice so that you can avoid being surprised by a larger-than-normal telecom bill.
In order to make paid international calls with Google Voice, you need to have credit stored in your account. You can have up to $70 U.S. on your account at once. If you need to buy more, here’s how to do it.
Open Google Voice by navigating to www.google.com/voice in your web browser of choice and logging into your Google account.
Click the Main Menu button (the three vertical lines) in the top-left corner of the page.
When the main menu pane opens, click Credit.
You will be taken to the “Payments” section of the “Settings” menu. From here, click Add Credit. A box will pop up; click the denomination of credit that you wish to purchase, and then click the Add Credit that appears within the box.
On the next page, you will have to select how you are going to pay for your credit purchase. If you don’t have a credit card or debit card on your Google account, you will have to add one here.
Click in each of the fields highlighted in the screenshot above and type in:
When you’ve entered all of your information, click Buy.
There! Now you know how much you might have to pay for Google Voice, and how to buy credit for doing so. Next, we’ll give you a full review of Google Voice, outlining the pros and cons, so you can make an informed decision on whether or not you really want to use it.