Clearstream pricing in 2026 starts at $35 a month for 1,000 credits in the US. The next plans are $59 for 2,500 credits and $119 for 6,000, and the tiers keep climbing to $5,899 for 500,000. One plain text to one person is one credit. A text over 160 characters is two. A picture text is three.

So the real question isn't the sticker price. It's how many credits your church burns in a normal month. That's what this post works out.

Full disclosure: I run Evant, which competes with Clearstream. Clearstream is a good product with a lot of happy churches. I'll show you where it's worth the money, and I'll keep my own pitch to one section.

Pricing and features checked November 2026 on the Clearstream pricing page and their help center. Prices change. Check their site before you commit.

The short version

• US plans start at $35/month (1,000 credits). There's a 30-day free trial with 100 credits.
• Credits don't roll over. Unused monthly credits expire on your billing date.
• Long texts cost 2 credits per person. Picture texts cost 3.
• Run out and sending stops until you buy more credits or upgrade. You don't get a surprise overage bill.
• Paying yearly saves 16%.

Clearstream pricing 2026: the US plans

Here are the published US tiers. I added the last column myself. It's just the plan price divided by its credits, so you can see how the cost per credit drops as you go up.

Above that, plans run $1,059, $1,999, $3,299 and $5,899, topping out at 500,000 credits. Canada and Australia have their own tiers, and Clearstream gave Australian plans a lot more credits back in February 2026.

Every plan includes unlimited subscribers, unlimited users, unlimited keywords, scheduled and recurring texts, workflows, and the Planning Center add-on. The two cheapest plans cap your email at 10,000 and 30,000 a month. From $119 up, email is unlimited.

What counts as one Clearstream credit?

Clearstream's help article on credits lays it out:

• One text to one person is 1 credit.
• Over 160 standard characters, it's 2 credits per person.
• Any picture makes it 3 credits per person, no matter how short the text is.
• Incoming texts and emails don't use credits.

Their pricing page adds that emojis can shrink how many characters you get. Same story with curly quotes pasted in from Word. Paste your draft into our free Unicode character detector and you'll catch them before they cost you.

Run the math on a normal month

Say your church has 250 people on the list. You text once a week. Four texts.

All four short and plain? 1,000 credits. You fit the $35 plan exactly. Not one credit to spare.

Now make it real. One reminder is short. Two announcements run long, because church announcements always run long. One is a photo of the Christmas Eve flyer.

That's 1 + 2 + 2 + 3. Eight credits per person. Times 250 people. 2,000 credits.

Double what the $35 plan covers. You're on the $59 plan now, or buying extra credits. Same people. Same four texts. Different bill.

Here's my issue with that. Nobody plans a church budget around character counts. But on a credit model, character counts are the budget.

When you run out of credits

Clearstream doesn't hit you with overage charges. I like that. When your monthly credits are gone, people can still join your lists and get the auto-reply, but you can't send until you top up or upgrade.

Top-ups are à la carte credit packs. Those roll over, never expire, and get used only after your monthly credits run dry. You can also set auto-refill so you never get stuck mid-Sunday.

The catch is the monthly credits themselves. They don't roll over. A quiet summer month doesn't bank anything for December.

The voice add-on, explained

This one confuses people, so I'll be precise. The pricing page lists Voice on US plans from $119 up. Clearstream's voice help article says plans that don't include it can add it for $10 a month.

What it does: forwards incoming calls to your phone or a teammate's, sets up a voicemail (recorded or text-to-speech), and drops transcribed voicemails into your inbox. Useful. It's about answering calls on your texting number.

Where Clearstream is worth the money

I'll be straight with you. For some churches, Clearstream is the right pick.

• Big lists. At 35,000 credits, you're paying about 1.6¢ a credit. Volume gets cheap.
• Planning Center churches. The add-on is included on every plan.
• Short codes. Five-digit short codes are available on request, which matters at megachurch scale.
• Support. Live chat, email, phone and Zoom on every plan.
• Church plants. Churches under a year old can use it free for a year.

I go deeper on the head-to-head in Evant vs Clearstream and Clearstream vs Text In Church. If you're comparing credit models, my breakdown of Text In Church pricing uses the same math.

If you'd rather not count credits

That's why I built Evant. Plans start at $20 a month. Free trial, no credit card.

• Members reply YES to RSVP. No form. No link. No login.
• Voice calls on every plan at 1.5¢ a minute. Not a $119 plan. Every plan. Handy for older members and landlines, and it's all on our voice broadcast page.
• A customizable Stripe donation page for every customer at no extra charge.
• Works on every phone, including flip phones and kosher phones. Nobody downloads an app.

Free email is included, you get a dedicated 10-digit number, and we handle your A2P 10DLC registration for you. If that acronym makes your eyes glaze over, here's my plain-English A2P 10DLC registration guide. The carrier rules behind it come from the CTIA Messaging Principles and Best Practices.

Still shopping around? Start with the best SMS platforms for churches or my full church text messaging guide.

FAQ

How much does Clearstream cost per month?

US plans start at $35 a month for 1,000 credits, then $59 for 2,500 and $119 for 6,000. Higher tiers go up to $5,899 for 500,000 credits. Paying annually saves 16%.

Do Clearstream credits roll over?

Monthly plan credits don't. They expire and reset on your billing date. Credits you buy à la carte do roll over and never expire.

How many credits does a picture text use on Clearstream?

Three credits per person, no matter how many characters are in it. A plain text over 160 characters uses two.

Does Clearstream have a free trial?

Yes. The US free trial lasts 30 days and includes 100 credits. Churches under a year old can use Clearstream free for a year.

So is Clearstream worth $35 a month?

If you're a large church in Planning Center, sending thousands of texts, yes. The per-credit cost gets low and the integrations are strong.

If you're a small church whose texts run long and come with flyers, do the math first. You'll probably land on the $59 plan or higher.

Or skip the math. Try Evant. It's simple enough that a 5 year old could use it.

👉 Start your free trial. No credit card.