Hourly

Get warned before your Twilio balance runs out

You get one alert when the balance drops below your limit, and no more until it's topped up.

Runs: Hourly
Apps: Twilio
AI: Not needed
Access: read

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every hour, check my Twilio balance and email me if it goes under $20.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

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First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

Twilio stops sending when the balance reaches zero, and it does so without drama. A business that relies on texts for login codes, appointment reminders or alerts just finds out that nothing is going out. Customers cannot sign in, reminders vanish and the first sign of trouble is usually a puzzled customer. The cost of a missed top-up is far larger than the amount that was missing.

Every hour, this checks your Twilio account balance and compares it with the threshold you set. When it drops below that amount, you get one alert, and no more until the balance recovers above the threshold and later falls below it again. A top-up gets done while there is still time.

Teams with auto-recharge turned off, or a small prepaid balance, rely on it most.

What you get out of it

Messaging never stops unexpectedly
An hour-by-hour check catches the balance before it hits zero. You can top up before login codes and reminders are affected, so customers never experience a failure caused by an empty account.
One alert, not a nag
After the first warning, the alert stays quiet until the balance has recovered. You are not buried in repeat emails while the finance team is approving the top-up. That keeps the inbox usable while payment is being sorted out.
Threshold matches your burn rate
Set it to cover a day or two of normal spend. That gives finance time to approve a payment, even over a weekend, without panic or an emergency card payment.
Protects revenue paths
For many companies, texts are part of the checkout or the sign-up. A low-balance warning protects revenue directly, since an empty account silently blocks customers who are trying to buy.
Works alongside auto-recharge
Even with auto-recharge enabled, a failed card can leave you short. The alert is a backstop for the case where the automatic top-up did not work, which is easy to miss.

How it works

What happens, step by step

Every hour, ClickRuntime checks your Twilio account balance.
It compares it with the limit you set.
When the balance drops below the limit, you get one email with the balance and a reminder to top up. You won't hear again until it has been topped up and drops low once more.

Before it runs live

Connect Twilio

What you get

RunsHourly

Get warned before your Twilio balance runs outtoday, 9:00Succeeded

Email · Twilio balance is lowBalance: 14.82 USD (limit 20.00). Top up to keep messages going.

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.

Your own rules
Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.
Any number of apps
One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.
AI where it helps
Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.
On a schedule or on each event
Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

Run it at a different time, more or less often, or only on weekdays
Add an AI step, for example to summarize, sort or draft a reply
Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
Combine it with other Twilio steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.

low_balance_alert.pyexample

from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, http, state, notify

LIMIT = 20.0

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    sid = credentials.secret("TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID")
    b = http.get(f"https://api.twilio.com/2010-04-01/Accounts/{sid}/Balance.json",
                 auth=(sid, credentials.secret("TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN"))).json()
    balance = float(b["balance"])
    low = balance < LIMIT
    if low and not state.get("alerted"):
        notify.email_me("Twilio balance is low", f"Balance: {balance:.2f} {b['currency']} (limit {LIMIT:.2f}). Top up to keep messages going.")
    state.set("alerted", low)
    return {"balance": balance, "low": low}

FAQ

Common questions

What threshold should I choose?

Pick an amount that covers at least a few days of your usual spend, for example five times your daily cost. If your daily usage report shows twelve dollars, a threshold of sixty dollars gives you a comfortable cushion.

Will I be alerted again after I top up?

Only if the balance falls below the threshold again later. After a top-up, the flow notices the balance has recovered and resets, so the next dip below the line produces a fresh alert. Balance recovery is what resets it.

Does it check subaccount balances?

Twilio balance applies to the main account, with subaccounts drawing from it. The alert watches that account balance, so one warning covers all subaccounts rather than one for each. The main account balance is what pays for all of them, so one number covers everything.

What permissions does it need?

read. Nothing else in your accounts is used.

Does it need AI?

No. It runs without AI, so it doesn't use your plan's AI allowance.

How many runs does it use?

One run each time it runs (hourly). Checks that find nothing to do and stop right away aren't counted.

Can I change how it works?

Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

Every 5 minutes to every 6 hours