Settings: Account Balance

Some parts of CMS are pay-as-you-go rather than part of your subscription. They run off a prepaid balance, and this is where you see it and top it up.

Settings → Account balance & cards.

The Account balance and cards page: a notice that this is not the CMS monthly subscription, an available balance of $20.39, a Saved cards panel with a default Visa ending 1111 and an Add a card button, and an Add funds section below.
The balance, the card that tops it up, and the notice that this is not your subscription.
This is not your CMS monthly subscription, and it has nothing to do with your families' bills or their saved cards. It pays only for the add-on services below. The subscription is paid under Make a Payment in the user menu.

What the Balance Pays For

  • Text messaging
  • Address Updates (NCOA)
  • AI tools — the report assistant, form styling, email wording, and the Assistant once it goes past its free daily questions
  • Upload Donations
  • CMS Maps — address lookups and routes
  • Extra Members Portal emails and sign-in codes by text

The money is shared across all of them and never expires.

Keeping an Eye on It

The balance shows at the top. Two warnings appear on their own:

ChipMeaning
Low balanceAt or under the low-balance mark — $10 unless you change it.
Below $0 — please top upYou have gone past zero. Top up before the services stop.

Cards

One card is the Default and is listed first. Make default moves that badge; Remove takes a card off, and is deliberately not offered on the default one — make another card the default first.

Adding a card asks for the number, expiry, CVV and the name on it. The billing address is optional. Card details are tokenized and never stored in CMS.

The card fields ignore your browser's autofill on purpose. Click into each field and type.

Adding Funds

Add funds takes an amount and a purpose — text messaging, address updates, AI tools, routes and maps, or other add-ons. The purpose is only for your own records; the money goes into one shared balance either way.

When you arrive here from an Add funds link inside a feature — from Text Messaging, say — the purpose is filled in for you and the field is hidden.

You need a card on file before you can top up. With none saved, the section tells you so.