Questions people ask

Your phone and a card. You sign in with your own mobile number — we text you a code, so there is no password to invent — then you name the group, pick a plan, and it has its own number straight away.

Today the person paying does — the plan, the card and the counts are all on a website, so whoever set the group up needs a browser somewhere. Adding and removing people is the one part an admin can do by text. Members never do; their whole side is text messages. We are building an automated phone line for exactly this: you call a toll-free number and the keypad does the same job — start a group, pay by card, add and remove people, buy more texts, change the plan, cancel — in English, Yiddish and Hebrew, with nobody on the line and nothing recorded. It is not open yet and we are not naming a date. If your group is waiting on it, tell us, because that is what sets the order we build in.

No. No business, no EIN, no paperwork — your name and a card. The phone companies do require every number that sends group messages to be registered with them, and that part is genuinely involved, but it is ours to do, not yours. We register the number, pay the fees, and keep it in good standing.

Yes. Every new group starts with a free trial. A card is taken up front so the group can start running immediately, and the exact trial length and first charge date are shown at checkout — we also text you a reminder before that first charge. Cancel before it and you pay nothing.

Whoever sets a group up is its admin — a gabbai, a rosh kollel, a class parent, whoever already keeps the list. They add and remove people, see how many texts are left, and handle payment on a simple website. Everyone else only ever texts.

Yes. Text #add, their name and their number to the group's number — for example #add Rivky Klein 7325551234 — and they get the same invitation as if you had added them on the website. You get a text back confirming it, and they are in once they reply YES. To take someone out, text #remove and their name or number. #help lists everything an admin can text. This works for whoever started the group and for anyone they have made an admin; the website is still where the plan, the card and the counts live.

Yes, as many as you like. On the member list, make any member who has already joined an admin: from then on they can add and remove people by text — #add Name 5551234567 and #remove — they can post when the group is set to announcement-only, and they get the notices about how many texts are left. The website sign-in, the card and the plan stay with the person who started the group.

Yes, and they all appear together when you sign in. Each group gets its own number and its own plan, and is billed on its own — a shared pot of texts across several groups is not something we offer today. If you need a lot of groups at once, tell us first so we can make sure we have the numbers ready for you.

Yes — that is what it is for. If a phone can send and receive an ordinary text message, it can take part in full. There is no app to install, no internet connection to arrange, no smartphone required, and nothing for a filter to sit in front of.

Nothing, and nothing. There is no app and no account — members save the group's number as a contact and text it the way they text a person. Those messages count as ordinary texts on their own phone plan, which for most people is unlimited.

Reply YES to one text. They get a message saying who added them, they reply, and they are in — nothing to download, no account, no password to forget. Anyone who never replies simply is not in the group. There is also a short join code: anyone who has it can text the word JOIN and the code — JOIN WS4NJZ — to the group's number and add themselves, with no reply to wait for.

Usually because the code was not the whole message. The line to send is the word JOIN, a space, and then the code — JOIN WS4NJZ — to the group's number, with nothing else in it except, if they like, their name after the code. The code by itself, with nothing else in the message, works too. What gets the note is the code inside a longer message, a code with a typo in it, or a code texted to a different group's number — and the note is sent only once, so a second try with the same mistake gets no reply, while a correct code still goes straight in. Send them the whole line and they are in the moment they text it: there is no reply to wait for and nothing for the admin to approve. If they did not put their name after the code, the group asks them for it by text before their first message. The member list page on the website has the exact wording to forward.

Any member can text #exit to leave the group, or STOP to block every message from that number. Neither needs the admin's permission, and neither is buried in a settings screen — it is one word by text. An admin can also remove someone from the roster page, or by texting #remove and their name or number.

Not their full numbers. Every message goes through the group's own number, so that is the only number anyone has to save, and nobody's personal number is handed round the group. What the group does see is the last 4 digits: when someone joins by themselves, or a member's name is set or changed, the group gets a short note with the last 4 digits of that member's phone, so everyone can tell who a name belongs to.

Up to 120. If your community is larger than that, get in touch — we handle bigger lists directly rather than making you guess.

Texting STOP to any of our numbers immediately stops all messages from that number — a phone-network rule we follow strictly, and one nothing else can override. Texting HELP returns our contact information. Inside a group, texting #help lists what members can do.

No — this is text messages, the same as the group texts your group was already getting. Photos, polls and the scrolling feed only ever existed inside an app, and there is no way to put them on a flip phone. Text is the part that reaches everyone, so text is what we do.

One text holds about 160 English characters — or about 70 if there are any Hebrew or Yiddish letters, which take more room to send. Go past that and the phone network splits the message in two, so it counts as two texts per person. Posts much longer than that are politely turned away, so nobody can spend the whole month on one long message.

Whichever you prefer, and you can change it at any time. A group can be open, where anyone in it can post and everyone gets the reply, or announcement-only, where members receive messages but only admins can send them.

Usually within seconds. A message to a group is sent as a separate text to each person, so a very large group takes a few seconds longer than a small one. Everyone gets it; it is not instantaneous the way an app is.

No. We do not store what your messages say — not for a week, not for a day. Each message is held only for as long as it takes to hand every copy to the phone company, and is then erased. We keep who sent it, when, how many people it went to and whether each copy arrived, because that is what your bill and your delivery log are made of. Nobody here can read your group's messages, and there is no screen anywhere in our system that would show them. This is a group chat, not an archive — if you need a lasting record of something, keep it yourself.

Not from anything we hold. The text is never written down, so there is nothing to open, subpoena or leak. What we cannot do anything about is the phone network itself: a text message is not private the way an encrypted app is, and your carrier — and the company that puts our texts onto the network — can see what passes through them. Anyone who says otherwise about SMS is guessing. For most groups that is fine; if you are discussing something that truly must stay between you, use it the way you would a postcard.

Yes. Every group has a delivery log on the admin website: each message, who sent it, how many people it went to, and whether it arrived on each phone — with a plain-language reason on anything that did not, so you know whether to re-send or to check the number. It lists messages by sender and time rather than by what they said, because we do not keep what they said. You have your own copy on your phone.

By texts sent. When someone posts to a 20-person group, that costs 20: one for each of the 19 people it goes out to, and one for the message coming in. So a 5,000-text plan is roughly 250 group messages a month for a group of 20 — the picker on the pricing page does this arithmetic for your own group. Your plan refills every month, and you can add 1,000 texts for $14 at any time. Texts you add never expire. A text a phone company refuses still went out, so it still counts — you can see exactly which ones those were in your delivery log.

Never. Nothing is billed that you did not buy: no overage, no surprise top-up, no per-person fee. If the group runs out of texts it pauses until the month rolls over or you add more, and that is the worst that can happen to your card. Admins also keep a small reserve for something urgent.

The group pauses until your plan refills — anyone who texts gets a polite note saying when. The admin can add 1,000 texts for $14 in one click, or switch on auto-refill with a monthly limit you set yourself, so it tops up without ever going past a number you chose.

Yes. Switch on a chip-in link from your billing page and share it, and anyone you send it to can pay part of the bill by card — what they pay comes off your next bill on its own, and you stay the only person we ever charge. Their name is optional and is shown only to you, and the payment and their receipt are handled by Stripe. The link only takes payments: it does not let anyone join the group or see anything in it.

Moving up a plan takes effect right away. Moving down takes effect at the end of the month you have already paid for. Cancel whenever you like — the group keeps running until that month ends, and there is nothing to phone up about.

No — the app is still there. What ended is its text-message mode: the option that let people take part by plain text, with no app and no smartphone. If half your group was on it by text, that is the half that lost its way in, and that is the gap Klal Chat fills.

Yes, Klal Chat is one. The group gets its own phone number, anyone in it texts that number, and everyone else gets the message as an ordinary text with the sender's name in front. Nothing to install, and it works on a flip phone. A few other services work the same way; the thing to check with any of them is whether a reply reaches the whole group or only the person who sent the last message, because a broadcast list looks like a group chat and isn't one.

Yes. Paste it in, one name and number per line, or upload a spreadsheet file (CSV) — straight from your phone's contacts or your old group's roster. Everyone gets one text asking them to confirm, and whoever replies is in.

The group's number has to be one we run: that is what lets one message fan out to everyone, and it is the number that carries the carrier registration all group texting now requires. One number is included in every plan.