The honest answer is that the software is rarely the expensive part. Most businesses that ask us this are surprised by which line ends up largest, so here is the whole picture rather than the bit that fits on a pricing page.
The four things you actually pay for
1. Agent seats
Charged monthly, per person who takes calls. This is the line most vendors advertise, and for a small team it is usually the smallest of the four.
Watch for who counts as a seat. A supervisor who watches the wallboard but never answers a call should not cost you an agent licence. Ask directly — the answer varies, and on a team of ten it is a meaningful difference.
2. Phone numbers
Each Kenyan number you point at the system carries a monthly rental — though you should check whether one comes with the plan, because on ours it does. You need a second when departments want to be dialled directly, or when you run campaigns and want a recognisable outbound number. Ask what an extra one costs before you need it, not after.
3. Call time
Here is the question that matters most, and almost nobody asks it: are incoming calls charged? On a support line, nearly every call is incoming — somebody else dialled and somebody else is paying to be connected. If your vendor charges you per minute to receive those, the bill scales with how well you are doing, which is a strange thing to be punished for. On ours, incoming calls are free and only outgoing ones are charged, by the second rather than rounded up to a minute.
Work out your outbound volume before you buy. Take your busiest day, multiply outgoing calls by average length, and you will have a monthly figure within about twenty per cent. Do the same for incoming, then ask what that costs — the gap between the two answers is the real difference between vendors.
4. Setup
A one-off charge for connecting numbers, recording prompts, building your menu and routing, and training the team. Almost nobody lists this, and it varies more than anything else, because it depends entirely on how complicated your routing is. Worth asking whether it is compulsory: on ours it is not — you can open an account, set your own menu up and pay nothing beyond the first month, and buy help only if you want it.
What makes setup expensive
Two things, mostly.
- Menu depth. A single menu with three options is quick. A menu that branches by language, then department, then account type, takes real design work — and usually needs simplifying before it is built, because callers will not navigate it.
- Integrations. Making the caller’s account appear on screen means connecting to whatever system holds those accounts. If it has an API, this is a day. If it does not, it can be a project.
The cost that is not on any invoice
Abandoned calls. If your line engages during busy periods, you are already paying for this — in customers who ring a competitor, and in the ones who do get through complaining about how long it took.
It is worth measuring before you shop. Ask your team how often the phone is engaged at month end. If the answer is a shrug, that alone tells you something.
Questions worth asking any vendor
- Are incoming calls charged at all, or only outgoing ones?
- Is call time billed by the second, or rounded up to the minute?
- Is call time marked up, or billed at network rates?
- Do supervisors and administrators consume a seat?
- What is the minimum contract, and what happens to my data if I leave?
- Is call recording included, or an add-on?
- Who does the setup, and what is it quoted at?
- Is support in Kenyan hours, and do I talk to a person?
The last one matters more than it looks. A phone system that is down at nine on a Monday needs an answer that morning, not a ticket in a queue eight hours behind you.