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What prices should I expect for a hosted pbx phone system (5-10 employees)?
We are looking at purchasing a hosted pbx phone system. What is the range of pricing that I should be expecting if we just need basic functionality for 5-10 users?
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7 Answers
Mr. Williams,
Pending on the Hosted PBX provider, prices will vary from $19 a seat to $45 a seat. A few things to Consider
1 Calling Needs
2 QoS requirements
3 SIP EndPoints
4 Feature Sets
1 Calling Needs
Most plans offer unlimited domestic local and long distance calling plans. If you know your companies' calling plan needs or habits you can optimize your economics (lower Pricing) You can manipulate price from Sub $10 up to $45 per seat (Sip End Point)
2 QoS requirements. This can be achieved a number of ways. this will always add costs, but will enable a higher grade of call quality, and potentially eliminate most call degradation issues. This can add $50 - $500 one time with an additional monthly broadband component.
3 SiP Endpoints. Commonly, most providers utilize Polycomm phones. But you can also get a way with soft phone clients with USB headsets. This will run $50 to $400 one time for each user or SIP endpoint
4 Feature Sets Most Hosted PBX Providers offer a wide variety of features. Identify which ones will enhance your communication effectiveness, and see if there are other applications that tie into the hosted PBX Platform, ie, Hosted Exchange, Hosted OCS, Hosted CRM apps, etc.
At the end of the day, your monthly costs could rang from $150 to $300 give or take plus hardware and set up fees.
Hope this helps, if you have any other questions do not hesitate to ping me
Lawrence Brown
206-971-4700 x188
Everyone has different pricing models, and varying ways to get you to spend more. Besides different monthly packages, some charge more or less for the install then reflect that into the monthly charges. Our prices would be $118/mo and $825 to start, including equipment for five users, using your own internet connection. If we provide the connection, the price goes up of course. For ten users we'd be at $202 and $1615.
You have to of course decide on who is going to provide the internet connection. For a small system, we almost always go with generic small business internet like DSL, and it works fine with 99% uptime and call quality. When a customer asks us for dedicated connectivity with an SLA, it runs $190/mo extra for 2mbps symmetrical, 100% SLA.
As with everything, the devil is in the details.
Determine your needs up front: you said "just need basic functionality" which means that a hosted solution may be too complex or you may be paying for extra features that you don't use.
Second, determine your tolerance level. 99% uptime sounds great, but on the flip side, 1% downtime equates to 87 hours of downtime per year. If those all happen during business hours, that's 10 full days per year that your customers can't get in touch with you.
Just for all your information, we are having this called Virtual Call Center services available here in China now, and we can also call it a Virtual Pabx.... and that is being offered by our partner China Mobile... it provides all in/out bound call features and plus different packs of air-time packages...
I do not know if this is available over there in your place, and if you are running a huge base in the future, it would be something that worths to consider as an outsourcing alternatives...
Cheers,
Barry
You can check out www.konnectoffice.com
It is a very unique small office solution, where no PBX or hosted service is required. Just purchase the high quality KONNECT desk sets for $299, and you can effortlessly tie multiple offices together. They still support landlines, and VoIP communications. For no-worry voice quality, we still recommend using landlines.
Regards, Martin
The price you pay for a hosted PBX is very subjective. Typically, you will pay for the T1 connection ($250-$500 dependent on geography). Usually you will have to buy the phones for $200-$400 each (one-time fee) and then pay somewhere around $30-$60 per phone per month for the system.
If you're looking for just basic functionality, you may be better off looking at a key system. You could get the whole thing for $3000-$5000 total. Obviously that system won't give you a lot of the cool features that a VoIP system will, but I would do a hard-nosed analysis on your needed functionality.
You should expect less than $25 per seat, all in, per month.
I would recommend you speak to the supplier I use - SimpleSignal - Michael Sterl (Denver based - www.simplesignal.com) and get a quote - no obligation.
Do the same for a few different hosted companies and you will get your answer. It really/typically depends on 'what you want' as their services can do everything a premise based phone system can do, and more - like Salesforce.com CRM integration - so it will depend on your desires.
Pricing will also depend on the telephone on the desk, or the interface of choice.
Hope this helps you.
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