Flat Rate vs Per Minute Toll Free Service

Nearly all companies that sell to the public have or need toll free telephone numbers. People come to expect a toll free number for ordering or customer service. If they have to pay to call you, they may think twice and go elsewhere. It’s a bit like free WiFi. There are so many places that offer it that the ones that don’t seem less desirable. But, did you know that there are two types of toll free services to choose from?

The two fundamentally different approaches to toll free number service are pay per minute and flat rate. Flat rate means you pay a fixed amount each month regardless of how many or few calls come in.

Note that as the business owner you pay for all calls that come into your toll free number. The caller isn’t charged, and that’s the way they like it.

The way pay per minute services work is that the meter starts running as soon as you pick up a ringing toll free call. An excellent service that works on the pay per minute basis is Kall8. For each minute that you are on the phone with a customer or prospect that calls in on your toll free number, you pay 6.9 cents per minute. That rate applies to all calls coming in from the lower 48 US states. Calls from Alaska and Hawaii have a surcharge.

What happens if you don’t have any toll free calls during a particular month? In that case, you pay just the fee to maintain your number. It’s $2 for 866, 877 or 888 numbers and $5 for 800 numbers. All of those prefixes are toll free. Some companies prefer actual 800 numbers because people know what an “800 number” is. Others are fine with the newer 866, 877 or 888 numbers that are also toll free.

For your, say, $2 per month you have exclusive use of your toll free number. It will ring to any phone that you program it to. It’s not a separate line with a separate telephone hooked to it. For instance, you can program your toll free number to ring to your cell phone while you are out and about, change it to ring to your desk phone when you are in the office and even change it again to ring to your home phone so you don’t miss calls in the evening or overnight.

Some other features you get with your Kall8 toll free number are voice mail that you can use the conventional way or have your messages sent to you as audio files attached to email messages. You can block calls from people or areas you don’t want to deal with, conduct conference calls with up to 25 participants and receive FAX messages to your toll free number. The messages can be read online or sent to you as email attachments. That’s a lot of capability for a mere $2 a month.

The competing service is flat rate toll free. A good example is iTeleCenter toll free service that costs $49 a month. For that you get to pick your number from a list of available toll free numbers that are ready to use. You also enjoy 30 features that include online faxing, follow-me call forwarding, and voicemails sent to email or text messages at no additional charge. What’s more, there’s a 14 day free trial so you can see if you like this service before you commit to it.

It should be noted that “unlimited” calling is actually limited to a fair usage amount of 1,000 minutes per month. If business booms and you talk more than this, you’ll pay an overage charge of 4.9 cents per minute. That compares to 6.9 cents per minute for each minute on Kall8.

So, how do you choose between the two toll free services? The pay per minute plan works well for companies with widely varying phone traffic each month or for startups that don’t expect many calls for a long while. Your expenses expand at the same rate that your business grows. However, if you get lucky and your phones ring off the hook you’ll be paying more than you would with the flat rate plan.

Flat rate toll free service is great if you don’t like surprises and want to know what to budget for incoming calls each month. If you are a very small operation and it takes forever to get business going, you will pay more during the slow times than you would with pay per minute toll free service. However, if all of a sudden business takes off, you have the protection of the flat rate. Even overages will cost less than on the pay per minute plan.

Is it time for you get toll free service for your company? If so, learn more and order Kall8 pay per minute or iTelecenter flat rate toll free number service now.

Flat Rate vs Pay As You Go Conference Calling

You’ve already discovered that telephone conference calls and Web conferencing can save your company hundreds or even thousands of dollars per meeting. So why quibble about the small costs involved? For one thing, a penny saved is worth more than a penny earned. For another, the better the deal on conference calling, the more you can use the service to improve productivity.

Let’s take a look at how much you can get for what you pay from AccuConference, a leader in the teleconferencing services field. AccuConference offers both flat rate and pay as you go conference calls.

The Flat-Rate option is perfect for anyone who wants to have regular meetings, even on a daily basis. The beauty of flat-rate is that you don’t have to sit looking at the clock, worrying about what this is costing when somebody takes too long to get to the point. Flat rate is what it says. You pay a single monthly fee that determines how many participants you can include in your conference call. Participants call a 404 Atlanta dial-in number and pay the cost of their long distance calls. You can keep the call going as long as necessary, although people will tend to fade after an hour or two. After 10 hours, the system will mercifully cut you off and you’ll have to start another conference.

How much is this flat rate? It starts at $14.95 per month for up to 5 lines on the conference. Of course, people may be using speakerphones at the other end of those line to include an entire conference room group in the conversation. Five lines is plenty for most working groups and project teams. But what if your company wants to host training calls for employees or affiliates? You’ll need more lines. You can get up to 50 lines for $199 a month and have a conference every day if you have that much material to share.

AccuConference pay as you go conference calls are also toll-free conference calls. There are no set up fees, no monthly requirements or contracts of any type. You simply pay for what you use. What you pay is a small per minute charge, typically 7.9 cents per minute for each participant. Participants call a toll free number and you pay for the cost of the calls.

How about international participants? They can call-in toll free like domestic US callers. The cost for each participant depends on where they are calling from. For instance, callers in Canada cost 9.9 cents a minute instead of 7.9 cents a minute for US participants. Calls from Australia are 12.9 cents a minute, UK participants are also 12.9 cents a minute, while calls from Mexico are 32.9 cents a minute. Most of Europe is under 20 cents per minute.

Now, think about how much it costs to travel to wherever you would have a meeting and then decide how often that cost is worth it. In between visits, you’ll be surprised on how well connected you can be with low cost flat rate or pay as you go conference calls.

Low Price Toll Free Numbers

Are you looking for a toll free number for your business, but want to pay as little as you can and still get quality service? Your best bet may be Kall8 toll-free service .

This is much more than just a simple telephone number where you pay the cost of the call instead of the person calling. Kall8 offers a complete suite of telephone services that can make your mobile phone as powerful as your office phone. We’ll take a look at those services, but first you have to hear the price...

Kall8 low price toll free numbers start at $2. That gets you an 866, 877 or 888 toll free number all set up and ready to use immediately. Plus you get an online management account plus all the features that work with this number. You can keep your toll free number by paying just $2 a month for as long as you want it. If you decide to stop using the service, you pay only for the cost of the calls that have come in. Nothing more. There are no contracts or disconnect fees.

Yes, you can also get an 800 toll free number. These have all the same features as the 866, 877 and 888 toll free numbers. The cost is slightly more at $5 each plus $5 per month to keep the account.

But how much will you pay for those toll free incoming calls? Most calls are just 6.9 cents per minute. I say most calls, because calls that originate in Alaska, Hawaii or U.S. territories have additional surcharges. Even so, may businesses pay more than 6.9 cents per minute for just their regular outgoing long distance calls.

Now let's take a look at the features included with your toll free number. First of all, you get to set the ring-to number and change it anytime you want. The ring-to number is the number of the phone that will ring when someone calls your toll free number. In a sense, your toll free calls are automatically forwarded to the phone number of your choice. That can be an office phone, home phone or even your cell phone. If you move around a lot, you can go online and change the ring-to number at anytime.

Kall8 low price toll free numbers all have their own voice mail. You have a choice of how you want to retrieve those voice mail messages. You can call-in and listen to them. You can go to your online account from any Web browser and listen to them on your computer. Or you can have those messages sent as audio attachments to email messages.

Your Kall8 number will also accept fax messages. If anyone sends you a fax message, you can get a copy as an email attachment or go online to read it. Your choice.

Ever want to conduct a conference call, but didn’t have time or energy to go looking for a conferencing service? Now you can conduct conferences with up to 25 participants at any time for as long as you want. No scheduling needed. The regular per minute charges apply for each participant that dials your toll free number and enters the password that you give them.

Your Kall8 toll-free number also works in reverse as a virtual calling card. You just dial any of the voice mail access numbers and use the system to make outbound calls at the same 6.9 cents a minute that applies to incoming calls.

Other features include call blocking, custom call forwarding, choice of Caller ID display, and setting a maximum call length so callers don’t prattle on for hours at your expense.

Can you believe that all this is yours for a mere $2 a month plus the cost of calls? It’s time you had your own toll free number. Learn more and order Kall8 low price toll free numbers now.