Quick answer
A per-minute dialer bills the platform by the minute your agents spend on calls, while DialerBee bills a flat monthly fee per agent seat and leaves the minutes to your carrier. That separation is what BYOC (Bring Your Own Carrier) gives you: the platform cost is fixed per seat, and the telecom cost is whatever you negotiate, billed to you by your own provider. The practical difference is the direction of the curve, because a per-minute platform fee rises with every extra attempt while a per-seat fee does not move at all.
Per-Minute Dialer Alternative
Stop paying per-minute platform fees.
Per-minute dialer fees punish productive teams. Every extra call increases your bill. This virtual call center software is designed with flat per-agent pricing and BYOC — so the more you dial, the lower your effective cost per call.
The Problem
The real cost of per-minute platform fees
Per-minute dialer pricing sounds simple: you pay a small fee for each minute of platform usage. $0.04 per minute seems harmless. But the math tells a very different story when you scale it across a real outbound operation.
Let's do the math for a typical contact center:
- Average call duration: 2 minutes (including rings, connects, and conversations)
- Calls per agent per day: 200 (typical for predictive dialing campaigns)
- Minutes per agent per day: 200 calls x 2 min = 400 minutes
- Business days per month: 22
- Minutes per agent per month: 400 x 22 = 8,800 minutes
- Platform fee at $0.04/min: 8,800 x $0.04 = $352 per agent per month
That's just the platform fee. You still pay telecom costs (carrier charges for the actual calls) on top of this. For many per-minute dialers, the platform fee and the telecom cost are bundled together, making it nearly impossible to see what you're actually paying for the software versus what you're paying for the calls.
Now scale this to a real operation:
The cruel irony of per-minute pricing is that it punishes your best-performing teams. When your agents are more productive — making more calls, having longer conversations, closing more deals — your platform bill goes up. Your incentives and your dialer vendor's incentives are fundamentally misaligned.
With per-minute pricing, a manager looking at the monthly bill faces an impossible choice: encourage agents to dial more (and watch costs increase) or throttle activity to control costs (and watch revenue decrease). Neither option is good for business.
Cost estimates are illustrative and based on assumed per-minute rates of $0.04/min. Actual costs vary by provider, contract terms, call duration, and usage patterns.
Hidden Costs
What per-minute dialers don't tell you
The per-minute rate is just the beginning. Traditional per-minute dialers often include several additional cost layers that aren't immediately obvious from the pricing page:
Bundled telecom markups. Many per-minute dialers bundle telecom costs into their per-minute rate, adding a markup on top of the carrier's actual rates. Since you can't see the breakdown, you can't negotiate better carrier rates or switch to a cheaper provider. You're locked into whatever margin the dialer vendor has baked into their "all-inclusive" per-minute price.
Minimum commitments. Some per-minute dialers require minimum monthly spend commitments — you pay a floor amount even if your team dials less than expected. Miss a target? You still pay. Exceed it? You pay even more. The pricing model works in the vendor's favor in both directions.
Feature-gated pricing. Advanced features like answering machine detection, call recording, analytics dashboards, and compliance tools are often charged as add-ons or only available on higher-priced tiers. The "base" per-minute rate gets you basic dialing — everything else costs extra.
Long-term contracts. Despite the seemingly flexible "pay as you go" nature of per-minute pricing, many traditional per-minute dialers still require annual or multi-year contracts with early termination fees. The flexibility of per-minute pricing is often an illusion when you're locked in for 12-24 months.
Side-by-Side Comparison
Per-minute dialer vs DialerBee BYOC
A direct comparison of the pricing model, features, and operational differences between traditional per-minute dialers and DialerBee's flat per-agent model with BYOC.
| Factor | Per-Minute Dialer | DialerBee BYOC |
|---|---|---|
| Platform pricing | Per-minute fee ($0.03-0.05/min typical) | Flat per-agent monthly fee — no per-minute charges |
| Telecom costs | Bundled and marked up (no visibility) | Separated — use BroadNet or your own SIP carrier at your own rates |
| Cost predictability | Varies monthly with call volume | Fixed monthly platform cost, telecom costs transparent |
| High-volume incentive | More calls = higher bill | More calls = lower effective cost per call |
| AMD included | Basic or add-on cost | AI AMD in 11 languages included |
| Carrier choice | Locked to vendor's telecom | BYOC — any SIP trunk, or BroadNet as default |
| Contract terms | Annual minimum + overage fees | Monthly billing, no long-term lock-in |
| Analytics & reporting | Often tier-gated | Full analytics included for all plans |
| Compliance controls | Add-on or premium tier | Compliance-supporting controls included |
| White-label | Unavailable or enterprise-only | Full white-label available |
| Setup time | Quick to sign up, slow to learn what a month really costs | Self-service onboarding included; guided onboarding for SIP, compliance or multi-tenant setups |
| Scaling | Platform cost rises with every extra minute dialled | Platform cost rises with headcount only; you add seats, not minutes |
| Main risk | A productive month arrives as an unbudgeted invoice | You own the carrier relationship, so contracts and trunk quality are yours to manage |
| Best for | Low or occasional volume where a seat would sit idle | BPOs, collections teams and telecom resellers dialling steadily every day |
Comparison based on commonly reported features of per-minute dialer platforms. Individual platforms vary. DialerBee performance claims based on internal pilot conditions.
Total Cost of Ownership
What you actually pay per year
Estimated annual platform costs for per-minute dialers vs DialerBee's flat per-agent model. Telecom costs are separate in both scenarios for fair comparison.
| Team Size | Per-Minute Platform Cost (est. annual) | DialerBee Platform Cost (est. annual) | Est. Annual Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 50 agents | ~$211,200 | Contact us for quote | Significant — ask for comparison |
| 100 agents | ~$422,400 | Contact us for quote | Significant — ask for comparison |
| 200 agents | ~$844,800 | Contact us for quote | Significant — ask for comparison |
Per-minute estimates assume $0.04/min platform fee, 400 minutes per agent per day, 22 business days per month, 12 months. Actual costs vary significantly by provider, contract terms, and usage. DialerBee pricing available upon request — book a demo for a personalized quote.
BYOC — Bring Your Own Carrier
Separate your platform from your telecom
The fundamental problem with per-minute dialer pricing is that it bundles platform costs and telecom costs together. You can't see what you're paying for the dialer software versus what you're paying for the actual phone calls. And the vendor has every incentive to mark up the telecom component — it's hidden inside a single per-minute rate.
DialerBee takes the opposite approach with BYOC (Bring Your Own Carrier). The platform charges a flat per-agent fee for the software. Your telecom costs are completely separate — you connect your own SIP trunk provider and pay them directly at whatever rates you've negotiated.
This separation gives you three critical advantages:
Full Cost Transparency
You know exactly what you're paying for the platform (flat per-agent fee) and what you're paying for telecom (your carrier's rates). No bundled markups, no hidden margins.
Carrier Flexibility
Switch carriers anytime without changing your dialer. Negotiate better rates with a new provider and plug them right in. Or use BroadNet as the default carrier with competitive global rates.
Budget Certainty
Your platform cost is fixed regardless of call volume. When your agents have a productive month with more calls and more connects, your dialer bill stays the same.
For telecom resellers, BYOC is transformative. You connect your own wholesale carrier agreements — the rates you've negotiated with your upstream providers — and offer dialing to your customers at your own margins. DialerBee handles the platform under your white-label brand. You control the telecom economics entirely.
For BPOs and collections teams, BYOC means you can use the carrier that works best for each market. Running campaigns in the Middle East? Use a carrier with strong MENA coverage. Dialing in Europe? Switch to a carrier with better EU rates. You're not locked into one vendor's telecom for all your operations.
If you don't have a carrier preference or want to get started quickly, BroadNet is available as the default carrier with competitive rates and global coverage across 50+ countries.
What You Get
Everything included with flat per-agent pricing
With per-minute dialers, advanced features are often add-ons or gated behind premium tiers. With DialerBee, every feature below is designed to be included in the per-agent price — no feature-gating, no surprise add-on charges, no premium-tier lock.
AI AMD in 11 Languages
Transcript-based answering machine detection in English, Arabic, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Turkish, Hindi, Urdu, Portuguese, and Indonesian. Classification is transcript-based rather than beep-based.
Full Analytics Suite
Campaign performance, agent productivity, AMD accuracy, caller ID reputation, and compliance dashboards. No tier-gating — full analytics for every plan.
Compliance Controls
DNC management, consent tracking, time-zone rules, call recording policies, and audit logging. Designed to help support compliance across jurisdictions.
Call Recording & Transcription
Full call recording with AI transcription in 11 languages, sentiment analysis, and searchable call libraries. Included, not an add-on.
4 Dialing Modes
Predictive, progressive, power, and preview dialing. Switch modes per campaign based on your compliance requirements and use case.
White-Label Platform
Custom domain, branded login, your colors and logo. Designed for resellers and BPOs who want to offer dialing under their own brand.
Which Model Fits
When to choose which
A BPO running campaigns for several clients. Your floor is busy by design and what you sell your clients is agent time. A per-minute platform fee turns every productive hour into a larger invoice and makes a campaign quote impossible to hold, especially across clients whose volumes move independently. Per-agent pricing fits: the platform line is set by headcount, so you price a client campaign from the seats it needs rather than from a minutes forecast, and the campaigns that go well no longer cost more to run.
A collections team working a steady list. Calls are short, volume is high, and most attempts end without a conversation. Under per-minute billing you pay the platform for the misses as well as the contacts, and answering machines are charged like anyone else. Per-agent pricing fits: pushing more attempts through the same seats costs nothing extra on the platform side, and language-aware answering-machine detection keeps agents on live contacts instead of screening voicemail by ear.
A telecom reseller with its own carrier agreements. A per-minute platform fee sits directly on top of the rate you negotiated, and it comes out of your margin rather than your customer's. Per-agent pricing with BYOC fits, and it is really the only model that works here: your platform cost is fixed per seat, your telecom cost is whatever you buy it for, and the difference is yours to keep. Per-minute billing only makes sense where volume is genuinely occasional and a seat would otherwise stand empty.
The Platform
How DialerBee fits
DialerBee prices the platform per agent and keeps the telecom layer separate. BYOC connects any SIP-compatible trunk over UDP, TCP or TLS, with unlimited trunks per tenant, rules-based routing by destination, cost, quality, load balance or time of day, and automatic failover when a trunk fails or drops below your quality threshold. Real-time ASR, ACD and PDD monitoring per trunk shows which carrier is actually performing, and per-call carrier cost reporting shows what each conversation cost, which is exactly the breakdown a bundled per-minute rate hides.
The rest of the operation is priced the same way. Analytics and reporting cover campaign, agent, compliance and cost views with scheduled exports, so cost per connect is something you read rather than estimate. The compliance-supporting controls run per call: the DNC check against the current list, the calling-hours window per jurisdiction, the consent record, the frequency rule, the phone format rule and exclusive caller-ID ownership by one tenant, with jurisdiction packs for UAE TDRA, KSA CST, Jordan TRC and Bahrain TRA.
Frequently asked questions about per-minute dialer alternatives
Why are per-minute dialer fees a problem?
How does DialerBee's pricing work instead?
What is BYOC and why does it matter?
Can I use my existing carrier with DialerBee?
How do I know DialerBee will actually save money compared to my current per-minute dialer?
Does flat per-agent pricing mean fewer features?
What about compliance when switching dialers?
How long does it take to switch from a per-minute dialer to DialerBee?
Related pages
Analytics and Reporting
Campaign, agent, compliance and cost reporting with real-time dashboards and scheduled exports.
The Real Cost of Per-Minute Pricing
How to work out your true cost per agent and compare a per-minute quote against a per-seat one.
Enterprise Dialer Alternative
Switching from a legacy enterprise dialer? See the full comparison of features, pricing, and migration path.
Per-Agent vs Per-Minute Pricing
A detailed breakdown of the two pricing models and when each makes sense.
BYOC — Bring Your Own Carrier
Connect any SIP trunk. Use BroadNet or bring your existing carrier agreements.
Pricing
Flat per-agent pricing with no per-minute platform fees. See plans and volume discounts.
Stop paying per minute. Start paying per agent.
Book a demo and see how flat per-agent pricing with BYOC can help reduce your dialer costs — with a pilot running in as little as 2 weeks.
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