Four billing units, not four prices
A telephone answering service bills in four ways, and it is the choice of unit, far more than the headline rate, that decides your bill at the end of the month. Per call: every pick-up counts as one, whatever its length. Per hour or by blocks: you reserve availability, whether the phone rings or not. Per minute spoken: you pay for the time actually spent on the line. On a salary: you pay for hours of presence, with the on-costs and the workstation that come with them.
Comparing two offers therefore starts by bringing both back to the same unit. A per-call provider and a per-minute provider cannot be compared on their price lists: they can only be compared over twelve months of your own calls.
| Unit | What you are counted for | What pushes the bill up |
|---|---|---|
| Per call | Every pick-up, whatever its length | The number of calls, even very short ones |
| Per hour, by blocks | Reserved availability | The span of hours, whether the phone rings or not |
| Per minute spoken | Time actually spent on the line | The length of the exchanges |
| On a salary | Hours of presence, on-costs included | Headcount and span, not traffic |
Two offers are not compared on their price lists, but over twelve months of your own calls, brought back to the same unit.
The parameter that decides: the average length of your calls
Look at the average length of an incoming call at your place. If it is short, an opening time, an address, a confirmation, per-call billing costs you dearly: a forty-second exchange is counted as a complete one. If it is long, with requests that unfold over several minutes, it is the other way round: per-call billing becomes protective and the minute becomes expensive.
Most small-business receptions are in the first case. At a practice, a salon or a garage, half the incoming calls are questions of thirty seconds to a minute and a half. That is precisely the profile on which per-call billing costs the most, and it is also the profile that per-call offers target first.
The second parameter is volume, but it matters less than people think: it multiplies the bill without changing which of the two units favours you.
| Average length of a call | Unit that favours you | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Under two minutes | Per minute | A forty-second exchange is counted as a complete one under per-call billing |
| Around three minutes | The two are equivalent | That is the crossover zone, settled on your own statement |
| Over five minutes | Per call | The minute becomes expensive, the per-call bundle becomes protective |
Most small-business receptions are on the first row: at a practice, a salon or a garage, half the incoming calls run from thirty seconds to a minute and a half.
What the headline price does not say
Three lines almost always escape the comparison. The monthly minimum: plenty of per-call offers impose one, and it turns a usage-based rate into a subscription as soon as your month is quiet. The surcharges: nights, weekends, bank holidays, with rates that vary twofold between providers. The commitment: an annual contract is not a price, but it becomes one the day the service stops suiting you.
Add to that what is not billed but is paid: the time spent briefing a team that turns over, and the badly handled calls that have to be picked up afterwards. Those are real costs; they appear on no invoice.
Five lines almost always escape the comparison. The first four are in the contract, the last one is nowhere.
- The monthly minimum, which turns a usage-based rate into a subscription as soon as your month is quiet.
- Night, weekend and bank holiday surcharges, with rates that vary twofold from one provider to the next.
- Set-up fees, charged once but sometimes heavier than several months of subscription.
- The commitment, which is not a price until the day the service stops suiting you.
- The time spent briefing a team that turns over, and the badly handled calls that have to be picked up. No invoice carries it.
Weighing it against an in-house desk
An in-house reception desk compares badly with an outsourced service, because it is not buying the same thing. It buys hours of presence, so also the quiet hours, the holidays, the sick days and the cover. A service buys handled calls. The honest calculation is to divide the full annual cost of the post by the number of calls actually taken, and compare that figure.
The calculation often tilts one way, but not always. A reception that also handles post, invoicing, case follow-up and people walking in cannot be replaced by a phone service: you would only be comparing the phone share of the job, and the rest would still have to be done.
The honest calculation, in four moves. It is done with your accounts and your carrier’s statement, without asking a provider for anything.
- 1 Take the full annual cost of the post: salary with on-costs, workstation, holidays, cover during absences.
- 2 Take out the share that is not the phone: post, invoicing, case follow-up, people walking in.
- 3 Count the number of calls actually taken over the year, from your carrier’s statement.
- 4 Divide the phone share of the cost by that number of calls. That figure, and only that one, compares with an outsourced service.
Where Cantya sits
Cantya bills by the minute actually spoken, inside a subscription with no commitment. It is the unit that favours receptions with short calls, meaning most small businesses, and it is the one that works against you if your calls run long: over ten-minute exchanges, per-call billing will cost you less.
The amounts are not copied here because they change: they are on the pricing page, with a calculator that takes your volume and your average length. That is the only calculation that settles it, and it is done with your figures, not ours.
One last precaution: compare over twelve months, not over one. A quiet month favours the minute, a busy one favours the call, and only the annual average decides anything. If you are still hesitating after that calculation, the gap is probably small enough for other criteria to settle it: what is left of the call once it ends, the hours actually covered, and how much has to be rewritten the day an answer does not suit you.
Common questions
- Do you need a minimum number of calls for it to be worthwhile?
- No, and that is precisely what per-minute billing changes: with no monthly minimum, a quiet month costs what it used. The break-even point then moves from volume to the average length of the calls.
- How do I estimate my call volume without measuring it?
- Your carrier’s statement gives the number of incoming calls and their duration, month by month, including the ones nobody answered. It is the only reliable figure, and you already have it.
- Is a per-call rate always more expensive?
- No. It is more expensive on short calls and cheaper on long ones. The crossover sits around the average length billed inside your provider’s bundle, which you have to ask them for explicitly.
