Two phone quotes almost never compare cleanly. One is per seat per month with a three-year term; the other is per user with hardware bundled and a setup fee; a third is monthly with everything itemised. The headline rates differ by a few dollars and the three-year totals differ by thousands, in the other direction. This is a worksheet for putting all of them on the same page and seeing which parts you actually cannot compare yet.
Work out your own
The quotes
Leave a price blank when the quote does not say. Blank is reported as unknown, and it is never treated as free.
Each quote keeps its own currency and nothing is converted. Two currencies mean two facts, not one comparison.
What the quote charges for
| Line | Price of one | How many | Counted | Charged | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Each quote keeps its own currency and nothing is converted. Two currencies mean two facts, not one comparison.
What the quote charges for
| Line | Price of one | How many | Counted | Charged | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Our own published price is billed in USD, per seat per month, month to month, with the minutes below included and a spend ceiling on every plan. Added as a column you can edit or delete like any other.
Your figures stay in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.
What each one costs
Quote A6 unknown items
- Recurring cost over the period
- at least $0.00
- One-time cost
- at least $0.00
- Total spend over the period
- at least $0.00
- Paid before you start
- at least $0.00
- Average per month over the period
- –
- Average per seat per month
- –
- Seats, start to end
- 8 → 8
This one really is month to month.
Quote B6 unknown items
- Recurring cost over the period
- at least $0.00
- One-time cost
- at least $0.00
- Total spend over the period
- at least $0.00
- Paid before you start
- at least $0.00
- Average per month over the period
- –
- Average per seat per month
- –
- Seats, start to end
- 8 → 8
This one really is month to month.
On these figures
Too close to call on these figures.
Nothing has priced these yet
Each of these is missing from every total above, which makes those totals a floor rather than an answer. Ask for a figure before you compare.
| Quote | Line | Nothing has priced these yet |
|---|---|---|
| Quote A | Seat licence | no price |
| Quote A | Phone numbers | no price |
| Quote A | Calling beyond what is included | no price |
| Quote A | Paid add-ons | no price |
| Quote A | Handsets and headsets | no price |
| Quote A | Setup, number transfer and migration | no price |
| Quote B | Seat licence | no price |
| Quote B | Phone numbers | no price |
| Quote B | Calling beyond what is included | no price |
| Quote B | Paid add-ons | no price |
| Quote B | Handsets and headsets | no price |
| Quote B | Setup, number transfer and migration | no price |
One file: every total, every line, everything still unpriced, and the assumptions behind all of it.
What a quote has to answer
Before two quotes can be compared they have to be answering the same six questions. Most of the work of a phone decision is getting each supplier to write down all six, and the parts that come back missing are the parts worth asking about twice.
Seat licences
The per-seat rate, how many seats, and whether the rate changes at a seat count you might cross. Ask whether one licence can be shared by two part-timers, because the answer differs by supplier and it changes the count.
Numbers
Every published number, every direct line and every fax or alarm line still in service, with the monthly rate for each. Numbers are the line most often quoted as an afterthought and most often multiplied later.
Calling beyond what is included
The allowance, the rate past it, and whether long distance, toll-free inbound and mobile termination are priced separately. Ask for last year's actual minutes rather than an estimate.
Paid add-ons
Recording, storage past the retention window, extra call-flow features, integrations, analytics, additional concurrent calls. Each one billed per seat, per number or per company, and say which.
Equipment
Desk phones, headsets, adapters, network work and anything a technician has to attend for. Bought, rented or included, and if rented, what happens to it at the end of the term.
One-off costs
Setup, onboarding, professional services, number transfer, training and the cost of leaving your current supplier early. The last of those belongs in the comparison even though it is not on either new quote.
Four ways a phone comparison goes wrong
An annual commitment is not a monthly price. A committed rate buys a discount by taking away the right to stop, so dividing an annual figure by twelve produces a number that describes neither offer. This page shows an average per month and then says, in the same breath, whether you could actually stop paying next month. Where a term does not divide the period you asked about, it shows what you still owe after your own window closes: comparing three years of a two-year contract means being on the hook for four.
A per-seat price is not a per-person price. Seats are licences. Two part-timers sharing one login are one seat; a phone on a counter is one seat that belongs to nobody; the bookkeeper who never answers the line is none. Count licences, not heads, and ask each supplier whether a licence may be shared, because the answers differ and the difference is the whole comparison on a small team.
A licence you drop may keep being billed. On many committed plans a seat you remove is charged to the end of the subscription period, while a seat you add is charged at once. Zoom writes this down in its own licence documentation and it is not unusual. On a team whose size moves through the year it is worth more than the rate difference you were negotiating, so the tool models it as a choice you have to make per quote rather than as a footnote.
A missing line is not a free line. A quote that does not mention number transfer is not a quote with free number transfer. Leaving that box empty here produces an unknown item, listed by name, excluded from every total, and the totals are labelled as floors rather than answers while it is outstanding. A comparator that scores an unpriced fee as zero recommends whoever wrote the vaguest quote, and does it silently.
Why there are no supplier prices in here
A comparison tool that ships with other companies' price lists is making a claim about their products on the day somebody last looked. Prices move, plans are renamed, allowances change and regional pricing differs, and none of that produces an error: the page keeps rendering the old number as though it were current. The reader then compares their real quote against a figure that is quietly wrong, in a direction nobody chose.
So this asks for the quote in front of you instead. It is more typing, and it has three advantages: the figures are the ones you were actually offered rather than a list price, the tool works the same in any country and any currency, and nothing here can go stale without you noticing. Dated supplier tables may come later, on the same terms as this site's audio presets: one cited page per row, with the date it was read, and a supplier whose documentation cannot be retrieved left out rather than guessed at.
The single exception is our own price, below, which comes from the same module the rest of this site is checked against. It goes into the comparison as an ordinary column that you can edit or delete, and the arithmetic has no idea which column it is. If another quote costs less over your period, this page will say so.
| Plan | Billed monthly | Billed for a year up front | Seats | Minutes included |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $29 | $23 | up to 5 | 500 |
| Pro | $49 | $39 | up to 25 | 2,000 |
| Business | $79 | $63 | up to 100 | 10,000 |
Billed in USD. The monthly and annual figures are the same plan on two different commitments, which is the difference this page keeps insisting on: one of them you can stop next month and the other you cannot. Full terms, allowances and the published rates past them are on the pricing page.
How it works underneath
Each quote is priced month by month rather than in one expression. Four separate rules are about when money moves, and a closed form would have to hide all four inside a formula nobody could reconcile against an invoice: seat counts step on anniversaries, annual add-ons bill on those same anniversaries, a one-time cost that is per seat lands in the month the seat is added, and a committed seat count ratchets so a reduction waits for the term boundary while an increase does not.
Every amount is either a number or the absence of one. There is no third state and no default: a line with no price contributes to a separate list of unknown items and to nothing else, and a total carrying any of them refuses to produce an average per month at all, because an average computed from a floor is a confident wrong number rather than a cautious one. Tax that is stated to apply at a rate the quote does not give is itself an unknown, kept distinct from tax that is not charged.
Currency is a per-quote string that is compared and never converted. Two quotes in two currencies get two sets of totals and no verdict, because the alternative is an undated exchange rate deciding a three-year purchase. For the same reason a margin under half a unit is reported as too close to call rather than as a winner.
All of it runs in your browser. There is no endpoint behind this page: what a supplier quoted you, how many seats you run and what it would cost you to leave your current contract are the other side's negotiating position as much as yours, and they are none of ours. The file you download carries the same arithmetic plus every assumption behind it, so the person you send it to can check it rather than take it on trust.
What it does not do
It does not know anybody's prices, including the ones on the quotes you are holding. Every figure is one you entered, and a typo produces a confident total exactly as readily as a correct figure does.
It does not value what you get for the money. Two systems at the same three-year total are not the same purchase, and nothing here scores features, support hours, call quality or how hard it is to change a menu at four o'clock on a Friday. Cost is one input to that decision and this page measures only cost.
It does not estimate what better phone handling might earn you. That is a different question with a different kind of uncertainty, and mixing a spending figure with a hypothetical revenue figure produces a number that looks precise and answers nothing.
And it does not read your bill. Usage is what you tell it, so pull last year's actual minutes rather than an estimate, and check whether the allowance on each quote is per seat or per company before you enter anything.
Questions
How do I work out what a business phone system really costs?
Add four things and then look at the contract. Recurring charges are the seat licences, the numbers, any calling beyond what is included and every paid add-on. One-time charges are handsets, headsets, network work, number transfer and whatever the supplier calls setup or onboarding. Tax is the third, and the length of the commitment is the fourth, because it decides how much of the first two you are obliged to pay whether or not you stay. The tool above keeps those four apart on purpose, since a total that mixes them tells you nothing you can negotiate with.
Why is per-seat pricing not the same as per-person pricing?
A seat is a licence you pay for. A person is a person. Two part-timers who share one login are one seat, a shop floor phone nobody owns is one seat, and somebody who never touches the phone is none. Quotes are written per seat and headcounts are counted per person, which is how a comparison that looks like it is about twelve people turns out to be about nine licences and three. Count the licences you will actually buy, then check whether the supplier lets one licence be used by more than one person, because not all of them do.
Is an annual price just the monthly price divided by twelve?
No, and treating it as one is the most expensive mistake in a phone comparison. An annual commitment usually buys a lower rate in exchange for the right to stop, so the two figures are not describing the same offer. This page never restates a committed price as a cancellable monthly one: it shows an average per month and says plainly whether you could actually stop paying next month. Where a term runs past the period you chose to compare, it also shows what you still owe after your own window closes.
What happens when I remove a seat mid-contract?
On many committed plans, nothing, until the subscription period ends. The licence keeps being billed to the end of the term you signed, while an extra seat added in the same month is charged straight away. That asymmetry costs real money on a team whose size moves, and the tool models it explicitly: choose whether a seat you drop stops being billed at once or at the end of the term, and watch what it does to the total. Ask the supplier which one applies to you and get the answer in writing.
What should I do about a fee the quote does not price?
Leave the box empty. An empty box is reported as an unknown item, listed by name, and excluded from every total, which turns the total into a floor rather than an answer. It is never treated as zero, because a quote that does not mention porting is not a quote with free porting. The most common way a comparison goes wrong is that the vaguest quote wins, and it wins by the exact amount nobody has looked up.
Can I compare quotes that are in different currencies?
You can enter them, and the tool will price each one in its own currency, but it will not declare a winner across two of them. Converting would mean applying an exchange rate nobody dated to a decision that lasts three years, and the rate on the day you compared is not the rate you will be billed at. Ask each supplier to quote in the currency you will actually pay in, then compare.
Once the totals are on one page
The reasoning behind all of this is written out in how to work out the true cost of a business phone system. If you would rather work out what you actually need before comparing anything, we do that in a conversation rather than by asking you to fill something in.