What does an IP phone system cost? The 5 parts of the price

• There is no price per extension The cost splits into five items, PBX, handsets, installation, call traffic, maintenance, and almost no proposal separates all five.
• One year is a misleading horizon As a rule, the cost curves of an on-premises and a cloud system only cross in year 3 to 5.
• Per-user charging Every hire increases the bill without a new decision.
• Simultaneous channels Oversizing is the most frequent hidden cost.

Whatever the technology, the total cost always falls into the same five items:

Many proposals show two or three of these lines, and comparing them with another takes extra work.

Insist on all five items separately. A monthly figure that lumps everything together could be excellent or terrible, only a breakdown tells you. And a supplier who refuses to separate them has already given you an answer.

At the start. Almost all the investment happens up front.

• Licences They grow with the extensions, but what surprises people are the extra modules: reports, CRM integration, call recording, queues. Almost always charged separately.
• Phones The most underestimated item. A handset with a display and supervision keys costs little more than a basic one, until you do the maths for thirty people.
• Installation Depends on the numbering plan. Simple call handling installs quickly; queues per department, different schedules and forwarding to mobiles require serious configuration.
• Annual maintenance The item most often missing from proposals, and precisely the one that provides security patches.

The logic is reversed: a light start, a permanent cost. The monthly fee per user dominates. It is what makes the cloud affordable in year one and expensive in year five, especially with a growing team.

Check what that monthly fee covers:

• Number of simultaneous calls per person.
• Whether calls to national numbers are included.
• The extra cost of call recording.
• How many devices per person at the same time.

Number porting usually has a one-off cost, and it is in the minimum term that seemingly identical proposals differ.

Over three and five years, with a written growth scenario. For each solution, add up the cumulative cost in year 1, year 3 and year 5, using the expected headcount at each point. The result often defies intuition: what seemed expensive wins, and vice versa.

• Stable company: one office, 20 to 40 workstations: on-premises tends to work out cheaper from year four.
• Growing company: several sites or high mobility: the cloud is almost never a mistake, because the extra cost buys flexibility.

• Too many channels Waste number one. Without intensive call handling, thirty people rarely need more than 8 to 10 channels. Sizing by headcount rather than real traffic is paid for every month.
• A network with no voice priority The new system will have poor calls, and the real cost includes work on the network infrastructure and structured cabling.
• Backup power Every IP phone depends on a switch, and every switch on mains power. Without a UPS, a power cut leaves the company unable to answer anyone.
• Toll fraud A phone system exposed to the internet and poorly protected can run up thousands of euros in international calls over a weekend. It is prevented with managed firewalls and correct security rules and destination limits.

We install and manage IP PBX phone systems, on-premises or in the cloud, and present every proposal broken down item by item. No commitment.

More than 10 workstations · support contract · remote, on-site and telephone support. +351 211 459 950 * · sales@dataroad.pt

*Call to a Portuguese landline.