Which Hosted PBX Provider?
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Great thread, and super timely.
I have a possible new client - they need 4 phones.
Of course I could setup a FreePBX on Vultr for them, VOIP.ms or whoever for dial tone.... but I'm not sure I really want to manage it for them long term.
I was debating pushing them toward a hosted PBX solution, flat monthly fee per phone, they need two DIDs (main line and fax line).
Something like $10/m provide your own phone is what I was going to be looking for.
I'm thinking that setting this up on Vultr would likely cost them $500 to build the PBX and Extensions, then they would have a reoccurring cost with me for maintenance of $50/m+ (assuming 30 mins of monthly maintenance.
Most hosted PBXs have low or no setup fees, so out the gate the client would have a smaller spend, and at 4 extensions at $10/m, they would be paying them less for everything, than they would be paying me alone for maintenance on the PBX. But perhaps hosted PBX/dialtone can't be had that low.
Wow - I guess the lowest price is $20/m, though not sure how old this chart is
I guess that changes things... at 4 phones, it does seem to pay to pay someone like JB or I to do monthly maintenance.
@JaredBusch - thoughts?
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@JaredBusch said in Which Hosted PBX Provider?:
I have never used any hosted provider. I always do it myself.
A few clients have used various hosted solutions. But I don’t think that any of them have enough flexibility to go with the hosted PBX.
In general it’s been much better to host their own PBX, whether in colocation or on a cloud provider.
But on your question. Ring central is awesome if you use all of the features, but if you only make phone calls you can do it but it’s a huge waste of money.
Microsoft teams is absolutely atrocious. End of discussion nothing else to say.
Companies like jive I have not had a chance to directly interface with yet. So I cannot see if they are good or bad.
RingCentral is great. We use it here at 40+ offices. I can definitely speak to how costly it is though. I think our costs tripled
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@JasGot said in Which Hosted PBX Provider?:
I should add, my current research is geared for PBX hosting only, not SIP service. But as I write this, I'm thinking Hosted PBX providers probably want our SIP service too. That is probably where the money is.
That is where a bit of the money is, but those are not "hosted PBX". In almost all cases, they neither host "hour PBX", but give you a shared PBX, and are really "hosted telephony" providers. You don't get a PBX, you use part of a shared one.
The only "Hosted PBX" providers I run into are NTG and Bundy. We were using that term when no one else was, they all called other things like "phone service" or whatever. We used the term "Hosted PBX" specifically because what you got "was a PBX", which is what sets it apart from almost all other players.
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@wirestyle22 said in Which Hosted PBX Provider?:
@JaredBusch said in Which Hosted PBX Provider?:
I have never used any hosted provider. I always do it myself.
A few clients have used various hosted solutions. But I don’t think that any of them have enough flexibility to go with the hosted PBX.
In general it’s been much better to host their own PBX, whether in colocation or on a cloud provider.
But on your question. Ring central is awesome if you use all of the features, but if you only make phone calls you can do it but it’s a huge waste of money.
Microsoft teams is absolutely atrocious. End of discussion nothing else to say.
Companies like jive I have not had a chance to directly interface with yet. So I cannot see if they are good or bad.
RingCentral is great. We use it here at 40+ offices. I can definitely speak to how costly it is though. I think our costs tripled
With 40+ offices I guarantee that your cost is much, much more than triple. More likely closer to 600%.
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@brandon220 said in Which Hosted PBX Provider?:
If I'm not mistaken - A lot of folks here seem to use Vultr as a host and run FreePBX with SIP trunks from a few different providers you will see commonly see mentioned on here. You can upload the FreePBX iso to Vultr and install the software. You would still have to perform updates, etc.
That's not a hosted PBX, though. That's hosting your own PBX, using Vultr. Vultr is the cloud provider, but you are doing the hosting of the PBX. So not meeting the purpose.
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@JasGot said in Which Hosted PBX Provider?:
@JaredBusch said in Which Hosted PBX Provider?:
I have never used any hosted provider. I always do it myself.
Who would you look to if you had no interest in the hardware and OS support of the PBX? just the PBX software....
Well, I tend to recommend @NTG ... that's what we do. You just get the phone system. We handle it all, you just provide your SIP trunks and let us know what you want the PBX to do. You don't manage it at all.
@Bundy-Associates does the same thing.
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@Dashrender said in Which Hosted PBX Provider?:
I have a possible new client - they need 4 phones.
Ten and under, always RingCentral or similar.
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@scottalanmiller said in Which Hosted PBX Provider?:
@Dashrender said in Which Hosted PBX Provider?:
I have a possible new client - they need 4 phones.
Ten and under, always RingCentral or similar.
Less than 10 extensions is really not cost effective to be anything but a full service like Ring Central.
10 x $20 = $200 / month with no additional fees.
For a FreePBX, assuming 10 extensions and 2 DID...
One Time costs:
It will cost them at least 5 hours @ $150 = $750.
Then $90 * 10 desk phones = $900 and $80 for an ATA to fax with.One Time Total: $1,730
Recurring costs
$1 x 2 DID = $2
$5 Vultr Hosting and $1 Vultr Backup = $6
$?.?? Usage, assume $10-$20 for something this small. = $20
0.5 to 1 hour x $150 for updates/management = $150Recurring Total: $178
The difference to Ring Central is only $25 cheaper per month.
But it will take 70 months (almost 6 years) to recover the cost of the desk phones and setup time that are included with RingCentral style solutions.
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Does 5 hours sound like a lot? Well it isn't. Because people.
It doens't take 5 hours just to setup the PBX. It takes 5 hours because of meetings with people.
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Technically, there are setup costs with Ring Central. But honestly they do not need to involve me if they choose to take their own time to do it. Instead they just wste an office staff person's time dealing with Ring Central Support.
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@Dashrender said in Which Hosted PBX Provider?:
Great thread, and super timely.
I have a possible new client - they need 4 phones.
Of course I could setup a FreePBX on Vultr for them, VOIP.ms or whoever for dial tone.... but I'm not sure I really want to manage it for them long term.
I was debating pushing them toward a hosted PBX solution, flat monthly fee per phone, they need two DIDs (main line and fax line).
Something like $10/m provide your own phone is what I was going to be looking for.
My situation too.
I am an Intermedia Reseller and I can't stand their system. Plus as a partner, the end user cannot call Intermedia for support. This is no fun.
I just ran through a Ringcentral setup for one of our average customers and it is very costly. Comcast and Verizon are way less in price, and they will both give you the phones for free if you ask them. (Maybe Ringcentral will too, I haven't called them yet.)
I looked at 8x8 through Ingram and it was a no go.
I'm still looking, but I'm glad to see there are two us in the hunt now!
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@JasGot said in Which Hosted PBX Provider?:
I'm still looking, but I'm glad to see there are two us in the hunt now!
I checked Jive, and they are also $20-$30 per seat.
jive.comLooks like LogMeIn owns them.. so nope.
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@JasGot said in Which Hosted PBX Provider?:
I am an Intermedia Reseller and I can't stand their system. Plus as a partner, the end user cannot call Intermedia for support. This is no fun.
Are you looking for a reseller/partner solution? Then I would look at 3CX They have the business model.
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can we get some tags added to this post?
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@JaredBusch said in Which Hosted PBX Provider?:
@JasGot said in Which Hosted PBX Provider?:
I am an Intermedia Reseller and I can't stand their system. Plus as a partner, the end user cannot call Intermedia for support. This is no fun.
Are you looking for a reseller/partner solution? Then I would look at 3CX They have the business model.
Yes. I want to interact with the end user for config of features only (OS and app maintenance handled by anyone other than me) and I want revenue from the sale of hardware and setup, and I want recurring revenue from monthly fees. The recurring revenue must be charged to me so I can bill the customer at my rates.
