Standard PBX
PBX Costs
Typical up-front costs for PBX equipment range from $500 to $2,000 per user, depending on the features and functionality included in the PBX system. Higher end systems offer more advanced features, such as Automatic Call Distribution (ACD), overflow queues, and skills-based call routing. In addition, these systems are usually more expandable, with space to add expansion modules within certain limits. Up-front costs include costs for the PBX system, telephones, and internal wiring.
Ongoing costs for these installations include the cost of incoming phone lines, system support and maintenance, and per-minute charges for inbound calls. Typically, inbound calls are delivered at little or no cost for "local" numbers, and a charge of 4 to 10 cents per minute for incoming "toll-free" calls. (The calls are toll-free to the caller and paid for by the business receiving the calls.) The cost for incoming business telephone lines vary widely, but usually fall between $10 and $20 per month, not including taxes and other government-mandated fees. Often, features are added that increase the cost per line. Since premise-based PBX equipment allows sharing of phone lines across multiple extensions, cost analysis requires a prediction of the average number of extensions that should be associated per incoming line. Typical system pricing estimates one incoming line for every four extensions, but high-use environments may need more lines. System maintenance and support can be predicted as being about 1% per month of the initial system cost. These expenditures cover in-house or outsourced personnel to administrate, upgrade, and update the system.
Putting these costs together gives the following cost examples for standard premise-based PBX systems:
Typical costs for premise-based PBX systems
| 5 User System | 40 User System | |||
| Up-front Costs | ||||
| System & Installation | $ 6,250 | $ 50,000 | ||
| Monthly Costs | Per month | Per Year | Per month | Per Year |
| Telephone Lines | $ 30 | $ 360 | $ 150 | $ 1,800 |
| Maintenance | $ 63 | $ 750 | $ 500 | $ 6,000 |
| Total annual costs | Per month | Per Year | Per month | Per Year |
| First Year | $ 7,360 | $ 57,800 | ||
| Subsequent Years | $ 93 | $ 1,110 | $ 650 | $ 7,800 |
Notes:
Assumes one incoming phone line per four extensions, rounded up. Uses average per-seat cost between
$500 and $2,000, or $1,250 per seat for system and installation.
Other assumptions per preceding paragraphs.
The above table makes the assumption that the businesses want callers to pay for the inbound calls, rather than publishing a toll-free number. Some companies prefer to remove call cost from consideration for callers, and provide toll-free calls to their business. For these companies, additional costs must be calculated. The typical rate per minute for a toll-free call runs from about 4 cents to about 10 cents. The number of minutes will vary widely between businesses, but is usually proportional to the number of employees receiving calls since more incoming calls usually equates to more employees to answer the telephones. This discussion will estimate 250 inbound toll-free minutes per month per employee. This number is way too low for heavy-use call centers, but about right for a typical service or product oriented business. Since companies with higher use will typically get better rates for minutes, we'll use 8 cents per minute for a 5-user company and 5 cents per minute for a 40-user site. With this methodology, we can predict new annual costs for this type of usage:
Typical costs when including toll-free service
| 5 User System | 40 User System | |||
| Up-front Costs | ||||
| System & Installation | $ 6,250 | $ 50,000 | ||
| Monthly Costs | Per month | Per Year | Per month | Per Year |
| Telephone Lines | $ 30 | $ 360 | $ 150 | $ 1,800 |
| Maintenance | $ 63 | $ 750 | $ 500 | $ 6,000 |
| Per-minute Charges | Per month | Per Year | Per month | Per Year |
| 250/min/user/month | $ 100 | $ 1,200 | $ 500 | $ 6,000 |
| Total Costs | Per month | Per Year | Per month | Per Year |
| First Year | $ 8,560 | $ 63,800 | ||
| Subsequent Years | $ 193 | $ 2,310 | $ 1,150 | $ 13,800 |
From these figures, we can see adding toll-free service costs about $100 per month for the smaller company and around $500 per month for the larger firm. Whether the value provided is worth the extra expense depends on the company and its type of business.