Why our rates aren't the floor. And what you get for the gap.
Wholesale-tier vendors advertise German mobile termination at $0.007/min. Our published rate is higher. This page exists because the gap is a real question, and we'd rather give you the honest answer than let you infer the wrong one.
Not all SIP termination is the same thing.
Three kinds of vendor sell voice minutes in this market. They're priced differently because they deliver different calls. Understanding which tier you're actually shopping clears up most of the 'why so expensive?' confusion.
Wholesale tier
Bulk VoIP termination. Rates optimized for cost, not delivery quality. Routes assembled from the cheapest available carrier at any given moment — often grey routes that rewrite CLI on international ingress. Attestation is whatever the cheapest carrier supports. You buy minutes; quality is your problem.
- •Mobile termination quoted under $0.01/min in most EU markets
- •CLI rewritten or masked on many international routes
- •No managed A-attestation — usually B-level or gateway
- •Route switching is your job if quality drops
CPaaS tier
API-first voice vendors. Rates sit 2–4× above wholesale. Good developer experience, extensive SDKs, solid documentation. CLI and attestation are better than wholesale but typically require paid upgrades for top-tier routes. Priced for developers, not high-volume dialers.
- •Mobile termination $0.02–0.06/min in EU markets
- •CLI generally delivered but not guaranteed
- •A-attestation usually a paid add-on
- •Metered pricing scales fast at dialer volumes
Managed-carrier tier
Direct carrier termination with managed attestation, monitored delivery, and guaranteed CLI integrity across the DID footprint. Rates 3–8× above wholesale for mobile — and that gap is where the operating work sits. You get one carrier, one invoice, one accountability chain.
- •Direct interconnect with terminating carriers — not a routing broker
- •A-level STIR/SHAKEN attestation on every eligible US/CA call — included
- •CLI integrity guaranteed everywhere we provision DIDs
- •NOC watches terminating-carrier CDRs and fixes breakage end-to-end
- •29 years of voice operating history behind every call
The operating work between $0.007 and our rate.
The rate difference isn't margin stacking. It pays for direct interconnects, managed attestation, 24/7 monitoring, CLI integrity, and an operating record long enough to mean something. Six concrete things the gap covers.
Direct carrier termination
Our outbound traffic goes over direct interconnects with the terminating carrier in each country — not through a daisy-chain of grey-route brokers. Fewer hops, higher answer rate, cleaner signaling.
A-level STIR/SHAKEN — included
Every eligible US/Canada outbound call signed at A-attestation. No upsell, no surcharge, no opt-in form. Downstream carriers see the call as verified and are less likely to drop it into spam folders or block it outright.
NOC watches your delivery
Real engineers on shift 24/7 looking at ASR, PDD, and CLI behavior on every terminating carrier. When a hop changes behavior, we fix it — usually before you notice. Your NOC does not need to be our route-audit team.
Guaranteed CLI integrity
Every DID you buy from us is delivered as CLI — exactly as purchased. No rewrite, no masking, no substitution. Applies across every country in our DID footprint, not a hand-picked tier-1 subset.
One carrier, one invoice
Outbound termination, inbound DIDs, toll-free, STIR/SHAKEN, emergency registration — all on one network with one accountability chain. No finger-pointing when routing changes and you can't tell which vendor broke something.
Published numbers, not adjectives
ASR 67%+ on US domestic, PDD under 2 seconds, 120,000 concurrent US ports. Numbers most carriers won't publish because they can't sustain them. Rolling averages on our production traffic — visible in the portal, verifiable on your CDRs.
What it actually costs per month.
Concrete example — 50,000 minutes of outbound to Germany mobile. Same traffic, three tiers.
| Tier | Published rate | 50k min/mo | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wholesale tier | $0.007/min | $350 | Grey routes, variable CLI, attestation not guaranteed |
| CPaaS tier | $0.038/min | $1,900 | API-first, mid-quality routes, attestation extra |
| VICICarrier (managed) | $0.095/min | $4,750 | Direct routes, CLI integrity, A-attestation, NOC-monitored delivery |
Gap between wholesale and managed: $4,400/mo on 50k German mobile minutes. If your revenue per connected call is above $10 (most B2B dials) or you're regulated, the math is trivial. If your revenue per call is $0.50 and CLI integrity doesn't matter — wholesale is the right call. We'll tell you that honestly on a sales call.
When wholesale is the right call.
Honest answer — sometimes it is. We'd rather tell you than watch you overpay for something you don't need.
- •High-volume, price-elastic traffic where CLI rewrite is acceptable (voice broadcasts, silent delivery, survey).
- •In-house engineering team able to monitor route quality, switch carriers, chase CLI issues.
- •Revenue per connected call under a dollar — the gap can't be justified on conversion math.
- •Comfortable with calls occasionally flagged "Spam Likely" or "Scam Likely" by downstream filters.
When managed routing pays for itself.
Most B2B dialing, every regulated vertical, any operation where the NOC exists to run your business — not audit vendor routes.
- •Every call needs to reach the intended party with the CLI you sent.
- •Revenue per connected call is high enough that a 2% answer-rate improvement pays for the rate gap 10× over.
- •Compliance, regulatory, or contractual requirements around STIR/SHAKEN, CLI integrity, or call attestation.
- •You'd rather have one operating carrier than a spreadsheet of wholesale suppliers and a finger-pointing chain when something breaks.
Send us your CDR. We'll tell you honestly which tier fits.
Share your last month of outbound and your current carrier's rate sheet. If wholesale is the right answer for your traffic, we'll say so — and point you at who to talk to. If managed routing pays for itself on your volumes, the math will prove it.