VICIdial Pricing: Free Software, Real-World Costs

How much does VICIdial cost?

VICIdial itself is free to license — it's open-source software, so there's no software fee. The real cost is everything around it. Self-hosting means a server ($200–500/mo), a VICIdial admin to run it ($500–2,000/mo) and a support contract ($200–500/mo): a realistic $900–3,000+ a month before anyone dials. Managed hosting skips all of that. Plans here start at $155 per user per month for unlimited US-48 dialing, or $250/mo for 10 reps if you'd rather pay by the minute — month-to-month, with a one-time $499 setup that includes 3 hours of support.

Hosted VICIdial — One Rate Card, Every Team Size, Fully Managed

All plans include fully managed hosting, expert VICIdial support, unlimited campaigns and call recording — month-to-month, cancel anytime. Unlimited calling by user is a flat per-user price with no per-minute charges. Prefer to pay only for what you dial? Switch to pay by the minute below, where calling minutes and phone numbers are billed on usage at the rates further down this page.

What Every Plan Includes

• Fully Managed Hosting — servers, updates, security, backups
• Expert VICIdial Support — real VICIdial engineers, 8am–5pm Central, Monday–Friday. Your one-time setup includes 3 hours of training and support; after that, support is $50/hr, or $35/hr in blocks of 10 hours or more, billed in 15-minute increments. Emergency support is available 24/7 on request at $160/hr, 2-hour minimum.
• 99.9% Uptime SLA — guaranteed availability
• Instant Setup — live within 1 hour
• Unlimited Campaigns — no limits on inbound or outbound
• Call Recording & 12-Month Storage — included on every plan, no add-on pricing
• Real-Time Reporting — dashboards and analytics built in
• STIR/SHAKEN Compliant — caller ID attestation included

Minutes & Calling Rates

Calling minutes are billed on usage, separately from your monthly plan price.

Billed in 6-second increments with a 6-second minimum — not the 60/60 (one-minute minimum, one-minute increments) billing most providers use, so you are never paying for time you did not use.

Phone Numbers (DIDs)

Phone numbers are billed monthly per number, separately from your plan price.

On unlimited calling by user plans, each seat includes two standard local numbers for every simultaneous line it has — 4 per user on Individual, 6 on Small Business and 10 on Enterprise. The rates below apply only to numbers beyond that allowance.

A standard local number at 30¢/mo is what every account gets by default, and these are always available. If you'd like a premium number instead, its price is shown at the time of ordering.

Support & Training

Normal support hours are 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM Central, Monday through Friday. Need help outside those hours? Additional time can be arranged in advance.

Every new account's one-time $499 setup includes 3 hours of training and support. After that, support is billed hourly, in 15-minute increments, at the rates below. Training and onboarding sessions must be requested at least 24 hours in advance, and rescheduled at least 24 hours in advance.

Need help right now, outside normal hours? Emergency support is available 24/7 on request, with a 2-hour minimum.

True Cost of Self-Hosting vs. Managed

How We Compare to Per-Agent Platforms

Most hosted call center platforms charge per agent per month — costs spiral fast as your team grows. eTollFree scales in simple $20/mo-per-rep steps instead of steep per-seat multiples.

Is VICIdial really free?

Yes and no. VICIdial itself costs $0 — it's open-source software you can download and run today without paying a license fee. "Free" stops there: you still need a server, someone who knows Asterisk and MySQL well enough to keep it running, and a support plan for when it breaks at 2 a.m. before a big campaign.

Add those up and self-hosting realistically runs $900–$3,000+ a month — a $200–$500/mo server, $500–$2,000/mo of admin time, and a $200–$500/mo support contract — before a single agent dials. Hosted plans here start at $250/mo for 10 reps and 50 phone lines, which is why most teams under about 15 seats come out ahead going managed instead of DIY.

None of that is a knock on VICIdial itself — the dialer is genuinely capable, which is exactly why we run it as our own platform instead of building something proprietary. The free part is real. It's just narrower than most people expect when they first hear "open source."

How much does hosted VICIdial cost per agent?

We don't charge a flat per-agent add-on fee — plans are priced by rep band, so the effective per-rep cost drops as your team grows: $25.00/rep at 10 reps, $22.00/rep at 25 reps, and $20.50/rep at 100 reps. There's no seat multiplier stacked on top the way per-agent platforms bill every additional login.

What is the cheapest way to run VICIdial?

For most teams, the $250/mo Starter plan (10 reps, 50 phone lines) is the cheapest way to run VICIdial once you count everything self-hosting requires — a server, an admin's time, and a support contract typically add up to $900–$3,000+ a month on your own. That gap only closes if you already have spare in-house Linux/Asterisk expertise and a server you're not paying extra for.

If your team is small and growing, month-to-month billing with no contract also keeps the "cheapest" answer flexible — you can move up a rep band, or call and downgrade, without a penalty either way.

VICIdial vs per-agent platforms: what do you actually pay?

Per-agent platforms — Five9, Genesys, Talkdesk, Convoso and ReadyMode among them — price by the seat and mostly don't publish what that seat costs, so the honest answer for those platforms is "call and ask." We publish ours: $250/mo for 10 reps, scaling $20/mo per additional rep, plus usage. Here's the same comparison across the specifics that actually change your bill:

Read the full VICIdial vs. eTollFree comparison for how the platforms differ beyond price.

How many agents and phone lines do I need?

Every plan bundles roughly 5 phone lines per rep by default, so a 10-rep team gets 50 phone lines and a 50-rep team gets 250 — that ratio covers most predictive and power dialing campaigns without agents waiting on the line. If a heavier-dialing campaign needs more lines than your rep count brings, extra phone lines are available in blocks of 50 for $60/mo, up to a maximum of 10 phone lines per rep.

As a starting point: under 10 reps, Starter (50 phone lines) is almost always enough. Around 25 reps with a busier predictive campaign, Professional (125 phone lines) gives more headroom. Past 50 reps or with heavy simultaneous dialing, Enterprise (250 phone lines) is the safer fit — and you can always add phone-line blocks on top. If you're not sure which side of that line your campaign falls on, the safest move is to start on the plan matching your rep count and add a phone-line block only if agents start reporting dead time waiting for the dialer to connect them — it's a same-day change either way, not a re-signup. For a closer look at how dialing modes use those phone lines, see our hosted predictive dialer page.

What you pay in month one

Month one is your plan price plus the one-time $499 setup fee — both charged together at signup. Minutes and phone numbers bill separately, based on what you actually use that month.

Every month after that is just the plan price, plus whatever minutes and numbers you used. There's no second setup charge, and the 3 support hours included with setup carry into your first month of use.

How much does call center software cost?

Across the market, outbound and contact-center platforms are sold per agent per month. Most of the well-known names — Five9, Genesys, Talkdesk, Convoso and ReadyMode among them — publish no public rate card, so the real number only shows up after a sales call. Here is what that looks like against our own published rate card, using the reps and phone lines each of our plans actually includes:

These figures compare platform cost only. Calling minutes and phone numbers are billed on usage by every provider, ours included.

How much does a predictive dialer cost?

Predictive dialing is frequently sold as a tier upgrade rather than a standard feature, which is where quotes diverge. Five9, Genesys, Talkdesk, Convoso and ReadyMode all price predictive dialing per agent, and none of them publish a public rate card for it — the only way to get a number is to ask each one directly.

On our plans every dialing mode — predictive, power, preview and progressive — is included starting at $250/mo for 10 reps, scaling at $20/mo per additional rep. There is no predictive upgrade tier, because pacing is a setting rather than a product. The full breakdown of how the dialing modes differ is in our predictive dialer and auto dialer software guide.

What drives the cost of a call center up?

1. Per-agent licensing. The single biggest factor, and the one that punishes seasonal or part-time staffing. Our plans price straightforwardly by rep count — $20/mo per rep beyond the base 10, each adding phone lines, with none of the steep per-seat markups per-agent platforms charge.
2. Seat minimums. Several enterprise platforms will not sell below 50 seats. Ours starts at one.
3. Feature gating. Predictive mode, call recording, API access and reporting are common upgrade triggers. Recording and reporting are included on every plan here.
4. Setup and migration fees. Common in this category; ours is a flat $499 one-time fee, not charged per seat.
5. Infrastructure, if you self-host. Servers at $200–$500/mo, IT admin time at $500–$2,000/mo, and support contracts at $200–$500/mo — a realistic $900–$3,000+ before anyone dials.
6. Telecom minutes, which are separate from software everywhere, including here — ask any vendor whether their quote includes them.

What does it cost to switch?

A flat $499 one-time setup. There is no migration charge beyond that, no contract to buy out on our side, and most teams are live in under an hour. Your existing numbers port across, your campaigns and lists are imported for you, and you can run in parallel while you cut over. The setup fee includes 3 hours of support time.

The costs worth checking are on your current provider's side: an annual contract you cannot exit, per-seat commitments already paid, and how long they take to release your numbers.