Unlimited toll free service?

People sometime to go looking for unlimited toll free plans because they like that for their outbound phone service. Ironically it's the people that need it the least that tend to want this, which is probably why a couple companies you've never heard of, pretend to give something called an Unlimited service. It NEVER really is unlimited but they can sell some people on it as long as they hide the limitations deep down in the fine print.

If you think about it, it's pretty obvious that almost any big business could blow out any really unlimited toll free plan. Companies like 1-800 FLOWERS would LOVE it if they could get an unlimited toll free service. They can generate thousands of dollars per hour in toll free charges so they'd blow any real unlimited service out of the water. No big company uses anything like that because, point blank, it just doesn't exist. There are ALWAYS catches and limits to it. There has to be. And further, there is NO REPUTABLE COMPANY that sells any unlimited service.

I personally own several domain names related to flat rate 800 service and have even worked and tried to promote a couple services like that, but the only way that they can exist and make money is if the customer uses less than what they're paying for. I have thousands of small business customers and the average bill for them is much lower than you would think, probably about $12 to $15 per month. That's because toll free service is cheaper than most people realize.

Most new businesses tend to picture a huge volume of calls and think that $49 a month will be a bargain, and if you know that you consistently use just a little more than what they are charging, it might be. But in reality, most customers will wind up paying for more than they use, and the ones that use more than what they are paying for will usually have a spike of calls at some point and then the company will cut them off, often imposing huge penalties or at best, charging a higher per minute rate or simply asking them transfer away. Either way, you are at their mercy because you can't afford to have your toll free service shut off when you need it the most.

So the bottom line is that you should never use a flat rate plan unless you have a track record of using more than the monthly fee is on another service and also know that you won't have any spikes that push you too high above what you're paying for. Think of it as a gambling game and them as the house. You may think you can beat them and may do it for a little while but they wrote the rules (and often rewrite them as necessary) and once you have the number advertised you are at their mercy and the system is set up to insure that the house always wins.

I know a couple people in the industry won't like someone exposing this but I think it's also important to point out that I'm probably the only major person in the toll free business that's not trying to sell you their service. So I really have no axe to grind at all, except to be a valuable resource to my visitors.