Pricing your ideal communications stack can be complex, particularly when you’re building a flexible solution with something like Operator Connect. Microsoft’s Operator Connect service is a big sister alternative to the Direct Routing capability from Teams.
With Operator Connect, organisations can connect Teams Phone functionality to their Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) services. The Operator Connect environment ensures businesses can maintain their existing relationships with operators, save money on various costs associated with management and hardware purchases, and more.
What’s more, Operator Connect gives you more of the simplicity you need in today’s world of fast-paced digital transformation. You don’t need to worry about managing things like SBCs and connections on your own, because your operator handles the hard stuff for you.
But exactly how much is Operator Connect going to cost your business?
Costs Associated with Operator Connect: Teams Subscription
Operator Connect isn’t a one-size-fits-all package offered by Microsoft Teams; it’s a solution that allows companies to connect with literally dozens of providers to find the best UCaaS solution for Teams. This means there aren’t any price lists available for Operator Connect on the Microsoft website. Instead, you’ll need to add up the costs of the various components of Operator Connect.
The first and perhaps most crucial purchase will be your Microsoft Teams subscription. While Microsoft Teams is available for free, this package is extremely limited in the level of control you can expect for your communications system. Most companies will need one of the following packages:
- Teams Essentials: $4 per user per month for unlimited group meetings (up to 30 hours), 300 people in each session, 10GB of cloud storage per user, and anytime support.
- Business Basic: $6 per user per month for everything in Essentials, plus recordings and transcripts for your Teams meetings, cloud storage of up to 1TB per user, business-class email, and web/mobile versions of your Office apps.
- Business Standard: $12.50 per month for all Business Basic features, plus desktop versions of Office apps, webinar hosting, customer appointments, and reporting tools.
Microsoft Teams Phone License
You’ll also need a Teams Phone System license so you can connect your telephony functions from your Operator. The Office 365 35 license for $38 per user per month comes with a phone license solution already built-in, so you can make, receive, and transfer business calls from anywhere, on any device.
There’s also the option to add “Phone System” add-on licenses to your existing Teams stack within the Microsoft 365 admin centre.
The Phone System costs $8 per user per month if it’s not already included with your package. You can also automatically assign a phone license to all your users at the checkout. Notably, having a Phone License isn’t the same as using a Calling Plan from Microsoft Teams.
If you’re going to be using Microsoft Teams Operator Connect Conferencing, your users also need conferencing licenses.
For conferencing, there are two options. Microsoft Teams’ standard audio conferencing subscription comes as standard within Office 365 E5 plans. Alternatively, the Operator Connect conferencing license will usually be purchased separately.
Operator Connect Prices: Operator Costs
Once you have all the valid subscriptions and licenses on Microsoft Teams, you’ll need to start looking for an Operator Connect partner. You can find the list of approved partners for Operator Connect in the Microsoft Operator Directory. This is where the most significant differences in pricing are likely to become evident.
Different vendors will have other packages and deals to offer for your Microsoft Teams Operator Connect experience. The cost of your services will depend on several factors, including:
- Several users: The number of people you need to connect to your conferencing and telecommunications system will directly impact your pricing. Some operators will charge “per user”, while others will charge on a usage basis.
- Geography: If you need to access numbers and calling functionality in multiple locations worldwide, you may need to pay a little extra for Operator Connect. Find out how the costs vary depending on how many countries you need to cover.
- Features: Many Operator Connect vendors will offer a range of business-critical services along with your communication solution, including compliance recording, and call queues built-in. You may also be able to access enhanced support services, dynamic E911 and other bonus features, like an uptime guarantee.
- Support requirements: All operators working in the Operator Connect partnership ecosystem need to offer excellent support to their customers. However, depending on the size of your business and its unique requirements, you may also want to consider paying for advanced support.
- New Numbers and bonus services: There may be extra costs associated with accessing new numbers as part of your Microsoft Teams Operator Connect deployment. If you want to move numbers from an existing provider into your Operator Connect environment and get help configuring your services, this may cost extra too.
How Much will Operator Connect Cost?
When investing in a new strategy for your communication ecosystem, planning and predicting costs is an important task. You need to know precisely how much your digital transformation initiative will cost, both in the short-term and long term.
Operator Connect can be a little difficult to get your head around regarding pricing. The good news is the nature of Operator Connect can make it easier to save a lot of money in the long term. Not only can you reduce the costs associated with provisioning and managing hardware when you have an operator to handle all of the challenging things for you, but you can save costs in other ways too.
For instance, Operator Connect allows you to maintain long-term relationships with providers, which could mean you can access more loyalty-based deals and offers in the long term. If you’re moving into Operator Connect with your existing vendor, they may be able to offer savings from day one.
The best way to get an accurate price is to get out there and start building your Operator Connect strategy with Microsoft Teams.
