Call centre software prices in Kenya, explained

Call centre software prices in Kenya have four parts: a monthly fee per agent, a charge for the calls themselves, a fee for each phone number and any setup fees. To compare vendors, add all four for your team size. A low per-agent price means little if calls and numbers are billed somewhere else.

The method works in any currency, so it also answers “call center software pricing” searches from outside Kenya. The examples use shillings and SautiDesk’s published rates from the pricing page.

What are the parts of a call centre software price?

How much does call centre software cost per agent?

SautiDesk costs KES 1,000 per person per month on Basic and KES 3,000 on Pro. The workspace owner is free, and everyone else is billed, including supervisors and admins. One plan covers the whole workspace, so you cannot mix Basic and Pro. Basic has one queue, one number and one email address. Pro adds the live floor view, listening in on live calls, reports and unlimited queues.

Other products price differently, so compare like with like. On its pricing page, Zendesk lists its Support Team plan at $19 per agent per month paid yearly and $25 paid monthly. It lists text messages, local and toll-free numbers and inbound and outbound minutes as add-ons on its Suite Team and Suite Professional plans, without listing the per-minute rates on that page. 3CX prices a flat cost per system per year based on the number of simultaneous calls, and its headline is “Bring your own Trunk & Numbers”. Its licence is priced differently from a per-agent plan, and the numbers and calls come from a trunk provider you choose.

Is call centre software priced per minute or per second?

SautiDesk bills outgoing calls per second at KES 0.05, and incoming calls are free. Billing per second means you pay for the time the call lasts, with no rounding up to the next minute. A 90-second call costs 90 × 0.05 = KES 4.50. A vendor that rounds up to the full minute would charge the same call as two minutes.

Always ask two things about call charges: whether the unit is a second or a minute, and whether the rate applies to incoming calls. For a support line that mostly receives calls, free incoming calls change the whole bill. What you pay for is the calls your agents place, such as follow-ups and returned missed calls.

Here is how rounding changes a bill. Take 40 short calls of 45 seconds each. Billed per second at KES 0.05, that is 40 × 45 × 0.05 = KES 90. A vendor that rounds each call up to a full 60 seconds at the same rate bills 40 × 60 × 0.05 = KES 120. The difference grows with short calls, and follow-up calls are short.

What are the setup fees?

The SautiDesk pricing page lists no setup fee for the workspace, and a phone number costs KES 500 a month. The one-off fees apply only to messaging: a sender ID for SMS is KES 15,000 for Safaricom and Airtel together, or KES 8,500 per network if bought separately, and a short code is KES 15,000 per network. You pay these only if you want branded SMS.

When you collect quotes, ask for setup fees in writing, for each of: the workspace, each number, any branded SMS identity and any hardware. A cloud service that needs no desk phones or servers should not have hardware costs.

What does call centre software cost for 3, 10 and 25 agents?

The totals below rest on five assumptions, all of which you should replace with your own.

1. Billable people. “3 agents” means three billable people. The workspace owner is free and not counted.
2. Outgoing calls. Each person places 20 minutes of outgoing calls per working day, which is 1,200 seconds.
3. Working days. 22 days a month, so 1,200 × 22 = 26,400 seconds, or 26,400 × KES 0.05 = KES 1,320 per person per month.
4. Incoming calls. Free, so they add nothing.
5. Numbers and tax. KES 500 a month for each phone number, before any VAT. No SMS, email or branded SMS costs are included.

Pick the plan by what the team needs, not by price alone. Three people and an owner who listens to calls fit Basic. Ten people can run on Basic if nobody needs reports or a live floor view, and should move to Pro once a supervisor is responsible for results. Twenty-five people with more than one number need Pro, because Basic is limited to one queue and one number. The 25-agent row assumes two numbers, which is why it shows 2 × 500.

Your own calling time will differ, and it is the one input that moves the bill. The table shows what the call charge does per person at different volumes, over 22 days.

A team that mostly answers calls sits near the top row, because answering is free. A team that chases payments or books appointments by phone sits near the bottom. Put your agents’ real outgoing minutes in the pricing calculator to get the total for your team.

A note on tax. SautiDesk’s phone number fee is quoted before VAT, which is added at go-live. When you compare quotes from any vendor, ask whether each figure includes VAT, because two quotes can differ by tax alone.

What costs do vendors not quote upfront?

• Call charges. Per-minute rates that are not shown on the pricing page, or are charged on incoming calls as well.
• Numbers. A monthly fee for every line, plus a setup fee at some vendors.
• Channels. WhatsApp, SMS or chat priced as add-ons. Zendesk, for instance, lists text messages as an add-on on its Suite plans.
• Supervisors. Some vendors charge full price for supervisors. SautiDesk bills them as people too, and only the owner is free.
• Reports and monitoring. Live floor views and reports can be on the top plan only. On SautiDesk they are on Pro.
• Tax. Ask whether quoted prices include VAT.
• Switching costs. What it costs in time and money to export your data if you leave.

How does the prepaid balance work?

Outgoing calls, SMS and email are paid from a prepaid balance that you top up in shillings, by M-Pesa or card. Plans and storage are billed monthly. If the balance runs out, calls and messages pause until you top up, so set a low-balance alert or turn on automatic top-up from a card. Storage is free up to 1 GB, with paid tiers above that.

What should you budget beyond the software?

Budget for a headset and a reliable internet connection for each agent, plus a little training time. Agents work in the browser, so a laptop or phone with a headset is the whole kit. Add a call plan: who is on the phones, when, and for how long. Outgoing minutes drive the call bill, the one line that changes month to month. If you are building a team from scratch, how to start a call centre in Kenya covers the first hires and hours.

How do you compare two quotes?

1. Write down your agent count, number count and expected outgoing minutes per agent per day.
2. Ask each vendor for the monthly total for exactly that, in writing, split into agents, calls, numbers and extras.
3. Convert every rate to the same unit: cost per second of outgoing call time.
4. Add the one-off fees and divide by 12 to see their monthly weight in year one.
5. Check which features are on the plan you priced. If supervision or reports are on a higher plan, price that plan.

To compare features before prices, use the buyer’s checklist for call centre software and the call centre software page. If WhatsApp is part of your plan, WhatsApp API cost in Kenya covers that bill separately.