Guide · Call Tracking
The cheapest toll-free tracking number isn't the one with the lowest per-minute rate
Toll-free minutes cost more than local and the rate never rides on the headline tile — but once you add the monthly base, the per-minute leader can be the most expensive way to run a toll-free number.
Ask which call-tracking platform is cheapest for toll-free numbers and the honest answer has two halves, because toll-free billing has two meters: a per-minute rate and a per-number fee. The per-minute rate runs higher than the local equivalent, and it doesn’t show up on the headline pricing tile — you have to open the usage detail to find it. The lowest published toll-free per-minute rate in our dataset is $0.055/min, charged by both Dialics (pay-as-you-go) and Ringba’s Professional tier. On the per-number side, two vendors publish a fee specifically for a toll-free number: Dialics at $2/mo (its local numbers are $1/mo) and CallRail at $5 for each toll-free number — a fee its page prints with no billing period attached, so whether that $5 recurs every month or is charged once is something CallRail does not say (its local numbers are $3, and the five its base bundles are local only). Everyone else either folds the toll-free number into the base, publishes only a local-number fee, or quotes a general per-number fee that isn’t broken out for toll-free. But the low per-minute rate and the low base fee rarely sit on the same plan, which is the whole point.
The per-minute and per-number rates, surfaced
Here is what each vendor that publishes a toll-free rate actually charges, with the monthly base it rides on top of. Every base is the month-to-month price; where the vendor’s pricing page opens on its annual toggle — CallRail’s and Ringba’s both do — the annual-billed figure follows in brackets.
| Vendor / plan | Monthly base | Toll-free /min | Toll-free number fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dialics — Pay As You Go | $0 | $0.055 | $2/mo |
| Ringba — Professional | $297 ($197 billed annually) | $0.055 | not published (local $2/mo) |
| Ringba — Business | $147 ($127 billed annually) | $0.06 | not published (local $3/mo) |
| CallRail — Lead Tracking | $55 ($50 billed annually) | $0.08 | $5 each, no period stated |
| WhatConverts — Call Tracking | $30 (no annual option) | $0.065 | not published |
Two things jump out. First, the published rates span $0.055 to $0.08 — a 45% spread, wider than it looks on a rate card, but still small in dollars: at 500 toll-free minutes a month the gap between the cheapest and the dearest rate is $12.50, while the bases sitting beside them differ by hundreds. Second, both CallRail and WhatConverts charge a premium for toll-free over their own local rate — CallRail $0.08/min against $0.06/min local at its entry allotment, a 33% premium; WhatConverts $0.065/min against $0.045/min, a 44% one. Neither premium is anywhere near the plan tile you click; it lives in the usage detail underneath. That premium is the real story for anyone routing volume through a 1-800 line.
A note on the per-number column, because it’s where most comparisons go wrong. Ringba publishes a local number fee — $3/mo on Business, $2/mo on Professional — but it does not publish a separate toll-free number fee, so we leave its toll-free per-number column unstated rather than borrow the local figure. Dialics and CallRail are the only vendors in the dataset that state a price for a toll-free number, and only one of them states a period. Dialics charges $2/mo. CallRail publishes toll-free numbers at $5 each for a toll-free line beyond the five local numbers its base bundles — no “/mo” beside it, no “one-time” either. Read it as monthly and Dialics has the cheaper number fee of a field of two; read it as a one-off and CallRail’s is the cheaper from the third month on, because $2/mo passes $5 in month three. We are not going to settle that by picking whichever reading suits the ranking: the page does not say, so neither do we.
For reference, Convirza publishes general per-number fees of $3.00 (Starter, $29/mo) and $1.00 (Agency, $149/mo — both list prices behind a “Get A Demo” button rather than a checkout) and quotes its $0.08/min and $0.05/min rates as general per-minute charges, none of it broken out for toll-free specifically — so it can’t be ranked on a toll-free rate or a toll-free number fee honestly, only on its general per-number fee.
Why the per-minute leader is a trap
Ringba Professional ties Dialics on the per-minute rate ($0.055/min) — but it carries a $297/mo month-to-month base ($197/mo billed annually). Fix a workload and the base swamps everything. At 500 toll-free minutes a month on a single number (using only toll-free fees the dataset actually publishes — Dialics adds its stated $2/mo toll-free number fee and CallRail its $5, billed monthly here as the dearer of the two readings its page permits; Ringba publishes no toll-free number fee, so none is added):
- Dialics: $0 base + 500 × $0.055 + $2 toll-free number = $29.50
- WhatConverts: $30 base + (500 × $0.065 − $30 usage credit) = $30 + $2.50 = $32.50
- CallRail: $55 base + 500 × $0.08 + $5 toll-free number = $100.00 month-to-month ($95.00 billed annually) — or $95.00 month-to-month ($90.00 annually) from month two, if that $5 proves to be a one-time charge
- Ringba Business: $147 + 500 × $0.06 = $177.00 month-to-month ($157.00 billed annually)
- Ringba Professional: $297 + 500 × $0.055 = $324.50 month-to-month ($224.50 billed annually)
The plan with the lowest published per-minute rate is the most expensive way to run this workload — roughly eleven times Dialics, month-to-month against month-to-month — because at 500 minutes you spend just $27.50 on metering and the rest is subscription. Note how little the $5 question matters to that ordering: whichever way CallRail bills its toll-free number, it moves one line by five dollars and changes nothing about who is cheap and who is dear. Ringba’s per-minute advantage only pays off at the volume its pay-per-call buyers actually run, where minutes dwarf the base. For a marketer with one or two toll-free numbers and moderate traffic, the rate is nearly irrelevant; the base fee is the bill.
How to read this
If toll-free per-minute price is your literal question, the answer is $0.055/min, and Dialics is the only place you get that rate with no subscription standing in front of it — pure pay-as-you-go, $2/mo per toll-free number, which makes it the cheapest toll-free line in the dataset at any modest volume. If you want a named plan with reporting built in, WhatConverts at $30/mo is the cheapest base that meters toll-free at $0.065/min, and its $30 usage credit means light users may pay nothing extra at all — there is no annual toggle to hunt for either, because every figure on its pricing page is a monthly one.
Ringba’s $0.055/min headline is real, but it’s priced for buyers pushing enough minutes to amortize a $147–$297 month-to-month base — not for someone tracking a handful of toll-free calls. The lesson the headline pricing hides: on toll-free, the per-minute rate is a rounding error next to the monthly base until you’re running thousands of minutes. Rank on the rate and you’ll pick the wrong plan. Rank on base-plus-usage at your real volume and the order barely resembles it — the plan tied for the cheapest rate on the board buys the dearest bill, while the vendor sharing that rate buys the cheapest one.