Marketing and Pricing Toll Free Dialup

Members of the ISP-marketing list share different ways of charging for 800 number access, and also warn of potential pitfalls that any ISP considering this business service should avoid.

[February 19, 2002]

On the ISP-Marketing list in February, PW inquired,

"I'm trying to determine what price people will pay to access our ISP through a toll free number. Does anybody else offer nationwide access over a toll free number? If so, how much do you charge?"

A number of respondents shared their current pricing for toll free access:

[TM offered] "Our customers mostly use it to check email when they're traveling. We charge 12 cents per minute, and give each user 10 free minutes each month."

[CP countered] "We charge two dollars per hour."

Others observed some of the pitfalls inherent in offering toll free service, and offered some advice:

[BL noted] "Setup can be a problem. Our customers just have to change the number they're dialing, but most of them don't know how to do that. They call us from wherever they are for help, and we just have to make sure our techs take that call and don't offer to call back."

[MS added] "You also need to figure out how you will control access to the number, and how to determine who spent what amount of time on it. It's not easy."

[EA suggested] "Instead of offering toll free access, you could partner with a national carrier that has POPs everywhere, so that your users can have access from a local number wherever they are."

[KH added] "If the people using the service are already customers, then you can test it at different price points based on your long distance costs. Figure out how you are going to charge for the calls (whether or not to round off by the minute, etc.) and put it at a price that you feel comfortable with. But do be careful of how you charge for the service. If it's going to be a post paid scenario, then you may need to look at your terms of service and rewrite some things to account for the different charges if a customer decides to use toll free access. As long as you do credit card billing, you should be in pretty good shape."

—End