How Much Does Hosted Telephony Cost? UK Pricing Guide (2026)

Quick answer

As an illustrative September 2026 guide, hosted telephony costs roughly £8 to £20 per user per month ex VAT for a standard seat in the UK. The bottom of the range is a basic seat with calls charged per minute; the top buys unlimited UK landline and mobile minutes, call recording and analytics. On top of the seat, budget for handsets if you want them (roughly £60 to £200 each one-off, or a few pounds a month rented), number porting (often free, sometimes a small per-number fee) and set-up (usually bundled into a 12 to 36 month term). Against that, copper line rental, per-minute UK call charges and the PBX maintenance contract all disappear, which is why the monthly total falls for most small businesses even though they are buying a better system.

I look at this from the finance side, and the mistake I see most often is comparing a hosted quote with the phone bill line by line. They are different shapes. The old bill is line rental plus usage plus a maintenance contract nobody reads; the new one is seats. This guide gives you the seat model, the extras, two worked examples and a comparison method that lets you hold any quote to account. If you would rather have the figure for your business than the range, get a no-obligation quote and we will price your actual users and numbers.

How hosted telephony pricing works

A hosted phone system is a subscription. You pay for seats (one per user, sometimes per device), you pay for numbers (usually pennies per month per number, often bundled), and you pay for calls beyond whatever is included. Everything else on a quote is either a one-off or an optional extra.

The seat price is where providers compete, and it moves with three levers:

1. Minutes. A seat with pay-as-you-go calls is cheap to rent and dear to use. A seat with unlimited UK landline and mobile minutes costs more but makes the bill predictable, which for most businesses is worth a few pounds a month on its own.
2. Features. Basic seats include voicemail, transfer, hunt groups and an auto attendant. Call recording, call analytics, CRM integration and contact-centre features are either a higher tier or a bolt-on.
3. Term. Twelve-month terms cost more per month than thirty-six; the discount for committing is real, and so is the lock-in. Mid-term price rises are less common in hosted contracts than in mobile, but check.

Put those together and you get the range: roughly £8 to £12 for a basic seat, £12 to £16 for a business seat with inclusive UK minutes, £16 to £20 or a little more for a seat with recording and analytics. All illustrative, all ex VAT, all September 2026.

What is included, and what is extra

The one-off costs

Handsets are the item people over-budget for. A modern SIP desk phone from Yealink, Poly or similar is roughly £60 to £120 for a standard model and £150 to £200 for a colour-screen executive or reception phone, or a few pounds a month each on rental. Most existing SIP handsets can be re-registered to a new platform, and a large share of our customers put desk phones on reception and shared areas only, with everyone else on the app and a headset. A business that expected to buy twenty handsets often buys five.

Porting is the transfer of your existing numbers. Under Ofcom's rules it must be offered; many providers include it, others charge a small fee per number or per DDI range. Budget a modest one-off and query anything that looks like a profit centre. Our number porting guide covers what to expect.

Set-up covers building your call flows, enrolling devices and training staff. On a 24 or 36 month term it is almost always bundled; on twelve months it may be a few hundred pounds. It is also the item most easily negotiated away.

Connectivity is not a telephony cost, but it can be a consequence. If the line test shows your broadband cannot carry voice reliably, an upgrade to full fibre or SoGEA is the right answer, and it usually replaces the phone line rental you were paying anyway. Our guide to the internet speed VoIP needs tells you when this applies.

Worked example: a four-person office

A small professional services firm with two analogue lines, a five-year-old phone system on a maintenance contract, and four staff who all take calls.

The monthly figure typically falls, the bill becomes predictable, and the maintenance contract - usually the forgotten cost - disappears with the PBX.

Worked example: a twenty-seat business with reception

A trading business on an ISDN2 pair into an on-site PBX, a full-time receptionist, a sales team of six who need call recording, and a dozen office staff.

Where the twenty-seat business saves most is the ISDN rental and the maintenance contract; where it spends more than it expects is recording, because six seats at the top tier add up. That is the right trade: recording that meets a regulator's expectations is not the place to economise.

Where quotes differ, and how to compare them

Three quotes for the same business can differ by a third, and the difference is almost never the platform. It is the assumptions:

• Seat count. Does everyone need a full seat? A warehouse phone can be a shared device licence. A director who takes two calls a week can be on the app with a basic seat. Teams users may already be covered - see Microsoft Teams Phone for when that is cheaper.
• Minutes. A quote built on basic seats looks cheaper until the first bill with your actual call volume on it. Ask each provider to price inclusive UK minutes for the people who make calls.
• Term. Compare the total cost over the same term, including one-offs. Thirty-six months at a lower seat price with a mid-term price review can cost more than twenty-four months at a higher price with none.
• What happens at renewal. Ask what the seat price becomes when the term ends; a good provider will tell you.

The method that works: for each quote, add (seats x monthly price x term) + one-offs + expected call overage, and divide by the term. Compare that number. Our guide to reducing your business phone bill goes deeper on the levers, and hosted vs on-premise total cost of ownership runs the same comparison over five years against buying a new PBX.

Hosted telephony vs the phone bill you have now

The comparison gets more favourable the longer you look. Legacy line rental has been increased sharply by the major providers through 2026 as the copper network winds down, so the "before" column is not static. ISDN channels are dearer still. Meanwhile a hosted seat has stayed roughly where it was. The honest caveats: if your team makes very few calls and you have a working PBX under five years old, SIP trunking into that PBX may be cheaper than replacing it; and if your connectivity needs upgrading, that is a genuine cost to count, even though it usually comes with better broadband you wanted anyway.

The bottom line

Hosted telephony costs roughly £8 to £20 per user per month ex VAT as an illustrative September 2026 guide, plus modest one-offs for handsets and porting. For most UK small businesses that is less than the line rental, call charges and maintenance it replaces, and the bill becomes predictable. The figure that matters is not the seat price but the total over the term with the right number of seats and the right minutes, and that is where a proper quote earns its keep.

If you want that total for your business rather than a range, send us a recent bill and tell us your headcount: get a no-obligation quote or call 0333 006 9399. We will show the one-offs separately from the monthly figure, and we would rather tell you SIP or Teams is cheaper for you than sell you seats you do not need. How the quote works is on our hosted telephony service page.

Not sure who is calling one of your numbers? Our free UK phone number checker shows which network or provider Ofcom allocated any number to, and whether the range is in service — no sign-up.