How communications pricing is structured
How communications-platform pricing actually structures: per-seat licences, per-product add-on stacks, and usage-based pay-as-you-go on one wallet. Orbit's full published rate card — messaging, voice, video, email, and AI agents — compared against the two incumbent pricing shapes, with no invented competitor prices.
The industry's pricing shapes, in one answer
Communications platforms charge in three shapes. UCaaS suites bill a fixed per-seat licence per month; CPaaS incumbents sell per-product licences plus add-on fees, stacked product by product; and usage-based platforms bill per event from one balance. Devotel Orbit is the third shape end to end: every channel is published per unit, billed from one prepaid wallet, with no monthly fee, no minimums, and no seat count. The arithmetic usually favours usage-based once idle seats or automation-heavy traffic enter the profile.
Devotel Orbit's published rate card
Every published rate category, US destinations, self-serve pay-as-you-go. The same figures appear on the pricing page and the homepage pricing band.
| Category | Unit | Rate | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| SMS | per segment, US | $0.0075 | Volume rate card on request |
| MMS | per message, US | SMS rate + carrier surcharge | Surcharge varies by destination carrier |
| platform fee | Free | Meta's own rates pass through directly | |
| RCS | per message, US | $0.01 | Volume rate card on request |
| Viber | per message | $0.008 | Tier-2 SMPP channel |
| Voice · outbound | per minute, US | $0.014 | Carried on Devotel's own wholesale softswitch |
| Voice · inbound | per minute | $0.0085 | Homepage published tile |
| per 1,000 emails | $1.00 | Volume rate card on request | |
| Video · group room | per participant minute | $0.0035 | Homepage published tile |
| AI agent · message | per AI message | $0.007 | Usage-based; no platform or seat fee |
| AI agent · call minute | per voice minute | $0.014 | Usage-based; opt-in outcome billing available |
| Phone number · US local | per month | $1.15 | Homepage published tile |
| Recording · storage | per GB-month | $0.02 | Applies to call and video recordings |
Usage-based + one wallet vs the incumbent pricing shapes
The two billing models a shortlist evaluates against Orbit are pricing-model facts, not vendor claims — how the category bills, with no competitor price asserted on this page.
| Dimension | Devotel Orbit — usage-based, one wallet | UCaaS — per-seat licence | Classic CPaaS — per-product + add-on fees |
|---|---|---|---|
| Billing unit | Per message, per minute, per event — only actual traffic moves the bill. | A fixed amount per named user per month, whether the seat was used or not. | A per-product licence per channel, with add-on fees stacked on top. |
| Base commitment | None — prepaid wallet, no monthly fee, no minimums, no seat count. | The seat count bills regardless of usage; idle seats still cost. | Each product bills separately; minimums per product are common on full-service portals. |
| AI agents | Usage-billed on the same wallet; no per-seat AI licence. | An AI add-on typically layers another per-seat amount on top of the base seat. | A separate AI product priced on its own, on top of the messaging and voice products. |
| Bill consolidation | One balance meters messaging, voice, video, email, and AI agents on one account. | One predictable invoice, but the total climbs with every seat and add-on. | Separate product invoices and per-channel markups reconcile across multiple portals. |
| Published rates | Every category published on the pricing page; volume rate cards negotiated at scale. | List pricing published per tier; add-on capability often quote-only. | Usage rates published per product, but per-channel markups and add-on fees stack. |
See spend as it happens
A usage model is auditable only if the vendor shows usage live. The billing dashboard graphs burn rate per channel, projects the monthly total from current traffic, and lets you cap auto-top-up — so the estimate above becomes an observed number days into your first cycle, not a spreadsheet you carry forward.
Open the billing dashboardEstimate your cost in four steps
List your traffic profile
Write down the monthly volume per channel you actually run — voice minutes, SMS segments, WhatsApp conversations, RCS messages, emails, video participant minutes, and AI agent turns.
Map each line to the published rate
Match every line item to the published Orbit rate category below — per message, per minute, per participant minute, or per email. Devotel Orbit publishes every rate category; nothing is quote-only on the self-serve track.
Multiply and total
Multiply each line's volume by its published rate and total the column. The pricing page runs the same calculation interactively. On a per-seat model the same exercise prices headcount, not traffic — compare like for like.
Verify against live burn rate
After signup, the billing dashboard shows burn rate per channel in real time with auto-top-up caps you control, so the estimate becomes an observed number rather than a spreadsheet guess.
Pricing models — frequently asked
- What is the difference between per-seat and pay-as-you-go pricing?
- Per-seat pricing bills a fixed amount per named user per month whether or not the seat was used; pay-as-you-go bills per event — per message, per minute, per API call — so only actual traffic moves the bill. Devotel Orbit bills every channel pay-as-you-go from one prepaid wallet, with no seat count and no monthly fee.
- How does Orbit price each channel?
- Every rate category is published on the pricing page: SMS at $0.0075 per segment, voice at $0.014 per minute, RCS at $0.01 per message, email at $0.001 per message, WhatsApp at a $0 platform fee over Meta's own rates, Viber at $0.008 per message, video group rooms at $0.0035 per participant minute, and AI agents at $0.007 per message, $0.014 per voice minute, and an optional $0.005 per resolved outcome. All of it draws from one prepaid balance.
- Is there a monthly fee or minimum commitment on Orbit?
- No. Orbit is pay-as-you-go end-to-end — you charge only for the traffic you send, drawn from a prepaid balance, so an account left dormant for a year pays $0. Enterprise adds negotiated per-destination rate cards on the same pay-as-you-go wallet; only the per-message and per-minute rates change.
- How do I model my monthly cost before signing?
- Multiply your traffic profile against the published rates on the pricing page, or run the interactive pricing calculator there. Once you are live, the billing dashboard shows burn rate per channel in real time, so the estimate turns into an observed number instead of a spreadsheet guess.
Price your traffic on published rates
Read the full rate card and run the calculator on the pricing page, or verify the arithmetic in the per-seat vs usage-based blog comparison.