Cutting a fraction of a cent off your per‑minute rate feels like a win—until the invoices stop matching reality.

A Tale of Two Carriers

Carrier A pays $0.004 per minute. Carrier B finds a grey route at $0.0032—a savings of $0.0008.

Monthly Minutes	A’s Cost	B’s Cost	B’s Paper Savings
10 million	$40,000	$32,000	$8,000

At first glance, Carrier B looks smarter—until the calls hit the real world.

Grey routing means extra hops, mismatched codecs, and STIR/SHAKEN issues, DNC and DNO problems, traceback requests. Analytics providers start to doubt every number you send. As a result, call completion falls from 88% to 78%. That’s 1 million call attempts that never make it past ringback.

Average revenue per completed call is $0.05 (IVR fees, upsells, post call SMS). Those missed connections erase $50,000 in top‑line revenue. Add another $5,000 in support tickets, refunds, and chargebacks. And not to mention potential legal issues due to traceback requests.

So the $8,000 “saving” just cost $55,000—a net loss of $47,000. Or even a million dollar fine from the FCC?

Why Cheap Routes Are Cheap

Cheap routes look inexpensive because the supplier has stripped away the safeguards your traffic needs.

They hand calls off to the lowest bidder, zig‑zagging through grey or blended hops—each hop another point of failure. To shave pennies, some vendors even re‑sign or downgrade STIR/SHAKEN headers at C‑level. Your attestation falls, traceback gets murky, and spam analytics start to doubt every number you send.

Caller‑ID reputation is an after‑thought: no CNAM registration, no analytics appeal. The result? Unknown numbers that default to “Spam Likely.”

And because cut‑rate carriers rarely invest in geographically redundant POPs, a single fibre cut or power bump can silence your traffic for hours.

Cheap per‑minute pricing isn’t a bargain—it’s the quality they removed.

What High‑Volume Buyers Track Instead

Yes, the per minute figure is the first number everyone quotes. But to make a true apple‑to‑apple comparison you have to track what happens after the call leaves your switch. Operators who run millions of minutes a month watch four metrics:

• Answer‑Seizure Ratio (ASR) – If calls don’t complete, no discount is worth it.
• Attestation mix and traceback notices – A‑level signatures keep regulators happy; C‑level routes draw scrutiny and blocks.
• MOS, jitter, and post‑dial delay – Users notice lag and audio drops long before they notice price.
• Spam‑label scores – A call that rings as “Spam Likely” might as well never ring at all.

When these numbers slide, the hidden costs of a cheap route surface fast.

RGTN’s Approach

We start with direct interconnects, transparent routing, and real‑time monitoring. If we can’t maintain quality, we won’t take the traffic—no matter the rate.

Qualified partners get:

• Clean routes with full STIR/SHAKEN attestation.
• Live dashboards on completion, quality, and spam‑flag status.
• Caller‑ID reputation support—before it becomes a problem.
• Sharply negotiated rates without sacrificing any of the above.

Want Numbers Specific to You?

Spend five minutes here. If you qualify, we’ll show exactly what traffic we can handle and where we can recover hidden losses.

Related Reading:

• How to Know If You’re Working with the Right US Voice Partner