Why we don't resell carrier minutes — and why you shouldn't pay anyone who does
Aircall and JustCall mark up Twilio rates 3–5×. We pass Telnyx and DIDLogic rates through verbatim. Here's the math, the architecture, and the hidden cost you're paying.
The markup problem
Aircall, JustCall, and most "modern" calling tools resell Twilio (or a similar carrier) under their own brand. You pay them a per-seat fee plus a per-minute rate. The per-minute rate they charge you is typically 3–5× what they pay Twilio.
For a 50-agent outbound team doing 200 dials/day at a 90-second average duration, that's:
- 50 agents × 200 dials × 90s = 250,000 minutes/month
- At Twilio's actual rate (~₹0.85/min for India outbound): ₹212,500/month
- At Aircall's resale rate (~₹3.50/min for the same): ₹875,000/month
- Markup tax: ₹662,500/month — ₹79.5L/year
Plus the per-seat fee (~₹2,400/seat/month × 50 seats = ₹14.4L/year). Total: ~₹94L/year for 50 seats, of which ~₹79L is pure markup.
The "bring your own carrier" alternative
The Autocloz model: you sign up directly with the carrier of your choice. They bill you. We don't see a rupee of your call spend; we charge a flat platform fee per workspace.
For the same 50-agent team:
- Telnyx India outbound at ₹0.85/min × 250K min = ₹212,500/month
- Autocloz Business tier: ~₹40,000/month
- Total: ₹252,500/month — vs. ₹781,000/month with Aircall (~3× cheaper)
The savings compound. The platform fee doesn't grow with usage; carrier rates fall as your volume grows (Telnyx and DIDLogic both negotiate volume discounts you get directly).
"But isn't BYO complex?"
The argument for the resale model is that BYO is operationally hard — you have to set up the carrier account, configure SIP, manage DIDs, etc. That used to be true when Twilio's API was raw. It isn't anymore.
Telnyx onboarding is: paste an API key + a connection ID into Autocloz Voice Settings. Done. DIDLogic is the same; FreJun is per-agent OAuth. We handle the dial endpoint, recording, webhook signature, IVR runtime — every layer that used to need a wrapping vendor.
The hidden cost: your data lives somewhere
When you pay Aircall, your call recordings live in Aircall's S3, your CDR lives in Aircall's database, your IVR config lives in Aircall's UI. If you churn, you take a CSV export with you and you've lost the URLs to every recording.
When you BYO Telnyx, your recordings live in your Telnyx account; your CDR lives in your Autocloz workspace's Postgres. Cancel Autocloz tomorrow and your data is still in two places you control.
The gotcha: your compliance is yours
The flip side: when you BYO carrier, the compliance burden (TCPA, India DLT, STIR/SHAKEN) is yours, not the vendor's. Autocloz enforces it at the dial gate (DNC pre-flight, country quiet hours, DLT registration check) — but the registration with TRAI / FCC is yours to file. Most teams can do it in a week with their lawyer; some pay a consultancy ~₹50K one-time.
That's a real cost. It's still ~25× cheaper than the perpetual markup tax.