Outbound Call Center Pricing

The current U.S.-based outbound call center pricing ranges from $25 per hour to $35 per hour, depending on the following factors:

• Program size (typically measured in number of hours per month)
• Difficulty
• Longevity or contract length
• Special certification requirements, like HIPAA for a healthcare program, PCI Level 1 for credit card capture, or Licensed Insurance Agents for an insurance program.

Generally speaking, if a program is less than 1,000 hours per month (about 6 FTEs), clients that hire an outbound call center should expect to pay a base price of $35.00 per hour. And if your program is difficult or has special requirements, you may need to pay $40.00 or more per hour.

If your program is 1,000 to 5,000 hours per month (about 6 FTEs to 30 FTEs), you should expect a discount to about $30.00 per hour for the base price.

For programs more than 5,000 hours per month (about 30 FTEs), you should expect to pay $28.00 per hour as a base price. Additional discounts may be considered if the program is very simple and with a long contract term and if the outbound call center can do the training very quickly and easily to get new reps up to speed fast.

Outbound call center hour calculation

How is an outbound call center hour calculated? At Quality Contact Solutions, we invoice our clients for every hour that a front-line outbound call center agent is assigned to a client program. Therefore, for every 3.75 hours worked, clients pay for 15 minutes of break time. So, in an 8-hour day, a client pays for 7.5 hours of work time plus 30 minutes of break time. For example, if your program needs 10 outbound call center agents to meet your goals on a daily basis, you will be invoiced for 80 hours (10 agents x 8 hours per day).

Pay for performance for outbound call center pricing

Most outbound call centers will not consider working on a pure ‘pay for performance’ basis unless the client can share significant detailed information about the program’s previous success. As a result, be prepared to share the 4 following items if you want the call center vendor to consider a ‘pay for performance’ compensation structure:

1. Detailed reports showing sales conversion or appointment conversion rates
2. Script or call guide
3. Training materials
4. Samples of recorded calls

If you don’t have this information to share with your prospective outbound call center vendor, consider contracting with them for an hourly test. We recommend a minimum of 500 hours to test new programs.

Hourly plus pay for performance outbound call center pricing model

Once a program is successfully tested, many outbound call centers will consider moving to a lower hourly rate in exchange for a defined incentive. This would enable the call center to earn a competitive total compensation based on the ongoing performance of the outbound program. At QCS, we will often discount our hourly rate up to $5.00 in exchange for a tiered incentive that enables us to earn less, the same, or more per hour based on the ongoing success of the program.

For example, in exchange for lowering our hourly rate from $35.00 per hour down to $30.00 per hour, as a result, we may ask for an incentive like the following:

100% of goal: +$5.00 per hour
110% of goal: +$7.50 per hour
120% of goal: +$10.00 per hour