ALERT pbxHQ "Special"

[wardmundy]

From DSL Reports:

Not my site, but came across a post on reddit thought others here may be interested. They're in the process of launching but when signing up I got a personal email with login details to try the site out in the mean time. It's a little clunky and DID searching is somewhat limited for now, but hey - it's free. Has some neat call processing features for a hosted call flow/pbx from what I've played with so far.

pbxHQ Simple Price Plans

See how much you can save with pbxHQ on our pricing page!

pbxhq.com

 

[pbxhq]

Thank you for posting this here. It looks like with all the attention we have received, we will hit the 250 registration cap on the promotion before we even launch.

Thanks again.

pbxHQ

 

[krzykat]

Yeah, I saw that on DSL and signed up - got this in my email, so now I suppose its a sit and wait ...

Thanks for your interest in our Hosted PBX platform!

We have reserved your spot in our special launch promotion. We will send you further communications once registration is ready, and any specific instructions to receive the promotion.

 

[pbxhq]

We already sent out an update e-mail yesterday, I'll post it here for anyone who is interested in where we are at. As well a roadmap has been posted to the site to show where we are at currently, and what the near future will look like for pbxHQ.

Roadmap: https://pbxhq.com/roadmap


Status email:

Status of pbxHQ
Our service itself is 100% ready and has been for quite a while. The only work that still needs to be done to allow us to launch is:

- Polish our onboarding process a little further. It is in a 100% working and secure state at the moment, just needs some refinement in terms of passing nice error messages in case phone or credit card verification is not successful.

- pbxHQ account portal needs some finishing touches. This is where you will change payment methods, view payment history, and eventually order DIDs that are not within US or Canada.

- Website needs a lot of work. This is not critical to our soft launch in terms of operations, but it is important so that our users know what to expect and have a better idea of exactly what we offer, and at what costs.

- Support portal with setup guides, FAQ, etc is still a work in progress

We need all of the above in a good state before we can fully initiate our soft-launch.



Credit Card Processing & Automatic Account Activation
We did not expect to have any users complete the signup process immediately following it being live on the site. We have had a fair number of users already complete the entire process, and we have gained some valuable information in the process.

We would like if more users would complete the process, as we are getting risk related data from our payment gateway and 3rd party fraud check service. This data will help us define the parameters of our initial algorithm for automatic account activation.

Bonus: To all accounts who submit a credit card prior to soft launch, we will give an additional $10 credit in the account. This includes all users who have already completed the process, and all users who complete it from now until launch.

https://pbxhq.com/signup

Signup at above URL, and complete account profile, phone verify, and credit card verify processed to qualify.



Want to Beta Test Prior To Launch?
We would like to have a small group of users try out the system and give feedback. Please e-mail me at [email protected] (or reply to this email) if you would like to be involved. I will manually perform the API calls to our core system, to activate your account the same way as if it was done once we launch.

Criteria to qualify:

- You can actively test the system with multiple users in a typical business use case scenario. This involves setting up either a basic main number IVR, or better yet, more advanced callflow IVR.

- You have some experience in VoIP in terms of connecting SIP devices to a VoIP service. The service is very easy to use, but we do not have support documentation/guides in place yet, so a small amount of existing knowledge will be required.

- You will give feedback on what areas you believe are most important to have documented in our support section at first, and any areas of the system which you feel need improvements in terms of ease of use. Plus any additional feedback you think would help us.

- You have, or are willing to complete the onboarding process. This is the only way I can activate your account through the activation API we have.

Benefits for participating:

All phone usage costs incurred during the beta stage will be covered by us. This does not include if you decide to call outside of US/Canada.

$40 additional credit will be applied to your account as a thank you for participating in the beta test and providing feedback. Of course you will also get the promotional offer.

 

[pbxhq]

Registration is now open to all within the US and Canada! Still about 50 spots left for our early access giveaway.

Create Free Account Now!

Create your free pbxHQ account here now!

pbxhq.com

 

[wardmundy]

Always a gotcha...

• Phone numbers acquired through our promotion at $0 will stay $0 for the duration you keep the account active. To keep the promotional price, you will need to maintain 1 hour of call activity on your account per phone number you have acquired. If you select to get 5 numbers for free, it is expected you will maintain an average of 5 hours total offnet calling throughout the month (inbound and outbound combined). If you do not maintain these levels, we will notify you and give you the option of releasing the numbers, or changing to a plan where you will need to pay for the numbers.

Create PBX

 

[pbxhq]

I feel that is a reasonable requirement. It wouldn't be fair for someone to get 5 phone numbers just because they can, with no intention of ever using them.

It is averaged usage we are talking about, and also sending notifications to give users options of what they wish to do, in case the account is dormant. We are not going to just delete the numbers without warning.

If you do no not agree that this is a fair requirement, I'm willing to adapt the terms to something more suitable for our users. Open to suggestions

 

[Samot]

Always a gotcha...

Is it though? It's a promotion and instead of the promotion ending and you paying the full price (as it normally works) they are allowing you to continue to get $35 MRC for the cost of 5 hours of usage, so $4.20 a month. I think that is a pretty good promotional deal.

IMO the gotcha here is $5/user.

 

[pbxhq]

IMO the gotcha here is $5/user.

I've done some research on what competitors charge per user for a full featured business hosted pbx solution and have yet to find any for less than $12 USD/month (for metered plans). Plus, they have per-minute rates ranging from 2 to 3.5 cents per minute.

We are trying to price the service so it completely undercuts our real competition (Hosted PBX providers), but at the same time, is not too much more expensive than running your own PBX. I think we have priced somewhere in between retail VoIP rates, and Hosted PBX metered plans, in terms of per-minute costs. Keep in mind, being a service aimed squarely at business usage, we are taking the highest quality routes possible and not cutting any corners to save costs. Nothing that would sacrifice quality in any way.

As our service grows and we have auto-provisioning softphones, our target market will grow to include those who aren't comfortable working with SIP credentials.

In the meantime, the perfect target user for our service is someone who:
1) wants to use their own devices and is comfortable configuring them (or following a guide)
2) doesn't want to lock into a lengthy contract, or be stuck paying very high per user fees
3) wants/needs the advanced functionality and reliability of a full featured geo-redundant hosted pbx solution

Plus, with no contracts, no commitments, and the early access promotion, there really is no risk to give it a try. Worst case scenario, you can leave with no hard feelings, and no financial loss.


As well I should mention, to be a reseller for any company who offers a similar service to what we are providing, they will 100% of the time charge (to the reseller) a per user/device fee of somewhere between $2.50-$4+, This is the cost to the reseller without any usage included. Just connecting a clients SIP phone to the service will incur that cost to reseller. Is $5/user really a gotcha?

 

[Samot]

Is $5/user really a gotcha?

Oh I was saying that not as a gotcha for the consumers but for you. Giving away 5 seats and DIDs for the lifetime of the account as long as they do not even $5 of usage per month is a serious deficit to get out of. I mean that's over $8700/month in revenue for the life time of those first 250 accounts.

The problems I see here is the fact the pricing is based on undercutting the entire market by almost 60% and a promotion that gives too much away. While your price point will attract quite a few people it will also attract the ones you don't want. You really can't afford to have your promotion fill up with accounts that will never be over five users because those are a complete loss. Conversely, you price point can detract people because is it 60% lower than everyone else and that can raise flags.

So based on what I've seen so far, I'm not seeing how this is sustainable.

 

[wardmundy]

@Samot: It's a gotcha because the offer was advertised as free for life. Simple answer is to disclose all the terms of the "free" offer and not hide those that cost the consumer money. Like you, I suspect this will turn out to be an academic exercise because of the pricing.

 

[pbxhq]

Hosted PBX with free numbers. If you use the Hosted PBX, that minimal usage mention is irrelevant. If you sign up for Hosted PBX to try to get free numbers to use with something else, then you were just trying to take advantage of the offer.

Business model is fine, I am not going to get into specifics, but regardless of how much the promotional users use or do not use the system, there won't be any problems.

Edit: If you are in fact seriously concerned with our business model, feel free to send me a private message and I will address concerns there, as long as it doesn't involve giving away our secret sauce

 

[wardmundy]

Cautionary Note: Might want to review this thread on DSL Reports before you sign up.

 

[pbxhq]

Cautionary Note: Might want to review this thread on DSL Reports before you sign up.

Hey Ward, just curious, what does the fact that I choose not to participate in a forum where I am getting attacked from every angle have to do with the viability of our service?

This service was just soft launched in "early access". It is not hidden that it is a brand new service. We don't tie our users into 1, 2, or 3 year contracts like all of our competitors, anyone who tries it is free to leave at anytime if they aren't happy with it. I just don't see the connection between the services viability, and a debate on another forum. Please enlighten me.

 

[Samot]

I just don't see the connection between the services viability, and a debate on another forum. Please enlighten me.

Well I think it was more that your parent company is related to or the offspring of previous ventures as a provider under quite a few different brands. All the brands that seem to have disappeared over the years. So in regards to service viability, since your parent company seems to go through brand/names changes often while dumping their previous user base (from what I've seen) people would be a bit skeptical about using your service.

That and the fact one of the previous iterations of your parent company seems to owe a respected vendor on that forum money still. So that also put a point in the negative column. Oh and before you state that you have no idea about that or anything. I'm not saying *you* do or did anything in that regards, your *parent company* did.

 

[pbxhq]

Well I think it was more that your parent company is related to or the offspring of previous ventures as a provider under quite a few different brands. All the brands that seem to have disappeared over the years.

See this is the same problem as what occurred on the other forum. Assumption after assumption. There was 1 single company that failed. The fact that we had different divisions of the company, that evolved over the years, and with the odd-rebranding of said divisions. One company failed, over 5 years ago. I could write a book about all of the things we did right, but as stated in the other thread, due to reasons out of my control, I was unable to continue operating the business.

since your parent company seems to go through brand/names changes often while dumping their previous user base

More assumptions. There was 1 parent company, and claiming "often while dumping previous user base" is completely and utterly false. There was one time we dropped our user base, and that was when the one single company failed.

previous iterations of your parent company seems to owe a respected vendor on that forum money still

We had vendors we were paying $20,000 per month+. I guess I forgot to call AcroVoice to cancel the $50 e911 bill, as it was extremely insignificant in the grand scheme of things. The fact he brought up a $50/month service, that we had paid for over 5 years, that we had only because of a very old legacy division in the company (more evidence we didn't dump our users), is embarrassing on his part. I had hundreds of accounts over the years that owed actual significant amounts of money that never paid. It's part of doing business. Would I bring it up 5 years later in a public forum? Wouldn't even think about it. I have more self respect than to do that.

 

[billsimon]

Well I think it was more that your parent company is related to or the offspring of previous ventures as a provider under quite a few different brands

I can think of at least one other company that is currently represented here that has gone through a few rebrandings, sales, departures, and acquihires. Some people just get more picked-on than others I believe.

 

[billsimon]

See this is the same problem as what occurred on the other forum. ... I guess I forgot to call AcroVoice to cancel the $50 e911 bill, as it was extremely insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

I think you would have done better to ignore the statement by the Acrovoice representative as it was in poor taste to begin with and did nothing other than drag the conversation into the mud.

 

[pbxhq]

I think you would have done better to ignore the statement by the Acrovoice representative as it was in poor taste to begin with and did nothing other than drag the conversation into the mud.

In hindsight, there is a lot I should have ignored that I didn't, including the AcroVoice rep.

 

[hecatae]

the entire pbxhq website is down...