An inbound call center answers the calls that customers and leads make to you. An outbound call center places calls to people who have not contacted you, which in B2B usually means prospecting and appointment setting by a sales development rep (SDR). For most B2B companies in the United States and Canada, the choice that moves cost and results more is whether the agents are shared across many clients or dedicated to you: a shared pool suits low-volume inbound answering, and outbound prospecting needs a dedicated rep.
Inbound vs outbound call centers at a glance
| Question | Inbound call center | Outbound call center |
|---|---|---|
| Who starts the call | The customer or lead | Your team |
| Typical B2B work | Customer support, account and order questions, booking appointments, qualifying leads from ads and web forms | Cold calling target accounts, appointment setting, following up marketing leads, reactivating past customers |
| What drives staffing | Coverage: enough people on shift that calls get answered | Activity: dials per day against a defined list |
| Skill that matters most | Product and account knowledge | Targeting, objection handling, persistence |
| How it is usually billed | Per minute or per call (shared), or per agent per month (dedicated) | Per rep per month, or per batch of leads |
| Numbers to watch | Answer rate, hold time, issues resolved on the first call | Dials, answered calls, qualified conversations, meetings booked |
| What B2B buyers usually call it | Call answering, virtual receptionist, customer support | Outsourced SDR, appointment setting, cold calling service |
This article is about choosing and paying for the team. If you are still deciding which motion deserves the budget, start with our guide to inbound vs outbound sales and come back here when you are ready to compare providers.
Shared or dedicated agents: the decision that changes the bill
In a shared model, a pool of agents handles calls for many companies. Whoever is free picks up, works from your script and FAQ on screen, and you pay for the minutes or calls you use. In a dedicated model, a named person works only on your account, and you pay for that person’s time whether the phone is busy or not.
| Question | Shared pool | Dedicated rep |
|---|---|---|
| Who handles the call | Whoever is available | The same named person every day |
| What you pay for | Minutes or calls used | The rep’s full working hours |
| Knowledge of your business | A script and FAQ | Builds week over week |
| Where the record lives | The provider’s system, with a message or summary sent to you | Your own CRM |
| Best fit | Low or unpredictable inbound volume, after-hours overflow, simple intake | Outbound prospecting, complex products, steady high inbound volume |
| Weak spot | Anything off script, and outbound | You pay for idle time if volume is low |
What shared inbound answering costs: two published price lists
We checked the published price lists of two shared inbound services in October 2026.
- Billed by the minute. Ruby’s pricing page lists virtual receptionist plans at $250 a month for 50 minutes, $395 for 100 minutes, $720 for 200 minutes and $1,725 for 500 minutes. That works out to $5.00, $3.95, $3.60 and $3.45 per minute.
- Billed by the call. Smith.ai’s receptionist pricing lists $300 a month for 30 calls, $810 for 90 calls and $2,100 for 300 calls, or $10, $9 and $7 per call. Overage is $11.50, $10.50 and $8.50 per call, and add-ons such as appointment booking are charged per call on top.
Hypothetical example. A software reseller receives 60 inbound calls a month, averaging three minutes each: 180 minutes. On Ruby’s list that fits the 200-minute plan at $720. On Smith.ai’s list, the 30-call plan plus 30 overage calls at $11.50 comes to $645 ($300 + $345) before add-ons. A full-time dedicated agent would spend about three hours of a roughly 173-hour working month on the phone. At this volume, shared is the right answer.
What a dedicated rep costs
A dedicated rep is priced like a salary, because that is what you are buying: one person’s working week.
Hiring in-house. The Bureau of Labor Statistics lists median pay for customer service representatives at $21.53 an hour, or $44,770 a year. That is about $3,731 a month in wages alone, before payroll taxes, benefits, software and the time someone spends managing the role.
Outsourcing to Munzai Solutions. A dedicated SDR is $1,800 a month for a 40-hour week, with 80 to 110 dials a day, which is roughly 1,700 dials a month. It is month to month with 10 days’ notice and no setup fee. The price is what it is because Munzai is a Pakistani company and our SDRs are in Pakistan. They work US and Canadian business hours, call from local numbers, and the calls are recorded. We explain the trade-offs in why businesses outsource to Pakistan, and the outsourced SDR service page shows what the month includes.
Arithmetic on our published figures, not a forecast. $1,800 divided by 1,700 dials is about $1.06 per dial. Across our 2026 campaigns, 35% to 48% of dials are answered. On 1,700 dials that is 595 to 816 answered calls, or about $2.21 to $3.03 per answered call. For a line-by-line comparison with a US hire, see in-house vs outsourced SDR.
Why outbound needs a dedicated rep
Inbound callers already want something from you. Outbound prospects do not, so the caller has to earn the next thirty seconds. That takes repetition on one offer, which a shared pool cannot give you.
- The pitch improves with volume. A rep who makes 80 to 110 dials a day on a single offer hears the same objections repeatedly and learns which answers keep the conversation going.
- The list gets sharper. A dedicated rep notices which titles pick up and which industries engage, and feeds that back so next week’s list is better than this week’s.
- Follow-up has an owner. Much of the value in outbound comes from the second and third conversation. That only happens if one person owns the callback and the notes are in your CRM.
Our own results show why consistency matters. From January to August 2026, across all clients, Munzai SDRs logged 69,722 connected calls, scheduled 7,585 strategic follow-ups, identified 5,780 high-quality leads and produced 1,953 meetings and conversions. That is about one meeting or conversion for every 36 connected calls. It is an aggregate across every client and offer, so it is not a prediction for any single campaign, but it shows the scale of steady calling behind each result. An agent who dials your list for an hour between other accounts does not get there.
When inbound should be dedicated too
Shared answering stops making sense when volume is high or the calls are complicated.
Hypothetical break-even. Take the lowest per-minute rate on Ruby’s published list, $3.45, and the BLS median wage of about $3,731 a month. $3,731 divided by $3.45 is roughly 1,080 minutes, or 18 hours of talk time a month. If you consistently run well past that, price a dedicated agent. Three signs point the same way:
- Callers need answers that depend on their account, contract or order history.
- The calls are sales conversations, such as qualifying inbound leads, and the outcome belongs in your CRM.
- You want the same voice and the same standard on every call.
Munzai also offers inbound call handling and customer support. Neither has a published price; both are quoted per scope.
Can one team do both?
Yes, but not in the same hour. An agent waiting on inbound calls cannot hold a steady outbound rhythm, and an agent in the middle of a cold call cannot pick up. If one person covers both, block the day, for example outbound in the morning and inbound follow-up in the afternoon, and report the two sets of numbers separately.
Eight questions to ask any provider before you sign
- Will the people on my account work on other accounts as well?
- Where are the agents located, and which hours do they cover?
- Can I listen to call recordings?
- Is activity logged in my CRM or only in yours?
- What is the contract term and the notice period?
- Is there a setup fee?
- What report will I get, and how often?
- How are requests to stop calling recorded and honored?
Munzai’s answers for a dedicated SDR: the rep is dedicated to you; located in Pakistan and working US and Canadian business hours; calls are recorded; work is logged in your CRM, whether that is HubSpot, Apollo or another system; month to month with 10 days’ notice; no setup fee; and a funnel report every week.
On the last question, a note on the rules. The FTC’s guide to the Telemarketing Sales Rule says most calls from a telemarketer to a business are exempt from the rule, with an exception for sales of nondurable office or cleaning supplies. In Canada, the National Do Not Call List site says its rules do not apply to telemarketing calls made to businesses. Neither is a reason to keep calling someone who has asked you to stop, and these pages are summaries, not legal advice for your situation.
Test with a small job first
You do not need a monthly commitment to find out whether outsourced calling works for your offer. With pay-as-you-go SDR, you supply the script and the lead list, and every lead is dialed twice. Packages start at $399 for 150 leads, which is $2.66 per lead for 300 dials, with larger packages at $699 and $1,249. In 5 to 7 business days you get the file back with a disposition and call notes on every lead, a summary, and a 30-minute debrief. If the conversations are there, move to a dedicated rep. If they are not, you have learned that for a few hundred dollars.
Not sure whether you need shared answering, a dedicated SDR, or both? Talk to Munzai and we will tell you plainly which model fits your call volume and deal size, including when the answer is not us.
