Vendors rarely price the same unit. One quotes minutes, one quotes calls, one quotes seats. Normalise everything to one number: total dollars per month at your actual call volume, with setup amortised over twelve months.
- Pull last month's call count from your phone system — not an estimate.
- Multiply by your average handle time if the vendor bills per minute (dental calls run 2.5–4 minutes once insurance comes up).
- Add setup, PMS integration, and per-location fees.
- Ask what happens at 120% of the allowance — a rate, a stop, or an automatic tier bump.
- Divide the total by the number of new patients the system needs to book to pay for itself. For most practices that number is one or two.
Why published pricing matters more than the discount
A vendor that will not publish a price is telling you the price varies by how the negotiation goes. For a solo practice without a procurement team, that usually means paying more than the group down the street. It also means every renewal is another negotiation.