How to plan a monthly budget for phone calls: minutes, buffer and limits
Sado AI team · · 4 min read
In short
A call budget is built from minutes. For incoming calls: calls a day × average length × 30. For outgoing calls: people on the list × the share who answer × average length. Multiply the total minutes by the price per minute (800 so‘m with Sado) and add a buffer for ad days, holidays and sales. Then give outgoing calls a daily limit and calling hours, and each week compare real minutes with the plan in the portal.
What the budget is made of
An AI operator has no monthly fee, so the budget depends entirely on minutes. Minutes come from two sources: people who call you and people you call. Plan them separately: customers drive incoming calls, while you control outgoing ones through the list, the hours and the limit.
Keep the plan in one table: one row per source or campaign, with the number of calls, average length and minutes next to it. At the end of the month you’ll see at once which row grew.
Planning step by step
- Incoming: take the average calls a day and the average length from your telephony report. Minutes = calls × length × 30.
- Outgoing: write each campaign down separately: who, how many people, what share will answer, how long the call lasts.
- Add it all up and multiply by the price per minute.
- Add a buffer for ad launch days, holidays and sales. Take how many calls they bring from last year or the last campaign.
- Give outgoing calls a daily limit and calling hours, so the budget can’t run past the plan.
- Every week, compare real minutes with the plan and adjust next month’s budget.
Example: an online store’s budget
For example, the Uy Bozor online store sells household goods. Every number here is only an example.
| Line | Calculation | Minutes a month |
|---|---|---|
| Incoming: orders and questions | 80 calls × 1.5 minutes × 30 | 3,600 |
| Outgoing: order confirmation | 60 orders × 80% answer × 1 minute × 30 | 1,440 |
| Outgoing: offer to regular customers | 200 people × 70% answer × 2 minutes | 280 |
| Total | 5,320 minutes × 800 so‘m | ≈ 4.3 million so‘m |
| Buffer for sale days | +20% | ≈ 5.1 million so‘m |
Regular customers are called only if they agreed to it or have bought before. A number that says “don’t call me” comes off the list and isn’t called again.
What inflates the budget
- A long greeting and script: 20 extra seconds a call over 3,000 calls is 1,000 minutes.
- Reading out the whole price list: answer the customer’s question first, then offer what fits.
- Calling an unsorted list: someone who asked once a year ago and a customer who ordered this week aren’t the same.
- Unplanned ads: incoming calls jump when an ad starts. Agree the dates with marketing in advance.
Preparing and sorting the list in Excel: calls from Excel and Google Sheets.
Keeping the budget under control
Sado’s AI outbound calls come with calling hours, a daily limit and a stop button: one click stops a campaign. The portal shows every call’s length and cost, and results download to Excel. At the end of each week look at three numbers: total minutes, average call length, and how many bookings or orders each campaign brought.
There is one price: 800 so‘m per talked minute, with no monthly or setup fee: Sado pricing. A month without calls costs nothing. To hear the operator, try it live or call 78 778 01 23.
Questions
What if the budget runs over the plan?
First find the line that grew. More incoming calls is usually good news. If outgoing calls grew, lower the daily limit or narrow the list.
What if I have no numbers for the first month?
Take one week of calls from your telephony report and multiply by four. Treat the first month as a trial and build the second month’s budget from real numbers.
Do numbers that don’t answer count in the budget?
No. Sado charges only for talked minutes, so plan with the share of people who will answer.
How is the budget built when people answer the calls?
With staff, the budget depends on shifts, not minutes: salaries, taxes and desks cost the same every month, even when calls are few. So it’s planned for the busiest hours. With an AI operator you pay only for talked minutes.