Hi folks!
From my understanding, external SIP providers usually charge for inbound calls on a per-minute, per-caller basis (e.g., Telnyx — please correct me if I’m wrong). Then LiveKit charges for outbound traffic, which I assume is billed per minute per call (not callers), for the duration that any SIP participant is connected.
For LiveKit phone numbers, how does inbound billing work exactly?
Is it charged per minute per caller, or per minute per number regardless of how many callers are connected?
One more question — does LK phone numbers support concurrent calls for the same number or not?
Thanks in advance!
Hi, there is a pricing calculator on our pricing page which I think will answer a lot of your questions: Pricing | LiveKit
For concurrency, yes, LiveKit numbers will support multiple people calling in on the same number. If you have two concurrent calls, you would pay 2 x the cost per minute since you are using twice as many minutes. The actual costs are listed under the ‘Telephony’ section on that pricing page.
One caveat about the pricing page is that a lot of the language assumes you are using LiveKit phone numbers, be sure to look at the rows that talk about ‘Third-party SIP’ if you are using Telnyx + LiveKit, so the terminology is third-party from the LiveKit point of view.
Hi @darryncampbell, thanks for sharing these details.
I’ve already reviewed the pricing page and the calculator before posting here, but I couldn’t find a clear answer to this specific question.
I understand that Telnyx is considered a third-party SIP provider from LiveKit’s perspective. What I’m trying to clarify is how LiveKit’s SIP inbound pricing works compared to Telnyx.
For example, suppose there’s a single call (X) and two participants join via phone using the same shared inbound number.
In Telnyx’s case, inbound billing would be per caller, so the cost would effectively be x2.
How does LiveKit handle this scenario?
Would the SIP charges be counted as x2 (per caller), or x1 since it’s the same room/call?
Hopefully this clarifies my question.
Thanks!
Would the SIP charges be counted as x2 (per caller), or x1 since it’s the same room/call?
It’s per-caller, so if two callers dialled in on the same number at the same time and spoke for 5 minutes each, you would be charged for 10 minutes of use
Thanks @darryncampbell for the prompt reply — really appreciated!
Last question 
— For third-party SIP, LK charges will be per call or caller as well (the same example as above). I am referring to this section.
That’s also per-caller. Incidentally the reason we still need to charge for third-party minutes is because we incur infrastructure charges ingesting the SIP traffic.
