How many lines before the price is negotiable?
Most business owners assume the number on the carrier's website is the number, or assume everything is negotiable. Both are wrong, and where you sit depends almost entirely on your line count.
The three tiers
The part nobody tells you
Above about twenty lines the carriers will quote you rather than sell you the list price. But that only happens if somebody registers the account with their pricing desk first. It does not happen on its own, and it does not happen because you called the retail number.
This is the single most common reason a business with fifty lines is paying a rate built for five.
Multiple locations count
If you run more than one site, add them together before you decide which tier you are in. Four locations with twelve lines each is a forty-eight line account, not four small ones — and it usually has four internet circuits attached to it that are worth pricing at the same time.
Finding out where you sit
Send a photo or a PDF of one bill. We will tell you which tier you are in, and if you are above the rate card we will price you on both T-Mobile and AT&T inside one business day. It costs nothing — the carrier bills you at carrier pricing and pays us.
Working it out
Plain answers to the questions we get asked most, with the pricing next to them.
T-Mobile or AT&T?
Where each one actually wins, the pricing on six lines, and the catch in AT&T's advertised rate.
Read it →Independent advice, or straight to the carrier?
It costs the same either way. What changes is whether anyone is looking at the whole picture for you.
Read it →Starlink as backup internet
Three different jobs it can do, what each costs, and why backup and coverage are not the same problem.
Read it →Running two carriers at once
Fiber from one, 5G failover from the other — and when one bill with satellite behind it is the simpler answer.
Read it →How long does switching take?
About three weeks. Why the phones are never the hold-up, and how to avoid waiting on a fiber build.
Read it →Get both carriers priced for your business
Email a photo or PDF of your current phone or internet bill to hello@photex.us and we will price it on T-Mobile and AT&T within one business day. Or call 847-991-9419.