One more thought on pricing

Have you considered as well as VOIPo Residential Unlimited ...
To perhaps offer VOIPo Residential -SOHO-5000?
It would be a great car race event name also :)

One UNLIMITED plan geared to the real residential patterns, . . .

. . . and one for the guy looking to run a business cheap
and avoid TOS conflicts doing telemartketing and such
that a Residential Audit would RED-FLAG?

Since it would have something like a 5000 minute cap,
they would know their limits. (You could price them identical.)

Just thinking ...
And looking to kill the how Unlimited is UNLIMITED debate!

There will never be getting around the 'Unlimited" debate. Being very familiar with the legal system, I've checked into it and it's perfectly OK to advertise "Unlimited" and yet cap someone at a certain number of minutes. It all depends on what is described as "Unlimited". In most cases, nothing particular was mentioned as unlimited.

In the Ma'Bell/cell days, it use to be/is that you paid a certain price per minute during daytime peak hours and a cheaper price at night/weekends. Voip "Unlimited" could simply imply that WHEN you call for the BEST prices is UNLIMITED. It use to be that it would cost you different prices depending WHERE you called. With voip, "Unlimited" could simply refer to where in the USA/Canada you can call for the same price. (It's unlimited). What about the features with Ma'Bell? You pay extra for all the different features like 3 way, forwarding, voicemail, etc.... With voip, maybe the amount of available features you get for the monthly price is "Unlimited".

You have to remember that beta testers, people on forums like BBR, etc... are a minority. They are not the average customer. They only make up about 5% of the customers. The vast majority of customers will never come close to breaking past 5000 minutes. Most won't even come close to 1000 minutes. Most won't use more than 3-4 features. If you look at the average person, you could come up with 10 basic features and they would be happy. Luckily, features are software driven and aren't that expensive to implement. They do however cost the provider money in training and support to help their customers with them. The vast majority of these customers, including the majority of the techno-geeks who DO visit the forums and do beta testing, will never use sip addressing, vm to email, white lists, black lists, etc... Among the average users, they just want a Ma'Bell phone replacement that is cheaper. That is why they DON'T want skype/magic jack. They aren't wanting to combine their PC with phone.

So, as far as PRICING goes, I am a firm believer in keeping it really simple. Advertise a basic price for service. I.e.

Basic Plan:
$15.00 - 500 minutes per month anyplace USA/Canada:
$20.00 - 500 minutes per month anyplace USA/Canada and any country listed:

Friends and Family Plan:
$23.00 - 5000 minutes per month anyplace USA/Canada:
$28.00 - 5000 minutes per month anyplace USA/Canada and any country listed:

Business and Power User Plan:
$30.00 - 10,000 minutes per month anyplace USA/Canada:
$35.00 - 10,000 minutes per month anyplace USA/Canada and any country listed:

TO HELP OUR CUSTOMERS choose the proper plan:

500 minutes per month is approximately using the phone about 15 minutes a day. Perfect for the person/family who uses their home phone for quick communications or the ocassional 30-60 minute call every few days.

5000 minutes per month is approximately using the phone 2.7 hours per day. Perfect for the average family with children and parents always needing to communicate with each other. Excellent for calling friends and family all over the country and many countries. Perfect for the average user who doesn't want to have to count minutes.

10,000 minutes per month is approximately using the phone 5.4 hours per day. Perfect for the small/large business speaking with clients and associates. Perfect for families who are separated from family and friends and want to stay in touch. Perfect for individuals who want to allow their teens/children to talk liberally with their friends without the additional cost of a cell phone.

Fine Print would say: If you exceed the minutes allocated in your monthly plan, you will automatically be moved up to the next higher plan and charged accordingly. If you are already on the "Business and Power User Plan" and exceed your minutes, you will be automatically charged an additional $5 per month for each block of 5000 minutes used. International charges outside of the included countries listed for the plans, are charges above and beyond monthly plan pricing.

Anyway, that is my suggestion. Don't worry about the word "Unlimited". The average person doesn't come close to using that many minutes. Why get into a pissing contest with the few that do try and use a lot. By having different minute plans, as well as describing them, you allow the customer to actively participate and choose what is best for them. They feel they aren't getting screwed. They know what they are getting. The vast majority will choose the middle plan. People who live with a cell phone attached to their ear will choose the bottom plan. Those in the SOHO/SMB and large family will choose the upper plan. Even the highest plan is cheaper than Ma'Bell, and for keeping in touch with friends and family, it's cheaper than cell phones. Especially if you have a family of more than 2 children. The cell bill can get pretty steep.

Anyway, keep it simple. No gimmicks. No marketing ploy to capture your audiance. Your marketing ploy should be something the average customer won't expect; the truth. Market the service as 100% NO BULL!!! No misleading prices or plans. No upselling of services the customer doesn't want. No hidden charges. No "WOO HOO" limitations. Just the truth. Have a nice online glossary and instruction for ALL features. (Instructions only for logged in existing customers). Make the customer feel that THEY get to decide what they want.

Marketing/Advertising is very easy. There are 2 approaches. 1) Decide what you WANT the customer to BUY/THINK/BELIEVE and lead them in that direction. (The most common form of marketing/sales). 2) Put yourself in the shoes of the customer. Imagine what you would like. Market/advertise that way. ESPECIALLY if it is radically different. I.e. 99.999% of all retail stores advertise a price, then when you ring out, there is the additional charge for taxes. Have you ever been in a store that has the taxes already included in the price? It's almost a novelty. It's unique. In our society, only gasoline is really like that. At $4 a gallon; imagine if gasoline was advertised at $3.65 a gallon, but when you paid for it, 20 gallons cost $80 instead of $73 because of state/federl taxes added on. People would FREAK OUT. Go after what the people want, not what you WANT the people to have. Most retailers follow the OLD SCHOOL method of directing customers where they want them. Customers have become desensitized. The reason we advertise at $19.95 instead of $20.00 is because it SOUNDS CHEAPER. No longer. Customers are use to that. Get radical. Change your way of thinking.

Your market is easy. It's all the people in the country who want phone service that is cheaper and more convenient than Ma'Bell. Advertising can be simple also. Make it DIFFERENT AND SIMPLE. Rounded off prices. Include all charges if possible. If there are flat fees that need to be added, have them already included. If there are adjustable fees that have to be added separately like local taxes, make it known to the customer openly. No HIDDEN FEES. Make the minutes simple. No vague comments like UNLIMITED. The customers are use to all of this. They know that there is no such thing as UNLIMITED. NOTHING IS FREE. THERE IS ALWAYS A GIMMICK. They are use to that. Beat them to the punch. Let them know there is no B.S. Later... Mike....

But people running home-based businesses, have been at times, in conflict with residential calling patterns. It does not affect me, and there is less out-cry on DSLR( or I am not paying attention to it. ) Yet my real point is, a capped alternative could be exempt from such scrutiny.

On consideration, a plan priced the same as Unlimited with some cap actually needs to sound less like Residential. As I think about this further, and 5000 is likely too high a cap. Maybe SOHo-2500 or some similar name?

BroadvoxDirect for example, liked selling to companies, because there were less individuals calling to support the service. The had IT people. Same thing when brought on resellers it formed a buffer. They likely dropped Residential because they didn't want to support zillions of users directly.

VOIPo seems to want to be a residential marketplace leveraging on a reseller demographic. I think Tim intended some call record monitoring to prevent fraud, and taking action will sometimes create some squeaky wheels.

An extreme example of residential mis-use would be someone running a long distance phone KIOSK. Something that always uses high minutes needs to be capped.

I know Vonage used to have a Telemarketer plan for $149 (years ago!)
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,7818000

(EDIT) BTW, I agree with your clear minute bundle concept.
I am sure Tim will say it flies in the face of what people want to hear.

Why does it have to be complicated? Using my example; if the SOHO doesn't use that many minutes, then get the 500 minute plan. In the middle, get the 5000 minute plan. If you use it a lot, get the 10,000 minute plan. And, if there was no additional state/local/federal taxes associated with a business vs residential, then I wouldn't even differentiate between the two. Not unless you are offering something different. E.g PBX hosting, Multiline SIP phones, etc... I am personally for simplicity and NOT making a customer feel that they are in a take it or leave it scenario.

If there is no reason to, then I don't believe in marketing a residential and a business plan. Not unless something different is going to be offered. Just offer minute plans. 500, 5000, 10,000, domestic, overseas, however voipo decides. There are no conflicts between residential and business plans. The IP packets have no idea whether you are using the phone to call grandma or to buy 1000 pounds of yak hair from the Himalayas. Keep it SIMPLE. And by all means NEVER USE THE WORD UNLIMITED. There is absolutely no reason to do that. There are more than 1500 voip providers in the world. (Last time I researched it). VoipO needs to make themselves DIFFERENT. Being 100% on the up and up; totally honest; no complicated plans or fine print; etc... Now THAT would totally be different than the other providers. later... Mike...

As I understand the argument, one of the typical comments favoring the 'Unlimited' plan is that many customers see a difference between "5000 minutes" and "Unlimited*" (because the * that indicates a 5000 minute cap is in mouse print, three pages away). I agree that it's best when a provider wants to be above-board in this regard and disclose the cap in their marketing materials. IMO, one of the best strategies here is to have on their webpage language such as the following: "Compare to xxx service's 'Unlimited' plan!". Links to competitors' TOS documents might help 'out' the practice, but may not be as 'safe' as posting language along the lines of 'Many other providers advertise 'Unlimited' but start billing overage or cancel accounts when usage exceeds 5000 min/month.'

There are many ways to spin this, and the argument won't go away any time soon. Kinda makes me glad I'm not in marketing... :D