At what volume is Asterisk cheaper than Twilio?

It depends on your trunk rates, server and upkeep costs, which is why the calculator shows the break-even line for your numbers. With typical US rates and a modest upkeep budget it usually lands in the tens of thousands of minutes per month.

Are these the current Twilio prices?

They come from Twilio's US voice pricing page on the date shown under the result. Prices outside the US differ, and Twilio changes its rates from time to time, so confirm on its site before you decide.

Can I keep Twilio for some calls and Asterisk for others?

Yes. Many teams run Asterisk for agent calls and keep Twilio, or another carrier, for SMS, a backup route or international numbers. Asterisk can connect to Twilio's Elastic SIP Trunking like any other carrier.

Is the calculator free?

Yes. There is no sign-up, and everything runs in your browser. Nothing you enter is stored.

Free tool

Call Center Cost Calculator

Enter your call volume and see what it costs each month on Twilio and on your own Asterisk server with a SIP trunk, where the two meet, and how long a self-hosted setup takes to pay back.

Start from an example

Call volume

Calls per day

Average call length (minutes)

Working days per month

Phone numbers

Outbound share of minutes: 50%

Inbound calls arrive on toll-free numbersRecord every callAgents talk through a browser or app softphone (adds a Voice SDK leg on Twilio)

Self-hosted Asterisk

Defaults are Telnyx's published US starting rates. Enter your carrier's.

SIP trunk, outbound (USD per minute)

SIP trunk, inbound (USD per minute)

Number rental (USD per month each)

Server and backups (USD per month)

Upkeep: updates, monitoring, on-call (USD per month)

Setup, one-off (USD)

Build, dialplan, integrations and testing. Use your own quote.

7,040 call minutes a month

Twilio

$110

per month · $0.0153 per extra minute

Call minutes: $79.20
Phone numbers: $2.30
Softphone legs: $28.16

Self-hosted Asterisk

$391

per month · $0.0041 per extra minute

Call minutes: $28.86
Phone numbers: $2.00
Server and backups: $60.00
Upkeep: $300

Asterisk costs more per month by: $281
Setup pays back in: No saving at this volume

Running costs are equal at about 32,000 call minutes a month.

Twilio rates from its US voice pricing page; SIP trunk defaults from Telnyx Elastic SIP pricing, checked on 21 October 2026. US pay-as-you-go rates, before volume discounts, taxes, regulatory fees and carrier surcharges. Twilio's recording storage after the first month is not included.

Two ways to pay for calls

Twilio charges a platform rate for every minute and gives you the phone network, the media servers and the APIs with nothing to run. A self-hosted Asterisk server pays a carrier's wholesale SIP trunk rate, which is usually a fraction of the platform rate, but you pay for the server and for someone to look after it. So Twilio wins at low volume and self-hosting wins at high volume; the question is where your volume sits.

How to read the result

The break-even line is the monthly volume at which both options cost the same to run. Well below it, Twilio is the sensible choice and you can ignore servers entirely. Well above it, the monthly saving repays the setup cost, and the payback figure tells you how fast. Close to the line, decide on other grounds: how much custom call logic you need, and who will be on call when a trunk goes down.

What the numbers leave out

Taxes, regulatory fees and carrier surcharges vary by destination and are not included, and both providers offer volume discounts. Self-hosting also needs two carriers for failover, security hardening, monitoring and backups, which the upkeep figure should cover. The Asterisk vs Twilio article on the blog walks through each of these.

Frequently asked

At what volume is Asterisk cheaper than Twilio?: It depends on your trunk rates, server and upkeep costs, which is why the calculator shows the break-even line for your numbers. With typical US rates and a modest upkeep budget it usually lands in the tens of thousands of minutes per month.
Are these the current Twilio prices?: They come from Twilio's US voice pricing page on the date shown under the result. Prices outside the US differ, and Twilio changes its rates from time to time, so confirm on its site before you decide.
Can I keep Twilio for some calls and Asterisk for others?: Yes. Many teams run Asterisk for agent calls and keep Twilio, or another carrier, for SMS, a backup route or international numbers. Asterisk can connect to Twilio's Elastic SIP Trunking like any other carrier.
Is the calculator free?: Yes. There is no sign-up, and everything runs in your browser. Nothing you enter is stored.

Planning a call center backend?

I build Asterisk and FreePBX call centers with Laravel dashboards, predictive dialers, recordings and AI voice agents, and help teams move off per-minute platforms when the numbers say so.

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