Nobody publishes what the fees add

Of the 37 providers here, not one publishes what taxes and regulatory fees add to a US business phone bill as a percentage. Most say the charges are extra without an amount, or say nothing. Two say the opposite: Talkroute states that its price is all-inclusive, and Microsoft states that its Teams Phone calling plans include communication taxes and fees.

That is why every figure this site prints is described as a floor — for most rows, a floor with the tax line still to come.

*Corrected 2026-09-05. This article previously said every provider either declared the fees extra or said nothing. Talkroute's pricing FAQ and Microsoft's Teams Phone page both say the price already carries them, and the article, the provider pages and the method page now say so. The count of providers by position is computed from data.json and shown on the method page.*

A US business phone invoice has two halves. The half you chose is the seat price. The other half is a stack of line items with names like Universal Service Fund, e911, regulatory recovery and administrative cost recovery, and it is not on any pricing page in this dataset.

Providers are not hiding the existence of these charges. Several name them precisely, and two tell you they are already in the price. What none of them does is tell you the number before you buy.

What they actually say

Quoted from each provider's own pages, checked 2026-08-21; Talkroute, Microsoft and Google re-read 2026-09-05. None of these is an amount or a percentage.
ProviderWhat its own page says
RingCentralNames an "Administrative & Infrastructure Cost Recovery Fee" and describes it as recovering certain costs
GoTo Connect"The Universal Service Fee is a charge on your bill that helps recover the cost of federally mandated contributions"
Ooma"Applicable Taxes and Fees: Varies by locale. Click to check rates in your area."
Dialpad"Taxes will be stated separately on the invoice. Fees are exclusive of Taxes"
Nextiva"we only have transparent tax pass-throughs, so you'll always know exactly what each line on your invoice is"
8x8"The initial rates will be set forth in any quote for Subscription Services."
Talkroute"Talkroute provides an all-inclusive monthly price. We do not add separate charges for telecom taxes, the Universal Service Fund (USF), or other regulatory fees."
Microsoft Teams Phone"Price includes communication taxes and fees." — stated for the $13, $17 and $34 calling plans, not for the $10 Standard add-on
Google Voice"Taxes and regulatory fees, depending on your location", plus a flat E911/988 fee per number per month

Nextiva's sentence is the most interesting one, because it promises transparency in the same breath as declining to be specific: you will know exactly what each line is, once the invoice arrives.

Why this is not a scandal, and still matters

These charges are largely genuine pass-throughs. Federal Universal Service contributions are set by a regulator and change quarterly; e911 fees vary by state and county; and a national provider cannot print one number that is true for every customer. Ooma's answer — that it varies by locale — is honest.

But three things follow anyway.

The advertised price is systematically below the invoice, in one direction, for everybody. A comparison that ignores the fees is not neutral; it flatters the whole market by the same kind of margin.

The rate is not the same everywhere or for everyone. A provider's own recovery fee is a business decision layered on top of the pass-through, and one of those is a price, not a tax. RingCentral says so itself: its E911 Cost Recovery Fee is "not a government-mandated charge".

And it is not the same for every provider. Talkroute folds the charges into one price; Microsoft folds them into its calling plans. For those two the published figure is the closest thing to the invoice in this dataset. The site marks them, and does not add anything to anyone.

Nobody can budget from the pricing page. The gap between the number you compared on and the number you pay is real, recurring and unquantified.

What this site does about it

It refuses to invent the figure. Every computed number here — the per-seat costs, the three-year totals, the calculator — is built from published seat prices and nothing else, and every one of them carries the same warning: taxes and regulatory fees are not added, because no provider publishes what they come to — and where a provider says they are already in the price, the page says that too.

We could have taken a plausible percentage from somewhere and multiplied. That would have made the figures look complete and made them impossible to check, which is the trade this site is built to refuse. The method page sets out what is added and what is not, in full.

The practical consequence: the ordering is reliable; the absolute figure is a floor. Because the same omission applies to every row, the ranking survives it. Your invoice will be higher than the number we print, and so will everyone else's.

What to ask before you sign

One question, in writing: *what do taxes and regulatory fees add, as a percentage of the invoice, at my address?*

A provider can answer that. It has to compute it to bill you. The answer is worth having in writing before the first invoice rather than after, and it is the single most useful thing you can extract from a sales conversation that you did not need to have to learn the seat price.

If the answer is vague, ask for a sample invoice for a business of your size in your state. That is a normal request and a reasonable test of "transparent pass-throughs".

Does the UK have the same problem?

Not in the same shape. UK pricing carries VAT at a published statutory rate, so the uplift is knowable — the difficulty there is that providers publish on different bases and some do not say which, which is its own article. A stated rate you can apply beats an unstated fee you cannot.

Who this is not for

If you are comparing two providers and both would charge you similar fees, this changes nothing about which one you choose. It changes what you should put in the budget line, and it should make you suspicious of anyone quoting a precise all-in figure for US business telephony, including any comparison site that appears to have one.

It is also not an argument that the fees are unfair. Some of them are legally required contributions. The complaint is only that the amount is knowable to the provider and not to the buyer.

Questions people ask

Roughly how much are the fees? We are not going to print a number we could not source. Providers publish none, the rate varies by state and by provider, and a guess here would sit in the same type as the figures that carry a URL and a date. Ask your shortlist directly and hold the answer in writing.

Is any provider better on this? Two say the charges are already in the price — Talkroute across its plans, Microsoft on its Teams Phone calling plans. Several others tell you the charges exist and name some of them, which is a low bar and still better than saying nothing. Each provider's page here shows which position it takes, and the method page lists every provider by position.

Would you add fee data if a provider published it? Yes. The dataset has a field for the percentage, empty for every row today, and since 2026-09-05 a field for the treatment (all-inclusive, included, extra, not stated), filled for every row. The first provider to publish a percentage would be visible on the list immediately, and it would be the only one.

Sources

Written by Kaz (pen name). Figures are copied from providers' published pricing pages on the dates shown. We have not used these products. Corrections: contact form.