How to Select the Best SIP Trunking Provider
Before the global embrace of cloud-hosted communication, nearly all voice connectivity took place over legacy phone lines. Today, business owners and IT decision-makers are turning to SIP trunk providers to meet their rapidly evolving telecom needs. With the demand steadily increasing, IT consulting firms, managed service providers (MSPs), wireless internet service providers (WISPs), and other industry-adjacent professionals are taking notice.
Instead of building complex infrastructures from the ground up, business owners interested in expanding their portfolios with SIP trunking are partnering with established providers and branding white-label services as their own. Once you know what SIP trunking is and how your clients could benefit, it’s easy to see how selecting the right SIP reseller program could help you generate considerable revenue without complicating your workload.
The Technology Behind the Demand for SIP Trunk Providers
SIP is an acronym for Session Initiation Protocol, the time-tested technology used to initiate, maintain, and terminate calls. It was designed to overcome the early challenges of managing real-time voice communication between IP-based telephone systems. The protocol also plays a crucial role in the conversion of analog voice signals to digital packets.
Approved by the Internet Engineering Task Force in 1996 and standardized in 1999, a single SIP session can transmit any combination of digital media, including voice, video, and data. SIP works in tandem with other real-time communication protocols and is used for asynchronous activities, such as automated callbacks and message-waiting prompts.
How SIP Providers Deliver Cost-Effective Voice Communication and More
The easiest way to understand SIP trunking is to compare the technology to legacy business phone service. Traditional voice communication relies on a complex network of physical wires and cables to connect a business phone system—a private branch exchange (PBX)—with a public switched telephone network (PSTN). When businesses need more connectivity, your customers (and prospective clients) have to absorb the increasingly high cost of installing and maintaining additional circuits.
SIP trunks give your clients a more comprehensive list of voice communication essentials by bypassing the limitations of legacy phone service. Instead of navigating incoming and outgoing calls over a physical “trunk” of bundled wires, SIP trunking creates virtual connections that eliminate (or reduce) the need to manage, maintain, and repair an on-premises PBX. Voice communication to digital and analog phones is carried over a high-speed internet connection. SIP trunk providers meet business demands by offering cloud-hosted access to communication solutions that cost significantly less than legacy phone service and streamline communication.
How Reselling a White-Label SIP Trunking Service Benefits Your Clients
Most companies—including many of your current customers—are still paying monthly fees for legacy phone service based on the number of active phone lines assigned to their accounts. Many pay additional fees to enable long-distance service and international calling, whether they use those services regularly or not.
As a SIP trunking reseller, you can help your clients select the best cloud-hosted services for their businesses with pricing structures that give them far more control. Once you’ve provided an overview of the following features and benefits, your services essentially sell themselves.
No Expensive Equipment Upgrades
Many business owners are initially hesitant to invest in cloud-hosted voice because of the expense associated with purchasing VoIP business phone systems. With SIP trunking, that’s no longer an obstacle. Most phones made as far back as the 1990s are SIP enabled. Older models are easily converted with inexpensive analog-to-telephone adaptors (ATAs).
Flexible Subscription Models
Digital solutions from SIP trunk providers are sold by the channel. Like legacy phone service, each channel handles one incoming or outgoing call. When you partner with the right service provider, your customers have the option of paying one low monthly fee per channel regardless of the number of minutes used for outgoing calls. They can also choose to pay for blocks of minutes shared over an unlimited number of channels.
Access to Popular Add-Ons
As a SIP trunking reseller, your clients can choose from an impressive selection of add-on services, including package pricing for toll-free numbers, business texting, fax to email, and Direct inward Dialing (DID). Your DID add-on service allows your subscribers’ staff to work from nearly any geographic location while maintaining a local “presence.”
Exceptional Call Quality and Reliability
Outdated technology, loose connections, and aging wires increase the risk of poor call quality and service disruptions. Interrupted telecom service can negatively impact consumer satisfaction scores, brand image, and profit margins. SIP trunk providers offer a solution known for exceptional call quality and system reliability. If a client’s internet service is interrupted for any reason, calls are easily transferred to an alternative number.
Factors to Consider While Comparing Reseller Opportunities
As a reseller, you leverage your sales and marketing experience, customer connections, and brand reputation. On the other side of the partnership, your service provider works behind the scenes to monitor, manage, and maintain the technical side of your services. Although a quick search will lead you to multiple SIP trunk providers offering reseller opportunities, you should weigh your options carefully.
There are several types of SIP trunk reseller arrangements. Only private- or white-label service providers allow you to upload your logo and branding information to your cloud-hosted platform and market the service as your own. There are also several other factors to consider before you commit.
Startup Costs
Some SIP trunk providers charge startup fees to offset the cost of onboarding and training. With this type of arrangement, it could take months, possibly years, to see a return on your investment. Others keep their startup fees minimal but require long-term contracts. SIP trunking service providers invested in reseller success require no upfront payment, leverage contract-free services, and pay a generous commission for every sale.
Billing & Taxation
As a business owner, a reseller arrangement that adds a lot of administrative responsibilities to your workload can be counterproductive. Hiring more staff to ease your burden or a consultant to ensure regulatory compliance will cut into your profits. Instead, confirm that you’re partnering with a provider offering automated service quotes, invoicing, and a taxation engine so you have more time to focus on expanding your horizons.
System Security
No two VoIP reseller programs are exactly the same. To protect your brand reputation, it’s essential to partner with a platform provider capable of detecting connection failures within milliseconds and rerouting impacted transmissions in real time. The best providers protect your customers with AI-enhanced security features designed to detect and deter suspicious activity and unauthorized access.
Reseller Support
It’s in the best interest of any SIP reseller to offer the support you need to get your business up and running and minimize consumer frustration should a problem arise. Hold out for providers that protect your brand reputation with 24/7 access to telecom experts that ensure your business and your clients are in the best hands.
Earning Potential
Some SIP trunk providers pay resellers a set price for each new account activated, nothing more. Others require resellers to reach targeted sales goals to qualify for payment. The best reseller arrangements pay a commission throughout the duration of each subscription, have no minimum revenue requirements, and deposit your commission directly into your bank account monthly. With a reputable program, you can track your earnings through your reseller portal.
Contract Requirements
Your subscribers don’t want to enter a business relationship with a service provider requiring upfront fees or long-term commitments any more than you do. Partnering with a SIP trunking platform offering contract-free subscription services gives your subscribers the peace of mind that comes with knowing they can cancel their service at will without incurring hefty charges.
Carrier Requirements
Some SIP trunk providers require resellers and their subscribers to switch broadband carriers as a condition of service. SIP trunk partners who allow their retail partners (and their clients) to choose their own carrier are the more attractive option—exactly what you need to ensure you won’t lose sales due to contractual obligations or business owner preferences.
Network Structure
There are several ways SIP trunking providers connect businesses’ PBX to the PSTN. Tier-2 and Tier 3-SIP trunking connects your subscribers indirectly to a network operated and maintained by Tier-1 providers (the network owners). Reselling a Tier-1 network to your clients ensures optimal call quality, network reliability, and faster response times should issues arise.
Coverage Areas
As a reseller, it’s essential to partner with a service provider capable of connecting calls in your service area. That’s a given. It’s equally important to offer cost-effective connectivity for clients with a global reach and other subscribers making frequent international calls. Your ability to offer outbound international SIP trunking service per location and per minute on a Tier-1 network with built-in toll fraud protection could be a game-changer for the clients you serve.
Discover How Partnering with the Best SIP Trunking Partner Could Benefit Your Business
In 2023, the SIP trunking market was estimated at more than $12 billion. The demand is so strong that analysts predict a CAGR of 8.9% through 2030—numbers suggesting there’s no better time to brand and resell a white-label SIP trunking service.
With the right partnership, you’ll be reselling cost-effective connectivity to business owners who recognize the need to modernize. As your clients reduce their business costs by as much as 60%, you can generate consistent monthly revenue.SIPTRUNK offers a private-label reselling platform that’s compatible with all major IP, PBX, IP Gateways, and open-source PBX projects. There’s no upfront fee to get started, and it takes about 10 minutes to get new subscribers up and running. When you’re ready to start earning a generous commission as a respected provider of our secure, reliable SIP trunking platform, get started with a free Dealer Account.