3CX pricing: licences, hosting and total cost, compared with Voxbi One

3CX pricing works per simultaneous call. As of October 2026, 3CX's public price list charges €380 a year, excluding VAT, for the PRO edition at 8 simultaneous calls, and €1,155 a year for PRO at 32. Once you add a SIP trunk, hosting, migration, training and support, the 25-seat SME in our worked example reaches €3,950 in its first year. This guide is for IT integrators, telecom resellers and the SMEs that buy from them. It breaks that figure down line by line.

The licence is the smallest line in that budget. A working phone system also needs carrier connectivity, somewhere to run, a migration plan, support and a compliance file, and each of those comes with its own invoice.

What 3CX pricing covers

3CX pricing is the annual licence fee 3CX charges for each phone system. The fee depends on how many calls the system can carry at once. 3CX publishes it in euros on its global price list, excluding taxes and VAT, with tiers that start at 4 simultaneous calls. There's one free edition, Free Basic, and three paid ones: Basic, PRO and AI.

The licence includes no calls and no phone numbers. Calls reach the system through a SIP trunk that you buy from a carrier. The system runs on your own server or on hosting that 3CX sells as an add-on. Both of those are priced separately from the licence.

The model suits a business that can size its simultaneous calls, manage an integrator and decide where the system runs. It's harder to read if you're used to comparing a price per seat, because 3CX prices by capacity.

Licences are sized by simultaneous calls

A licence counts the calls the system handles at the same moment. That includes inbound calls, outbound calls and any call the switchboard is holding or routing. Each tier also has a user ceiling. The 8SC tier (8 simultaneous calls) covers up to 40 users, as long as no more than eight of them are on the phone together.

Per-call pricing works in your favour when a large team rarely calls at once. It works against you in a contact centre, on a busy sales floor, or in an office where most calls come in a few peak hours. Your measured peak hour decides the tier.

3CX licence prices as of October 2026

These prices are per system per year, excluding VAT. We read them from 3CX's price list on 31 October 2026. The same list says that tiers from 24SC are now 10% cheaper, and tiers from 256SC are 15% cheaper.

Ask your integrator for a dated reference to the price-list line behind each figure in the quote. 3CX quotes every edition per system per year. If a quote calls the licence "lifetime", check that wording against the current price list before anyone signs.

Basic, PRO and AI editions

Free Basic costs nothing, runs only on your own server and stops at 4 simultaneous calls (3CX Free Basic edition). According to the price list, Basic has no call queues and no call recording. AI is the only edition that includes the XAPI, 3CX's API.

The price gap between PRO and AI grows with each tier. It's €170 a year at 8SC, €285 at 16SC, €340 at 24SC and €385 at 32SC.

Choosing between PRO and AI

If your specification needs call queues or call recording, Basic won't do. The choice is then between PRO and AI. AI is worth its extra cost when an integration depends on the XAPI, or when a feature you need exists only in that edition. Write each required feature into the specification and check it against the edition comparison on 3CX's pricing page. That check also stops you paying for features nobody will switch on.

Three questions settle most cases:

1. Does any integration you're planning need the XAPI?

2. Which features in your specification exist only in the AI edition?

3. How many agents will a supervisor monitor, and what does each edition offer for that?

The costs around the licence

A 3CX licence doesn't carry calls, and it doesn't replace a project team. Most of the budget goes on the services around the PBX. Each of them belongs in the first quote, with how often it's billed and who's responsible for it.

The carrier and the integrator set the price of every line except 3CX hosting, so you'll need quotes for those. The worked examples further down use assumed figures.

SIP trunk, hosting and migration

Quotes often leave out the SIP trunk. A 3CX licence can be active with no telephone service behind it. You pay separately for channels, numbers, porting and routing rules, and sometimes for a second carrier as backup. Our guide to what a SIP trunk is explains how channels map to simultaneous calls.

Hosting is a recurring cost. Self-hosting lowers the visible price, but backups, updates, monitoring and continuity then fall to you or your provider. As of October 2026, 3CX's own hosting costs €285 a year at 8SC, €430 at 16SC or 24SC, and €760 from 32SC to 64SC.

Migration effort depends on several things: the old PBX, the numbers you're porting, the IVR scenarios, the queues and the integrations. On an Alcatel, Aastra or Mitel system, someone has to map each call flow and rebuild it in 3CX. Porting has its own timetable, and our guide on how to port a business phone number walks through it. Training decides how quickly staff adopt the system and how much the administrator can handle without the integrator.

VAT and renewal in Luxembourg, Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands

3CX's prices exclude VAT. If your business can't recover VAT, or plans its cash flow on gross amounts, add the local standard rate. That's 17% in Luxembourg, 21% in Belgium and the Netherlands, and 23% in Ireland. With VAT added, the SME example below rises from €3,950 to €4,621.50 in Luxembourg, €4,779.50 in Belgium or the Netherlands, and €4,858.50 in Ireland.

Set-up cost and renewal cost also belong on separate lines. The first year includes one-off work that later years don't. If a setup is sold on high availability, the budget also needs backup links, recovery procedures and failover tests, and each of those has its own cost.

Worked example: a 25-seat SME and a 120-seat company

A useful budget shows its assumptions. The seat count alone doesn't tell you how many simultaneous calls you'll need, so adjust the channels, numbers, hosting and migration to your own case. Every figure below excludes VAT. The 3CX licence and hosting prices date from October 2026. Every other figure is our assumption.

A 25-seat SME in Luxembourg

The SME runs a small call centre, so we size it at 16SC on PRO.

Migration, porting and training appear only in the first year. The licence, trunk, hosting and support recur every year, so the renewal comes to about half the first-year total.

A 120-seat company with offices in Brussels and Rotterdam

The 32SC tier covers up to 192 users. We price it on PRO at €1,155 a year and on AI at €1,540.

These totals exclude VAT and the geographic numbers for each site. The features you need decide between PRO and AI. The €385 gap is small next to the trunk and migration lines.

A multi-site quote should show two totals, first year and renewal, with a separate line for each site.

3CX pricing next to Voxbi One and Voxbi Managed

Voxbi prices per user per month, and hosting in its European cloud is included. Voxbi One is the self-service line. You set it up yourself with the Voxbi guides and the Cockpit manual, support is by email, and there's no SLA. The table shows a year for the same 25 users, excluding VAT, calls and numbers. 3CX prices date from October 2026.

On Voxbi One, calls are billed per minute at the destination rate. A number costs €2.00 a month in Germany, France and Switzerland. Numbers in Luxembourg, Belgium, Ireland or the Netherlands are arranged case by case, so talk to us about those.

Voxbi Managed adds a team that sets the system up and runs it. It also adds phone support, an SLA with downtime credit and the unlimited-calls option. The SLA level depends on the plan and your internet provider, and the levels are listed at Mixvoip's public SLA page. Voxbi Managed publishes no price for a phone number, so ask Voxbi for the price of a number in your country. On the 3CX side, the closest match is the integrator package from the SME example: €3,950 in the first year and €1,970 at renewal on our assumptions, before VAT. For the same 25 users, Voxbi Managed Essential costs €1,560 a year with calls per minute, or €3,480 with unlimited calls. The plan-by-plan Voxbi vs 3CX comparison and the round-up of 3CX alternatives go into more detail.

European Union hosting and GDPR for a 3CX system

European Union hosting decides where a 3CX instance stores its data. Compliance also covers the law that applies, who controls the provider, who has administrative access, and the chain of subcontractors. This applies to call recordings, call logs, voicemails, CRM data and backups. You'll need to read the contract, the data processing agreement (DPA), the subcontractor list and the remote-access rules together.

A case to check before you sign

A services SME that switches on call recording in 3CX has to update its record of processing. It also has to state the purpose, inform staff and set a retention period. After a GDPR audit, it may need to amend its DPA to name the integrator, the host and any subcontractors. It may also need to document administrative access from outside the European Union. In a case like this, the fix is in the contract file. Our guide to call recording and GDPR covers the lawful basis and the notice.

GDPR checks for the project

Ask your integrator for a written answer on each point:

• The record of processing for calls, recordings and CRM data.

• A DPA that names the controller and each processor, and sets out what each party must do.

• The purpose, retention period and staff notice for recordings.

• Where backups are stored, how they're encrypted, who can reach them and how they're erased.

• How you export configurations, call history and other data when the contract ends.

In its cloud computing guidelines, the European Data Protection Supervisor recommends that personal data in the cloud be processed within the European Union. That includes backups, continuity, transit and remote operations. The guidelines are written for the European Union institutions. They can inform your risk analysis, but they don't certify any 3CX offer.

Healthcare and AI features

A clinic or hospital also has to check its own country's rules on hosting health data. It also has to check the host's certification for the exact service. The healthcare phone system guide covers the telephony side.

AI call analysis may fall under the EU AI Act. Before anyone switches it on, your data protection officer has to identify the processing, the models, who has access and which obligations apply.

Checklist for staying on 3CX, migrating or switching

Score each criterion by how much it matters to your organisation. Then compare the total cost over the period you'll keep the system.

The criteria to weigh

1. Stay on 3CX if your simultaneous calls are measurable and stable. Review the tier if peaks keep reaching it, and consider another model if capacity becomes unpredictable.

2. Build a three-year cost that counts licence, trunk, hosting, support, migration and training. A small gap can justify a managed cloud PBX.

3. Check how much you depend on one integrator. You're safe if the exit path is documented. Negotiate if a single provider holds all the know-how.

4. For several sites, check how each edition handles separate administration per site before you choose AI or an alternative.

5. Recording calls requires a GDPR analysis. In healthcare, the sector's hosting rules apply too.

6. Set the cost of changing systems against the cost of keeping the current PBX and its interfaces.

7. Test Microsoft Teams, your CRM and the phones you're keeping before signing.

8. Fix the support hours, response time and escalation procedure in the support SLA.

9. Ask where backups, logs and administrative access are located.

10. Get the renewal rules, the terms for changing edition and the licence treatment in writing.

Recommendation by profile

An SME has good reasons to stay on 3CX if it has a reliable integrator, predictable traffic and a defined need for PRO. A mid-size company should audit its multi-site setup, supervision and resilience before choosing AI. A public body or other sensitive organisation should put data location, governing law and the exit path ahead of licence savings.

A managed European cloud PBX such as Voxbi or Wildix is worth a look if you want someone else to run the system, keep data in the European Union and pay a monthly bill per user. Compare it with 3CX on total cost over the same period.

Before you sign, the integrator should answer four questions in writing. How long is the commitment? What happens to your data when the contract ends? How would you move to another provider? Which licence rule applies at each renewal?

Questions to settle before you sign a 3CX quote

The 2026 price list changes

3CX's price list, read on 31 October 2026, announces lower prices: 10% less from 24SC and 15% less from 256SC. The renewal price belongs in the quote, alongside a check that your current sizing still fits its tier.

Testing before you commit

Free Basic gives you a self-hosted system with 4 simultaneous calls and no licence cost. That's enough to try the software. A trial still leaves the SIP trunk, porting and production use to validate before go-live.

What happens to the licence after you cancel

The quote should state your usage rights after the licence expires, your access to administration and how you export your data. If any of these were only promised verbally, they aren't in the contract.

SIP trunks and your internet line

Compatibility depends on the carrier, the trunk, network quality and configuration. Run inbound and outbound test calls with your chosen carrier, covering the exact scope of the project, before any number is ported. The guide to VoIP call quality lists what to measure during those tests.

Migration from Alcatel, Aastra or Mitel

Migration cost depends on the number of seats and numbers, the call scenarios and the integrations. The worked examples above assume €1,200 for the 25-seat SME and €3,800 for the 120-seat company, excluding VAT. Your integrator's quote replaces both figures.

The best time to buy depends on terms more than on timing. Lock in the right tier, the renewal price and the licence terms before you sign.

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Voxbi is a cloud PBX hosted in the European Union. Voxbi One is for teams that set up their own system, and Voxbi Managed is for teams that want our team to run it. For a total-cost comparison against your current 3CX quote, write to hello@voxbi.com.