Jasmine Birtles
Your money-making expert. Financial journalist, TV and radio personality.
Make money with pay-per-minute phone calls
Nadia Krige
14th Mar 2020
Have you ever thought about the fact that you can actually get paid to receive calls?
If you run a remote consultation business and don’t use a premium phone line, you’re missing out on an additional revenue stream.
At the same time, these could be expensive to install and tend to come with a good deal of red tape.
We recently found out about EagleDial, a Swedish tech company that is challenging the traditional premium rate number industry. It has been introducing an innovative pay-per-minute call system that works for both phone and video calls.
Our interest piqued, and we decided to take a look at the way EagleDial is disrupting the existing market with their pay-per-minute system.
What are premium rate calls?
Premium rate numbers are numbers that charge extra to the person who made the call through their monthly phone bill or through credit on their mobile phone.
The costs tend to be more than for a normal phone call or text message. In the UK, the premium rate industry is worth over £2 billion per year.
How can I get paid to receive calls?
So, can anyone just apply for a premium rate line and make money off every call they receive?
Well, yes.
There’s a common misconception that premium rate telephone numbers are reserved for sales lines and big companies, but this isn’t the case. Anyone can, in fact, set up a non-geographic telephone number.
But, you’d have to consider the impacts carefully.
While you may want to troll cold callers, it would just be cruel to make money off well-meaning friends and family who like to keep in touch.
Plus, would you get a great return on your £10 setup fee if you only get one or two telemarketers calling you a week?
Honestly, no.
Premium lines do, however, make sense for anyone who runs a business offering remote support in one way or another.
In other words, you could be making money off a premium rate line if you do set up any of the following services:
Sharing your knowledge
Whether you’re an IT specialist or an English teacher, you could be helping people from Kuala Lumpur to Lisbon from the comfort of your lounge in Leeds.
Offering support
If you’re an expert in any field, you could also offer your support over the phone to those with similar interests or problems.
Common examples would be offering support to people with specific medical conditions, or parents whose children suffer from learning disabilities.
If you run a company, you can provide premium support to your most valued customers. You can also offer high priority support for paying customers.
On a more lighthearted note, people would even overlook the costs of calling a premium-rate line to get some good tips on certain hobbies, such as gardening, cooking or sewing.
Providing recorded information
This would normally be relevant for things like news headlines, weather updates and horoscopes. Really, the options are limitless. Perhaps you live close to a great surf spot, so why not record a daily update on the surf?
A pay-per-minute revolution
The only problem with all of these great ideas is the fact that landlines are quickly becoming irrelevant.
We live in an era where instant connections are possible at the click of a button on our mobile phones. We can see our loved-ones’ faces while talking to them over video instead of just hearing their voices.
This is why EagleDial has come up with its new pay-per-minute phone and video call solution.
“We think it should be quick and easy to get a pay-per-minute service line. We believe that the existing market offers an out-dated solution and we want to take it to the next level. Many people today have a work mobile or a cash card phone, making it difficult to reach them with premium rate services. This will change with EagleDial,” says Linda von Beetzen, CEO of EagleDial.
So, how exactly does it differ? Let’s take a look:
Voice and video calls
While traditional premium phone lines only offered customers the option of voice services, EagleDial has launched a cam-to-cam service for live video interactions.
This opens up the market to many more types of businesses and also improves others, such as language lessons.
Online-based
Clients make calls from the EagleDial browser address (www.eagledial.com/nameofperson) from a desktop or a mobile device.
This makes it possible for the seller to just add their EagleDial link address or button on website, blog or in a mobile app, allowing customers to get in touch with just a click of a button.
Privacy
All calls are encrypted and private between buyer and seller.
This means that there’s no way your information will end up in the hands of telemarketers and cold callers.
Payment
Compared to traditional premium rate numbers, EagleDial is both cheaper and easier. This enables professionals who do consultations by phone or video to keep more of what they earn.
They also have no fixed fees, and payouts are faster than their traditional counterparts.
The biggest difference, however, is that the call is not connected via the user´s telecom operator and will not be charged via user´s phone bill. The customer pays per minute by credit card instead, and the seller sets the price.
“We are proud to be the world’s first supplier offering pay-per-minute for audio and video calls with integrated pay solution, and a web-based solution,” concludes Von Beetzen.
EagleDial is accepts payments from anywhere in the world.
Visit the EagleDial website for more information on how to get paid to receive calls.
Also read:
- Make Money Answering The Phone
- 10 Ways To Save On Your Phone Bills
- Listen To A Recording Of The Latest HMRC Phone Scam
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