New AI Features and Extension Fair Usage

[conversant]

Hi John! Thank you so much for your nice words - its great for my team and myself to see our work appreciated. And we continue to be committed to serious customers and work with serious partners that can see the value in a professional communications system!

We all need to remember that for decades all of these interfaces were physical hardware interfaces that were sunk cost with very high monthly maintenance contracts. We need to remind customers that they no longer have to pay for more hardware to add an extension or a trunk or to increase call processing power. They no longer even need to purchase a desktop phone if they don't want to do so. So if they need to pay for a license that is more appropriate for the number of extensions on their system, remind them that it is a pittance compared to what was required just 15 years ago, AND they have a flexible software platform that allows them to deploy advanced technology without spending a penny on hardware.

 

[CharmQuark]

Our company uses 3CX Enterprise for nearly a year. We love it. There is a question about limit number of #User / Ext as it shows on a new price page. Let's say we have 48SC plan with proposed 288 #User / Ext. Are SYSTEM, Digital Receptionists, Queues, FAX extensions included in this 288 "extensions". Do they count separately?

 

[Evolute IT]

Our company uses 3CX Enterprise for nearly a year. We love it. There is a question about limit number of #User / Ext as it shows on a new price page. Let's say we have 48SC plan with proposed 288 #User / Ext. Are SYSTEM, Digital Receptionists, Queues, FAX extensions included in this 288 "extensions". Do they count separately?

Only users. System extensions (incl. IVRs and all) don't count.

 

[Nik_si]

Hello,

very excellent work and features, it will be great if Transcriptions will have support of Georgian language, AI receptionist as well.

 

[GWinchester]

Currently onboard transcription is free during beta but it will not be when update 8 launches. Then you either need to buy a package or you will need to setup onboard transcription

Those two sentences seem to conflict each other.
I only care about onboard.
Please clarify.
thanks.

 

[N_G]

@conversant Thank you so much for your clear explanation of how the situation was and for your support. It means a lot to me personally and to my team.

 

[N_G]

Those two sentences seem to conflict each other.
I only care about onboard.
Please clarify.
thanks.

I assumed you we're referring to the 3CX transcription service - we currently transcribe free of charge to test our solution. Once out of beta it will no longer be free as the computing charges are significant. So then you can either pay us for it OR and this is what we recommend, setup your own transcription service using a desktop GPU computer or else a server with GPU inside. You pay once for the hardware and all transcription is free. Most importantly nobody gets to see your call data / content. It requires a 24SC license and up.

If you don't want to do this you can pay OpenAI, Google or 3CX to do it for you but its not free I am sorry.

 

[Evolute IT]

I assumed you we're referring to the 3CX transcription service - we currently transcribe free of charge to test our solution. Once out of beta it will no longer be free as the computing charges are significant. So then you can either pay us for it OR and this is what we recommend, setup your own transcription service using a desktop GPU computer or else a server with GPU inside. You pay once for the hardware and all transcription is free. Most importantly nobody gets to see your call data / content. It requires a 24SC license and up.

If you don't want to do this you can pay OpenAI, Google or 3CX to do it for you but its not free I am sorry.

Curious, does that apply only to recordings? Or will voicemail transcript also be paid/self-hosted?

 

[N_G]

Our company uses 3CX Enterprise for nearly a year. We love it. There is a question about limit number of #User / Ext as it shows on a new price page. Let's say we have 48SC plan with proposed 288 #User / Ext. Are SYSTEM, Digital Receptionists, Queues, FAX extensions included in this 288 "extensions". Do they count separately?

Thank you for the heads-up! Much appreciated. Concepts web already correctly indicated this I just want to assure everyone again that System extensions are excluded from the total.

 

[N_G]

Curious, does that apply only to recordings? Or will voicemail transcript also be paid/self-hosted?

Voice mail will remain free in the enterprise edition as a special feature ....

 

[N_G]

Does Chat GPT understand the table correctly?

GPT-5 mini
For a 3CX installation—a context where a user uses both a landline (physical extension) and the mobile app—here's how to conveniently count and configure.
License Counting
• Users: Count 1 user per person (3CX account).
• Extensions: Count 2 extensions if you assign a separate internal number to the physical extension and the mobile app.
• If you link the mobile app to the same extension (3CX allows multiple endpoints on the same extension), count only 1 extension.

So the table can be interpreted in several ways.

- Example: a license size 8 recommended for 11-25 users
This means, on average, one user with a physical extension and the smartphone app.
- And 40 users/max
This means if a user has only one extension, that is, 20 users with only a physical extension.

Seriously you need ChatGPT to understand the table? You don't know what an extension or a user is in 3CX? Each extension or user can have both a webclient and an app and even a DeskPhone no problem. You should know this as a Gold partner.

 

[N_G]

The wording on the pricing page on the 3CX website needs to be updated to be clearer that the cost is based on the number of extensions as well as simultaneous calls - reflecting the FUP of extensions - as it still says that pricing is a flat annual cost per system, not per user, based on the number of calls happening simultaneously:
https://www.3cx.com/ordering/pricing/

View attachment 49840

In our view it is correct because we do not have a per user per month price. We have one low yearly price for X sim calls with a maximum of X users. And its still peanuts compared to most solutions.

 

[GWinchester]

I assumed you we're referring to the 3CX transcription service - we currently transcribe free of charge to test our solution. Once out of beta it will no longer be free as the computing charges are significant. So then you can either pay us for it OR and this is what we recommend, setup your own transcription service using a desktop GPU computer or else a server with GPU inside. You pay once for the hardware and all transcription is free. Most importantly nobody gets to see your call data / content. It requires a 24SC license and up.

If you don't want to do this you can pay OpenAI, Google or 3CX to do it for you but its not free I am sorry.

Thats correct talking about 3CX transcription service.
Based on our usage so far it has been fantastic, (select staff trying it out).
I suspect we would buy our own hardware to run it.
If we buy our own hardware we would also need a 24SC licence? (currently 16SC ENT)
we don't currently exceed the new fair use policy, so the upgrade would be purely to have our own hardware for transcription, if i have interpreted correctly.
Of course once more details about hardware requirements / expected performance are specified and the pricing of paying 3cx for transcription service I can put options forward to management and see what they choose.

Which brings me to the next question, when update 8 is released, will there be a period for transition or will transcription stop working immediately for us upon the system auto updating?
what I mean is, is there time to weigh our options and buy hardware etc or does it need to be all ready to go by the time the update is released?

 

[jon_a_w]

I have a system that has 20 'real' extensions on a 24SC licence, specced to provide some growth for more extensions. It is a telemarketing company which utilises queues.

Because queues still don't have a custom voicemail prompt, there are over 300+ dummy extensions with the soul purpose of a customised wav per customer (each customer has a queue, each queue has a dummy voicemail extension just to play a wav).

Is this subject to the 'fair use policy' even though they're completely dead and never logged in?

 

[Infinitel]

Hello, many of our 3CX customers are hotels. We've always been told from 3CX that in a business environment the proper ratio between SC and extensions was about 1:3, which is near your FUP. But the recommended ratio for an hotel was about 1:10. Is this criteria still valid or do we have to apply FUP to this kind of customers? The price difference will be deal breaking, as an example, there are small family owned hotels with 2 to 5 administrative extensions and between 20 to 80 room extensions. A traditional PBX (which we dont sell) may be more expensive but it uses to be a once in lifetime payment, not a recurring fee.

 

[wmcuk]

I assumed you we're referring to the 3CX transcription service - we currently transcribe free of charge to test our solution. Once out of beta it will no longer be free as the computing charges are significant. So then you can either pay us for it OR and this is what we recommend, setup your own transcription service using a desktop GPU computer or else a server with GPU inside. You pay once for the hardware and all transcription is free. Most importantly nobody gets to see your call data / content. It requires a 24SC license and up.

If you don't want to do this you can pay OpenAI, Google or 3CX to do it for you but its not free I am sorry.

can we get option to set own GPU rig via OpenAI compatible endpoint ?

 

[N_G]

I have a system that has 20 'real' extensions on a 24SC licence, specced to provide some growth for more extensions. It is a telemarketing company which utilises queues.

Because queues still don't have a custom voicemail prompt, there are over 300+ dummy extensions with the soul purpose of a customised wav per customer (each customer has a queue, each queue has a dummy voicemail extension just to play a wav).

Is this subject to the 'fair use policy' even though they're completely dead and never logged in?

We will definitely look into expanding system mailboxes not connected it to apps or IP phones to reduce the need for unnecessary extensions. Maybe a group voice mailbox for example we don't know yet.

 

[Alphabetic]

No more being a lazy admin and letting 365 sync all users down

 

[pmterp]

We will definitely look into expanding system mailboxes not connected it to apps or IP phones to reduce the need for unnecessary extensions. Maybe a group voice mailbox for example we don't know yet.

Group voice mailbox would be a big plus.
I don't know about feasibility but having a way to land the voicemail in a select group of users 3CX apps/extensions would be perfect.
We have a few clients that cannot have voicemail sent via email due to regulations. Currently in these cases, they have to select a specific person to get voicemail messages left for unanswered Q calls. If we could have it go to all/select agents like it does now but have it hit their app instead of via email, that would be incredibly convenient.

 

[Alejandro_3CX]

Because queues still don't have a custom voicemail prompt, there are over 300+ dummy extensions with the soul purpose of a customised wav per customer (each customer has a queue, each queue has a dummy voicemail extension just to play a wav).

Hi @jon_a_w I guess you have not checked the following option within the Call Queue, please check the pic below:




So you dont need dummy extensions just to play custom prompts for the queue vm, you can do it directly in the queue, that was released in the SP5 since MARCH 2025 https://www.3cx.com/blog/releases/v20u5-google-workspace/

• Queues and Ring Groups can have customized voicemail greeting messages.