Bland Minute Margin Threshold

Bland's Build plan carries a $299 monthly fee, but the real cost driver is usage: $0.12 per minute of talk time and $0.04 per minute on transfers. An agency quoting a managed voice retainer has to model minutes before it models margin. Take a client handling 6,000 inbound minutes a month with 15% of calls warm-transferred to staff. Talk time alone runs about $720, transfers add roughly $36, so the floor sits near $1,055 once the seat fee lands. Price the retainer at $2,500 and the agency keeps a defensible spread; price at $1,200 and a busy month erases it. The threshold is the minute count where a fixed retainer stops covering usage. Agencies should pull the client's historical call volume before signing, set a monthly minute cap in the contract, and route overflow to the Start plan's 100 calls/day ceiling rather than absorbing it.