The Wholesale Rate Is About Two Cents
Before comparing what consumers pay, it helps to know what carriers themselves pay.
The wholesale rate that telecom carriers charge each other to terminate one minute of voice on a US landline or mobile in 2026 is around $0.014 per minute — about 1.4 US cents, or just over one euro cent. The same rate covers Canada (mainland), most US toll-free prefixes (1-800, 1-833, 1-844, 1-855, 1-866, 1-877, 1-888) and Hawaii. Alaska, sitting on a different carrier topology, comes in around $0.09/minute at wholesale.
Every rate you'll see in this article is some markup on top of that ~$0.014 number. The differences between providers are almost entirely about the size of that markup, the fixed fees baked in alongside it, and how easy the service is to actually use.
Mobile Carrier Direct Dial
If you dial +1 from a typical European mobile contract in 2026, you're paying around:
- UK pay-monthly: £0.40–£1.50 per minute to a US number
- France, Germany, Spain, Italy mobile: €0.50–€2.00 per minute
- Polish, Romanian, Hungarian mobile: generally cheaper, often €0.30–€0.80 per minute
- From a US-based number calling internally: typically included in the plan
The markup over wholesale is somewhere between 3,000% and 14,000%. There's no technical reason for this — international voice termination has been competitive and cheap for over a decade — but mobile carriers have a captive audience and price accordingly.
Carrier International Add-on Plans
Most carriers offer a subscribed add-on that lowers the per-minute price in exchange for a monthly fee.
- AT&T World Connect Value: roughly $6/month, then $0.05/min to most international destinations including US numbers (from non-US locations)
- T-Mobile International Stateside: $15/month for unlimited US/Canada calling from selected international locations
- Verizon International Monthly Plan: $15/month for 300 minutes of international calling to a defined country list
- EE Roam Further International Saver (UK): £8/month for cheaper calls to a tier list of countries
These plans pay off only if your usage is steady and predictable. A subscriber who makes one 10-minute call in a month pays $0.60/minute effective when you include the subscription. The same subscriber making 90 minutes pays around $0.12/minute effective.
Prepaid Calling Cards
The advertised rates are aggressive. A typical 2026 calling card markets "$0.01/min to USA" on the front of the wrapper.
The actual cost, accounting for the standard tricks of the genre:
- Advertised rate: $0.01/minute
- Connection fee: $0.20–$0.50 per call (charged once, but adds 5–10x the per-minute cost on short calls)
- Maintenance fee: $0.50–$2.00/week deducted from balance, sometimes after just a few days
- Mobile access surcharge: an extra $0.05–$0.15/minute when calling the access number from a mobile rather than a landline
- Post-call rounding: many cards round up to the next 3-minute or 6-minute increment
Effective rate for a typical 5-minute call from a mobile: $0.06–$0.15/minute. For a 30-second call: easily $0.50+/minute once the connection fee is amortised over so few minutes.
Calling cards are a reasonable pick if you cannot open an online account, you're paying cash, or you're using a feature phone without internet — but they are not the cheap option they appear to be.
VoIP: The Honest Two Cents
Pay-as-you-go VoIP providers price closer to the underlying wholesale rate. With a small markup for routing, billing, customer support and a thin profit margin, the typical 2026 published rate for calling a US number is between $0.01 and $0.03 per minute.
Voxa's published rate for the United States and Canada is €0.02/minute as of 2026. This includes:
- Mainland US landlines and mobiles (numbers are not visually distinguishable, and the same rate applies to both)
- Canada mainland landlines and mobiles
- Hawaii
- US toll-free numbers (1-800, 1-833, 1-844, 1-855, 1-866, 1-877, 1-888) — calling them is free for the recipient but, contrary to common belief, not free for the caller from outside the US
Two destinations cost more because the underlying carrier rate is materially higher:
- Alaska routes through Alaska Communications and similar regional carriers — Voxa rate is €0.15/minute
- Yukon Territory in Canada routes through Northwestel — Voxa rate is around €0.24/minute
There are no connection fees, no per-month minimum, and credit doesn't expire. The minimum top-up is €5.
Real Comparison: 60 Minutes of Calls to the US
Let's price a hypothetical month — one hour of total calling spread across several conversations with friends, family, banks, and an HMO that has you on hold.
- UK mobile direct dial: ~£60 (60 × £1.00)
- EU mobile direct dial: ~€72 (60 × €1.20)
- AT&T World Connect Value: $9 ($6 sub + 60 × $0.05)
- Verizon International Monthly Plan: $15 (within the 300-min allowance)
- Calling card (realistic effective rate): $5–$8 (60 × $0.08–$0.13, plus fees)
- WhatsApp app-to-app: Free, but only for calls to people also on WhatsApp
- Voxa pay-as-you-go: €1.20 (60 × €0.02)
The cheapest non-free option is 30 to 60× cheaper than the most expensive option. Most people are paying the most expensive one out of habit.
What About Quality?
A reasonable concern: the cheaper options must compromise on call quality, right?
In 2026, this is mostly not true. Modern VoIP using the Opus codec on a stable broadband connection delivers HD voice — clearer than a traditional PSTN call, which is locked to a narrowband 8 kHz codec. The bottleneck is your own network, not the provider:
- A flaky 3G connection will sound bad on any service
- A solid Wi-Fi or 4G/5G connection will sound great on VoIP, often better than direct dial
Carriers in the US deliver fine quality through traditional dialling, but they cannot improve on the underlying network's narrowband audio. VoIP can — and increasingly does.
How to Pick
Use this short decision tree:
- Calling someone on WhatsApp/FaceTime/Signal? Use the app. Free is unbeatable.
- Calling US numbers ~daily, predictably? Get a carrier add-on or a SIP business plan — they price for volume.
- Calling US numbers occasionally or unpredictably? Pay-as-you-go VoIP is the right shape. You pay nothing when idle and a couple of cents when you're not.
- No internet at all, only a feature phone, or paying cash? A reputable calling card is still your option — just price in the connection fee and the maintenance fee before deciding which one.
The two-cent rate is real, public, and has been technically possible for years. The only thing standing between most people and dramatically lower phone bills is the habit of dialling +1 from their default phone app.