8 September 2026
What an 0800 number actually costs in New Zealand
Monthly fees, per-minute charges from landlines and from mobiles, and why most quotes leave the biggest number out.
NZ$24.99 a monthUp to 120 minutes a month to a New Zealand mobile included, then 20c a minute.
An 0800 number is free for the person calling it. It's not free for the business, and the way it's priced is confusing enough that most quotes bury the part that matters. Here's the whole picture.
There are three costs. A monthly fee for the number itself. A per-minute charge for every call that arrives from a landline. And a much higher per-minute charge for every call that arrives from a mobile — because on an 0800 number the business is paying the caller's mobile network for the call. On a typical NZ provider's price list, inbound from a landline runs around 4 cents a minute and inbound from a mobile around 16 cents a minute. Since most of your customers are ringing from mobiles, the mobile rate is the number that decides your bill.
So a quote of "NZ$10 a month" for an 0800 number is really NZ$10 plus 16 cents for most minutes. A tradie taking twenty minutes of calls a day is looking at NZ$60 to NZ$100 a month, and it goes up when business is good — which is a strange way to price a phone.
We looked hard at selling one. The wholesale cost of an NZ 0800 number — before a single minute is forwarded — is more than the whole monthly price of our local plan, and we won't sell a plan that loses money or make it up in per-minute charges nobody reads. So we don't sell 0800 numbers in New Zealand. What we sell is a local 09, 04, 03, 07 or 06 number for NZ$24.99 a month, with nothing added at checkout. Up to 120 minutes a month to a New Zealand mobile included, then 20c a minute.
Which should a small business pick? If your customers are local and you're on the ute and the website, a local number does everything an 0800 does — it rings your mobile, it looks established — for less. If you sell nationwide and the "free to call" message on the ads matters more than the bill, get an 0800 from a provider that shows you the mobile rate up front, and keep an eye on the minutes. Either way, a number is yours to keep and there's no contract.