---
title: "3CX review: pricing, pros and cons"
description: "Software PBX licensed per simultaneous call, self-hosted or hosted by 3CX: cheap per seat at scale, sold only through partners who increasingly describe it as hard to work with."
canonical: "https://saaskly.com/category/voip/3cx"
last-updated: "2026-09-28"
---

# 3CX review: pricing, pros and cons

> Saaskly verdict: **3.3/5**. Software PBX licensed per simultaneous call, self-hosted or hosted by 3CX: cheap per seat at scale, sold only through partners who increasingly describe it as hard to work with.

- Category: [VoIP](https://saaskly.com/category/voip.md)
- Vendor website: https://www.3cx.com
- Last updated: 2026-09-28

## Pros and cons

**Pros**

- Lowest cost per seat at scale
- Flexible hosting: self-host anywhere, or 3CX-hosted in London
- Mature client apps and desk-phone provisioning

**Cons**

- Partner-only sales, and a vendor partners describe as difficult to work with (our direct observation)
- Repeated licensing rule changes, extension caps and paid support tickets
- The 2023 supply-chain breach remains the reference case for PBX software security

## Pricing

Month-to-month price first (what you pay without committing), then the annual-commit rate.

- **Pro (8 simultaneous calls)**: £330/yr on an annual commitment; month-to-month price not published
  - Includes: Basic £250 · AI/Enterprise £480
- **Pro (16 SC)**: £660/yr on an annual commitment; month-to-month price not published
  - Includes: 32 SC £1,125 · 64 SC £2,240
- **Hosted by 3CX add-on**: £245/yr on an annual commitment; month-to-month price not published
  - Includes: 4–8 SC; up to £1,660/yr for 96–256 SC

Minimum commitment: **£330** (£330/yr for the entry licence).

## Specification

| Attribute | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Month-to-month (entry plan) | Annual only |
| Annual commit, per month | £330/yr |
| Minimum commitment* | £330 |
| Min seats | 4 |
| Deployment | Hybrid |
| Sales model | Partner only |
| Public API | Yes |
| MCP server | No |
| Emergency 911/999/112 | Yes |
| Trustpilot (reviews) | 2.5 (175) |
| Integrations | Microsoft 365 / Teams, Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, Dynamics, WhatsApp |
| Commitment for annual rate (months) | 12 |

*How we calculate minimum commitment. Headline per-user prices hide the real cost of trying a platform. Total cost of ownership is licence × seats × term, plus usage, add-ons, setup fees and any early-exit charges. Our "minimum commitment" figure is the floor of that: the entry plan's committed rate × the minimum seats the vendor will sell × the months you must commit to (one month at the month-to-month rate where there is no commitment; the licence price where it is sold per year). It deliberately excludes usage, add-ons and prerequisite licences, so your real first bill will be higher, but never lower than this. For Teams Phone the excluded prerequisites are the Microsoft 365 and Teams licences.

## Our review

3CX V20 is licensed by simultaneous calls rather than users, which makes it the cheapest per-seat option here for larger deployments: an 8-SC Pro licence is £330 a year, a 64-SC licence £2,240, plus a hosting add-on if you don't self-host. It has a full web/desktop/mobile client set, broad SIP desk-phone provisioning, Teams and CRM integrations, and a Configuration REST API plus a Call Control API.

The problems are commercial and trust-related. Since 2025, 3CX has moved to a partner-only model, de-emphasised SMBs, raised the 4-SC price by 43%, deleted and then reintroduced a free edition, imposed extension caps of 5–8× the SC count, and charges per support ticket: "rule changes mid-game" is the recurring partner complaint. The March 2023 supply-chain breach, in which the desktop app was trojanised via a compromised build server, is still the reference case for PBX software security. Trustpilot: 2.5/5 on 175 reviews. We have run 3CX in production; the partner-only model and the difficulty of working with the vendor, as reported by partners, are our direct observation.

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Researched and drafted with AI assistance; reviewed and approved by Dariia Panchenko. See https://saaskly.com/ai-transparency.md and https://saaskly.com/editorial-policy.md.

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