Launched a pay-as-you-go browser dial to replace $25/mo per-seat SaaS a week ago and currently at $40/wk.
The Problem
As a solo founder working across Asia and the US (bouncing between Bali, Osaka, SF, and Seoul within the same year), I constantly ran into the same issue: making simple overseas business calls or dialing local landlines without getting destroyed by roaming fees or local SIM constraints.
Legacy VoIP tools like Dialpad, Aircall, or Skype default to a $15–$30/month per-seat subscription before you even place a 30-second call. For solo builders, remote contractors, or founders constantly on the move, paying monthly per-seat taxes to make occasional calls drains runway unnecessarily.
To fix my own pain point, I built Airlophone (airlophone.com), a browser-based, pay-as-you-go international dialer. We soft-launched one week ago.
The Product & Pricing Model
Instead of charging monthly seat fees, we completely removed the subscription layer:
$0 Monthly Base: Flat cost-plus rates starting at $0.02/min. You only pay for active talk time.
Zero App Installs: Runs entirely inside the browser via WebRTC. No desktop clients or mobile apps to configure.
Shared Workspaces: Teams share a single prepaid wallet balance without paying $25/mo per team member.
Real-time Unit Economics: Live cost meter built into the UI so you see the precise country rate before and during the call.
Week 1 Numbers & Margins
Revenue: Launched a week ago, currently averaging ~$40/week in organic call volume. Mainly SEO.
Traction: 124 signups and 59 active users who have placed live calls.
Margin Model: We moved away from static market anchors to a strict cost-plus margin formula (price = cost / (1 - margin) with a 55% floor). This protects unit economics automatically against carrier rate fluctuations on international corridors.
Tech Stack
- Frontend: WebRTC browser client built with Next.js/React. Zero client-side plugins.
- Backend & Database: Node.js services with Supabase for data and state.
- Voice Trunking: Direct SIP-out routing via carriers (Telnyx/Vonage) to eliminate heavy Session Border Controller (SBC) overhead and preserve margins on high-rate lines.
- Post-Call AI: Secondary worker pipeline running DeepInfra Whisper for asynchronous transcript processing.
What's Next & Request for Feedback
Now that the initial launch week is behind us, we are lifting concurrent call limits and expanding capacity.
I'd love for the IH community to test the dialer and hit me with raw feedback:
Go to airlophone.com (first minute of first call is on us).
Paste an international number and dial straight from your browser.
Let me know in the comments: How is the audio quality, connection latency, and UI flow?
How are you currently handling international calls for your startup? Happy to answer any questions about the WebRTC setup, margin engine, or SIP routing in the comments!
124 signups → 59 active callers → ~$40/week is a strong start. Do those active users keep making calls without needing a subscription incentive, or is usage still mostly trial-driven after the first call?
Thanks! yeah it’s only pay as u go, so as long as it works smoothly for them they’ll be using it since this is a utility tool that someone would use so it’s not that hard as long as i can make it super frictionless for them to test it out without paying first. the only incentive is 1 minute free calls which would proof to them that the phone connects to wherever they want it to connect
That pay-as-you-go model makes repeat usage easier to read. I’d be interested in seeing how usage holds up. If you’re open to it, what’s the best email to reach you on?
What’s the most common use case for your users? I’m trying to picture when someone would need a browser-based international dialer. You mentioned the first minute is free. Has that been enough for people to try it before paying?
I run an AI video product and give every user free credits, but many of my paying users buy credits before generating anything. People who use up the free credits rarely convert. So far, only one or two have bought the smallest pack. Curious whether you’re seeing a similar split.
at least 40% of em are calling to war torn countries based on my data, i figure some of them use it to call families where the families or they themselves don’t use whatsapp or discord etc. other than that would be expats calling banks and clients id say. that’s pretty interesting about your ai startup, for my case i think users that already have high intent would still want to try out using the 1 minute free calls, simply because they would want to check if my system actually connect to wherever they’re trying to connect to or not especially war torn countries based