Telecom Expense Management Pricing: What Does TEM Cost in Australia and New Zealand?

By Michael Giffney, Director, VoicePlus. Published 2 October 2026.

Managed telecom expense management in Australia and New Zealand is normally priced per active service per month. Published pricing benchmarks are almost all American, and they do not translate: US figures reflect multi-location wireline estates and brokerage models that are uncommon here.

Key Takeaways

• Managed TEM in Australia and New Zealand typically runs $2 to $6 per active service per month, depending on scope
• Software-only platforms run lower, but the savings work stays with your team
• Per-invoice pricing, common in the US, is rare in this market
• First-year recovery of 5 to 15 percent of annual telecom spend is a realistic range for this region
• Break-even for most estates falls between 4 and 7 percent of telecom spend
• The largest single savings event in a multi-year cycle is usually the contract renewal, not the audit

How much does TEM cost in Australia and New Zealand?

Between $2 and $6 per active service per month for managed TEM, depending on whether procurement, support and device lifecycle are included. For a 500-service estate that is roughly $1,000 to $3,000 a month. Most organisations reach break-even when the service recovers more than 4 to 7 percent of annual telecom spend.

In This Guide

• Why US Pricing Guides Do Not Apply Here
• Pricing Models Used in Australia and New Zealand
• Pricing by Fleet Size
• Calculating Your Break-Even
• What Drives the Price
• How to Evaluate a TEM Quote
• When TEM May Not Be Worth It
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Related Topics

 

Why US Pricing Guides Do Not Apply Here

Search for TEM pricing and almost everything returned is written for the American market. Those guides quote ranges of $2 to $15 per line per month and returns of five to ten times the fee.

Three things make them a poor guide for an Australian or New Zealand buyer.

• Scope is different: US TEM is built around multi-location wireline estates of voice circuits, data links and internet services across dozens or hundreds of sites. Estates in this region are mobile-led, with fewer locations and a smaller fixed footprint. Less complexity means less cost, and also less recoverable waste.
• Pricing models are different: per-invoice pricing, at $25 to $200 per invoice, appears in every US guide. It is rare here because most organisations deal with two or three carriers rather than fifteen.
• Savings claims do not transfer: US guides commonly cite 30 to 40 percent cost reduction. Those figures reflect estates with heavy wireline waste and no prior optimisation. An Australian mobile-led estate with a recent carrier tender will not produce that, and any provider promising it should be asked what comparable engagement it came from.

 

Pricing Models Used in Australia and New Zealand

Per Active Service, Per Month

$2 to $6 per service per month. The standard model in this market. You pay for each mobile service, fixed line and data connection under management.

Works well because costs are predictable, budgeting is simple, and the price moves with the estate in both directions.

Watch for minimum service counts, and whether the rate is reviewed when the fleet shrinks rather than only when it grows.

Flat Monthly Fee

Typically $2,000 to $15,000 per month depending on scope. A fixed retainer regardless of service count, more common in larger or highly defined engagements.

Works well because it is the most predictable line in the budget and scope is settled upfront.

Watch for what counts as out of scope, and what happens to the fee if the estate halves.

Percentage of Savings

Commonly 15 to 40 percent of identified savings. The provider takes a share of what they recover.

It looks attractive because there is no cost if nothing is found.

The problem is what happens afterwards. Once the backlog of errors is cleared, a provider paid on savings found has an incentive to keep finding new problems rather than maintaining an estate that does not generate them. Disputes over what counts as a saving are common, and the model rewards quick recoveries over the governance that prevents recurrence. It also becomes expensive at scale: 25 percent of a large first-year recovery can exceed several years of per-service fees.

Carrier-Subsidised, Fully or in Part

This model takes two forms, and the second is the one most buyers do not recognise.

Direct. The carrier offers the managed service itself, presented as free or included in a contract.

Through a carrier partner. A carrier-aligned provider offers the service at a rate part-funded by the carrier, usually in the form of a credit applied to your bill. You receive an invoice at a plausible rate and the credit sits beside it.

Both are usually structured as a managed service credit: a monthly amount the carrier applies against eligible managed service charges, available only on higher plan tiers.

How a managed service credit is actually funded

The credit is not paid from the carrier's margin. Two things have to happen before you receive it. You move to a higher plan tier, and you commit to a minimum monthly spend on eligible managed services.

Set the credit against both and the position changes completely. The figures below are illustrative, but the shape is typical of enterprise mobility terms published in this market.

Illustrative figures. The higher tiers add data allowance and international calling or roaming inclusions, which in most fleets are relevant to only one or two percent of users.

Three things fall out of the table.

• The credit never covers the commitment that unlocks it. At the second tier a $5 credit requires $10 of managed service spend. At the third, a $10 credit requires the same $10. The commitment is fixed; only the credit moves.
• There is no tier at which the bill does not rise. The entry tier offers no credit at all. Every tier that does costs between $10 and $47 more per service per month once the plan increase and the commitment are both counted.
• The larger the credit, the worse the outcome. The top tier offers three times the credit of the second and costs nearly five times as much to obtain.

The plan increase is also buying something most of the fleet will not use. Higher tiers add data allowance and international calling or roaming, inclusions that typically matter to one or two percent of users. The other ninety-eight percent are moved up a tier to make a managed service credit available.

What it costs over a fleet

Nothing in this is concealed. The plan charges are published, the credit is published, and the eligibility conditions are published. The three figures are simply never set against each other, because the plan tier is chosen in one conversation and the managed service in another.

Conditions that usually apply

Credits of this kind normally carry several conditions, and each one is worth reading closely.

• A minimum monthly spend. The credit applies only if eligible managed service charges reach a stated threshold, commonly around $10 per service per month. Reduce scope below it and the credit stops entirely, so buying less makes your bill go up.
• A closed list of eligible services. Only the carrier's own managed services and a defined set of third-party licences qualify. A provider you chose independently is not on the list, and the credit cannot be applied to them.
• A mandatory bundled module. A specified care or lifecycle module usually has to be active on the plan before any credit applies, whether or not you need it.
• Monthly expiry. Unused credit does not carry over. Spend less than the credit in any month and the difference is lost.
• Licence volume floors. Third-party licences often require a minimum number of the same type, active and billed monthly, before they count toward the threshold at all.

Read together, these conditions do not describe a discount. They describe a floor under your spend, a restriction on who you can buy from, and a penalty for reducing scope.

It makes the service structurally unable to do its job

The core purpose of TEM is to reduce what you spend. This structure pays a credit for keeping spend at or above a threshold, on a plan tier above the one your usage requires, with a provider drawn from the carrier's own list.

A provider inside that arrangement cannot recommend moving you to a lower plan tier, because the tier is what funds the credit. They cannot recommend reducing their own scope, because the threshold would be unmet. The two most valuable findings in any telecom review are the two findings this model is built to prevent.

Three questions to ask

What plan tier does the credit require, and what would the plan cost one tier below? If the uplift matches or exceeds the credit, the carrier is not funding anything. You are.

Is the credit conditional on a minimum spend, and what happens if we reduce scope? If the answer is that it stops, it is a floor rather than a discount.

Can the credit be applied to a provider of our choosing? If eligibility is limited to a set list, the credit is also a restriction on who you can buy from. Who pays your TEM provider?

 

Pricing by Fleet Size

Indicative ranges for Australia and New Zealand. Actual pricing depends on carrier count, invoice complexity, scope and contract term.

Small Fleet: 100 to 500 Services

Typical annual telecom spend: $60,000 to $350,000

Worked example. A 300-service organisation spending $160,000 a year, paying $4 per service, spends $14,400 annually on TEM. That is 9 percent of telecom spend, so recovery needs to exceed 9 percent to pay for itself. At this size a one-off audit is often the better first step.

Medium Fleet: 500 to 2,000 Services

Typical annual telecom spend: $250,000 to $1.2M

Worked example. A 1,000-service organisation spending $540,000 a year, paying $2.50 per service, spends $30,000 annually on TEM. That is 5.6 percent of spend. At a 10 percent recovery the service returns $54,000, paying back in roughly seven months.

Large Fleet: 2,000+ Services

Typical annual telecom spend: $1M+

Per-service rates fall with volume. Expect meaningfully lower rates above 2,000 services, and negotiate the tier thresholds into the contract along with adjustment provisions for significant changes in fleet size.

 

Calculating Your Break-Even

• Step one: establish your real telecom spend. Twelve months of invoices across every carrier. Most organisations find the number is larger than finance reports, because services sit in departmental budgets rather than a single telecom line.
• Step two: calculate the TEM cost. Active service count multiplied by the per-service rate, plus any implementation fee amortised across the term.
• Step three: express it as a percentage of spend. This is your break-even. The service must recover more than this to pay for itself.
• Step four: compare against realistic recovery. For a 1,000-service estate spending $540,000 with TEM at $30,000:

Figures are illustrative. Substitute your own service count, telecom spend and quoted rate.

This calculation deliberately understates the case. It counts only recovered cost, because that is the number a finance team can verify. It excludes internal time returned, audit and compliance position, the security value of an accurate service inventory, and negotiating leverage at renewal, which is often the single largest financial event in a multi-year cycle. Build the business case on recovery and expect the governance value to be why the service is still in place in year three. Telecom governance, visibility and compliance

 

What Drives the Price

• Service count: the primary input for per-service models. Higher counts earn lower rates.
• Carrier count: each carrier means separate invoice formats, contract terms and dispute processes. More carriers costs more to manage and usually recovers more. See multi-carrier telecom management.
• Invoice complexity: some carrier invoices run to thousands of line items with tiered discounts and surcharges. Complexity drives audit effort.
• Scope: invoice auditing alone costs less than a service including procurement, support, device lifecycle and carrier negotiation. Define scope before comparing quotes, because proposals are rarely comparable.
• Trans-Tasman or single market: operating across both countries means two carrier sets, two regulatory contexts and two currencies to reconcile.
• Contract term: longer commitments typically earn lower rates. Ensure there are performance provisions and exit clauses before committing to multi-year terms.
• Current state: an estate never previously audited has more recoverable value, which supports a higher investment. A recently tendered, actively managed estate has less.

 

How to Evaluate a TEM Quote

Seven things to check before signing.

• 1. Ask who pays the provider. Does the provider receive commission, rebate, referral fee or subsidy from the carriers whose bills they audit? This is a yes or no question and it determines whether the service can act in your interest at the point of dispute.
• 2. Request the complete fee schedule. Implementation, data migration, out-of-scope work, overage, escalation clauses and exit fees. Ask for the three-year total cost, not the per-service rate.
• 3. Compare scope, not rate. A lower rate excluding dispute resolution and carrier negotiation is not cheaper. It is a different product.
• 4. Ask for a proof of concept. Any provider confident in the recovery should demonstrate it before you commit. If they will not audit a portion of your estate first, ask why.
• 5. Ask what happens in year three. A provider whose value proposition is entirely first-year recovery has not thought about what you are paying for afterwards.
• 6. Check the savings claim against a comparable engagement. A 30 percent claim drawn from a US wireline estate tells you nothing about an Australian mobile fleet. Ask which engagement the number came from.
• 7. Negotiate volume adjustment. Fleets change. Agree rate thresholds for material increases and decreases, not only increases.

 

When TEM May Not Be Worth It

Below roughly 200 services on a single carrier, recently tendered and actively managed by someone with telecom billing knowledge, the recoverable amount may not clear the cost of an ongoing managed service. A one-off audit often makes more sense, and if it finds little, that is a useful answer too.

Nobody, including us, can tell you from the outside how much is recoverable. The audit produces the number.

VoicePlus offers a no-obligation proof of concept: we audit a defined portion of your estate, show you what we find, and you decide whether the numbers justify proceeding.

Request a no-obligation proof of concept

 

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does telecom expense management cost in Australia?

Managed TEM typically costs $2 to $6 per active service per month depending on scope, with lower per-service rates at higher volumes. For a 500-service estate that is roughly $1,000 to $3,000 a month.

How is TEM priced in New Zealand?

The same per-service model applies. Rates are broadly comparable to Australia, with the main variable being carrier count and whether the engagement spans both markets.

Why is US TEM pricing so much higher?

US TEM is built around multi-location wireline estates with far more carriers and invoice complexity. Australian and New Zealand estates are mobile-led with a smaller fixed footprint, so both the cost and the recoverable waste are lower.

Should I pay for TEM as a percentage of savings?

It aligns well in the first year and poorly afterwards. Once initial recoveries are banked, a provider paid on savings found has an incentive to keep finding problems rather than preventing them. Per-service pricing keeps the incentive on maintaining a clean estate.

Is free or discounted carrier-provided TEM a good deal?

A subsidy is funded from your plan rate, not the carrier's margin. If the carrier contributes $5 per service per month, the plan you are moved to costs roughly $5 per service more, usually dressed as a higher tier with inclusions that go unused. The uplift applies to every service and runs for the full contract term even if the TEM service is scoped back. Ask what the plan rate would be without the subsidy.

What if the TEM provider is a carrier partner?

The same conflict applies, usually through a managed service credit. Two conditions have to be met before the credit arrives: a move to a higher plan tier, and a minimum monthly commitment on eligible managed services. On typical published figures a $5 credit requires a $5 plan increase and a $10 commitment, so the bill rises by $10 per service rather than falling. Higher tiers offer more credit and cost more again, up to around $47 per service per month. The inclusions the higher tier adds are usually relevant to one or two percent of a fleet.

How quickly does TEM pay for itself?

For a typical medium fleet, between four and twelve months depending on how long the estate has gone unaudited. Recoveries usually begin in the first audit cycle.

Is GST included in quoted TEM rates?

Australian rates are normally quoted excluding GST. New Zealand rates should be confirmed for GST treatment, and engagements spanning both markets need the position stated for each.

How do I calculate TEM ROI before buying?

Divide the annual TEM cost by your annual telecom spend to get the break-even percentage, then compare it against a realistic recovery range of 5 to 15 percent for a first year.

 

Related Topics

• What is Telecom Expense Management?
• TEM Software (Self-Serve) or TEM Managed Service?
• Carrier billing portal vs TEM
• Telecom cost optimisation
• Telecom governance, visibility and compliance
• Telecom Expense Management services