Cellphone contracts: are you paying more than you need to?

Tariffic, a South African company which launched its cellphone bill analysis and contract recommendation services to enterprises during October 2013, plans to launch a web-based service for consumers in 2015.

That’s the word from Antony Seeff, the new CEO of Tariffic.

Powered by the same algorithm which Tariffic said saves companies an average of 40% on their cellphone accounts, individuals will be able to upload their invoices and itemised bills for analysis.

Once analysed, Tariffic generates a report summarising customer usage and offers recommendations for more suitable contract packages.

An example of Tariffic’s summary and recommendations report is shown below.

“This website will be the first publicly available tariff optimiser and will disrupt the cellular industry by finally allowing consumers to see through all the complexity on the market and find the ideal cellphone package for them,” said Seeff.

He added that cellular users are paying too much on their contracts for a variety of reasons. Chief among them was taking up a package with more bundled value than a subscriber needs so they can get a specific phone.

Another example was when subscribers just let their contracts automatically renew without upgrading, leaving them on much higher call tariffs than if they just took out a newer version of the same contract.

Asked how they plan to make money from the consumer-facing site, Seeff said they are exploring a few options.

Among them is a kind of “freemium” model where the system lets users upload their call data records for free and receive a brief report, after which they can opt to pay to see recommendations and a detailed report.

Tariffic aims to launch its consumer website within the first quarter of 2015 (January – March 2015). Seeff said that they will be able to be give more specifics closer to the launch.

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Article thumbnail image by Fleecircus on Flickr.