Announcement and bell software has quietly moved to renting, and the monthly figure is rarely the whole figure. Before comparing prices, it is worth knowing where recurring charges hide.
Four charges recur in audio quotes and only the first is obvious: the licence itself, cloud text-to-speech metered per character, remote access sitting behind its own tier, and support or updates charged as a maintenance percentage. A quote can be entirely honest about the first while saying nothing about the other three, which is how a monthly figure ends up being a fraction of the monthly cost.
The licence itself. Per device, per site, or per user, monthly or annually. The obvious one.
Cloud text-to-speech. Charged per character or per request, and easy to miss because it is small until announcements become routine. A system that speaks typed text over a hosted API is metered even when the licence is not.
Remote access. Reaching the system from outside the building often sits behind its own tier.
Support and updates. Sometimes a maintenance percentage, sometimes bundled, occasionally the thing that stops your existing install receiving fixes when it lapses.
A quote can be honest about the first and silent about the other three.
Nothing recurs except one optional service. Personal, non-commercial use at home is free permanently; institutions buy a one-off perpetual licence priced by how many devices play audio; and the only ongoing charge on the price list is the Cloud Relay, which provides remote control from outside the building and which the device does not need in order to work.
Three properties turn the word into a guarantee, and they are worth checking in anybody's licence rather than only this one: no expiry and no reactivation check, so a licence server going away cannot take your bells with it; indefinite offline operation, because software that must check in monthly is a subscription wearing different clothes; and a plain statement of what happens if the vendor stops trading:
The software is one line of the bill and usually the smallest. A working installation is a machine (a £40 Raspberry Pi 4 is a complete answer for most sites, and a spare PC costs nothing), amplification and speakers if the building lacks them, cabling and installation if speakers are being added, and your own time or a commissioning visit. The speakers are almost always the largest number:
The measured-cost figures for a small deployment are published rather than estimated on the page of measured data.
Sometimes, genuinely. A cron job and a media player will ring a bell, cost nothing and never send an invoice. What it will not do is duck music under an announcement, speak typed text, suppress the schedule during an emergency, keep several rooms in step, tell you a speaker has gone quiet, or be operable by the person who covers reception on a Tuesday.
If a shell script covers your requirement, use the shell script. That is not a difficult admission to make.
Is the free personal tier a trial?
No. There is no trial, no countdown and no reduced feature set. Personal, non-commercial use at home is free and stays free.
Do updates cost extra?
No. Updates are included, and on Debian and Raspberry Pi OS they arrive through the ordinary apt upgrade with the rest of the machine.
What happens if I stop paying for the Cloud Relay?
You lose remote control from outside the building and the alerts our server sends. Schedules, announcements, speech, zones, relays and the dashboard on your own network are unaffected.
Is it per user?
No. A licence covers a number of devices playing audio. How many people use the dashboard makes no difference to the price.
Can I move the licence to new hardware?
Yes, free, and it is expected — machines fail, and replacing one is not a new purchase.