1. High volume purchases
We are part of a network of phonecard buyers that purchase more than one billion dollars in phonecards per year. That volume allows us to command the best rates in the industry and pass them along to you.

2. Economic freedom is good for consumers Unlike the direct-dial telephone companies, phone card issuers are not made less efficient by government-protected monopoly.

When you dial a long distance number direct from your home phone your call is routed to its destination by a long distance carrier who bills you for every call you make. A direct-dial long distance company profits by becoming the exclusive carrier for as many homes as it can service. While there has been much deregulation during the past five years, it is still highly regulated and made inefficient by burdensome government controls. This regulation makes it harder for new companies to enter the market, thereby preventing as much competition as there should be a and makes it more expensive for the companies already in business, thereby making it hard for them to lower their rates.

By contrast, a phonecard issuer makes its money when you initiate your long distance call through the issuer's toll-free access number. It doesn't need to spend millions on lobbying or on the infrastructure to run lines into your home. It contracts with the local phone company to "go around" the direct-dial carrier that would otherwise service your area. As a result, thousands of smaller, more efficient phonecard companies fight hard for your business against one another and against the direct-dial carriers. The way they do this is by offering you the lowest rates possible.

In short, consumers benefit from economic liberty.

3. "Good" phone card users benefit because some users are "bad."

It may sound odd, but phonecard issuers count on the fact that some of you will not use your phonecard. These are "bad" users a those that have a perfectly good prepaid phonecard in their hand but choose to throw it away or otherwise waste it. The result is that phonecard issuers can offer even better rates to "good" users a those that use every last penny of every phone card they buy.

How does this work?

Let's say we sell a batch of phone cards to a big computer trade association that wishes to give them to all the attendees of their national convention. Now let's say that these cards are priced at 5 cents per minute. The association pays BudgetCallingCards.com full value for the cards. And, in turn, BudgetCallingCards.com pays the phonecard issuer full value.

But what happens if 20% of the attendees fly home from the convention without ever having used their cards a and then throw them away when they unpack from their trip? That's right, BudgetCallingCards.com paid for more time than was used! We paid the phonecard issuer 20% more than it expected, or an average of 6 cents per minute for its 5-cent phonecards.

But, as noted above, this is a competitive industry. Rather than simply keeping the money as extra profit, most phonecard issuers rely on such wasted cards to offset losses on other cards. In order to attract more business, they might create a new batch of 4-cent phonecards a even if a 4-cent rate is below their cost! Such a card might attract new users to their products a users who might call not only to locations at the below-cost domestic rates, but also to profitable international locations. In this way the company may earn even more profit than it would have by just keeping the 20% surplus that BudgetCallingCards.com paid.

The phonecard companies are constantly thinking of ways to lower their rates in a battle for your business. So be a "good" user and enjoy your phonecard to its limit.