Teams reaches the phone network two ways, and they are not equivalent. This page is that decision — Direct Routing versus Microsoft Calling Plan — including the parts of it that argue against us.
Teams can reach the public telephone network two ways, and most vendor pages skip straight past the choice. They are not equivalent, and the difference shows up years later — at renewal, at a new country, at the moment somebody asks who actually holds the numbers.
| The decision point | Microsoft Calling Plan | Direct Routing |
|---|---|---|
| Who supplies numbers and minutes | Microsoft | Your telephony provider |
| How it gets set up | Bought in the Microsoft admin centre | A certified, customer-provided SBC is paired with your tenant |
| Country coverage | Where Microsoft sells Calling Plans | Wherever your provider operates |
| Your existing numbers | Ported to Microsoft | Stay with your provider |
| Contact center and IVR depth | Microsoft’s feature set | Your provider’s |
| Switching vendor later | Numbers sit with Microsoft | Numbers sit with your provider |
| Microsoft licensing | Teams Phone required | Teams Phone required — unchanged |
The mechanics are Microsoft’s to describe, so here is Microsoft describing them: Plan Direct Routing. Read it before any vendor’s version of this page, including ours.
If your calling needs are plain and Microsoft sells Calling Plans in every country you operate in, this is the shorter path and there is no reason to make it complicated. We would rather you bought the right thing than bought ours.
Microsoft names three on its own planning page, and they are a better test than anything we could write:
Agree or disagree with each. Three of them lean towards Direct Routing and two lean the other way, so this is not a quiz with a predetermined answer — if you land on Calling Plan, that is a real result and it is the simpler thing to buy.
Microsoft sells Calling Plans in every country we operate in.
Plain calling is enough — we do not need deep queues, IVR or multi-site routing.
We want our numbers held by our own provider rather than by Microsoft.
We want to pick our own carrier, and the rates that come with it.
Nobody on our side can run a certified SBC, and we would rather not involve a provider who can.
Answer the five and the meter leans. It is a starting point for the conversation, not a recommendation — the real answer needs your Microsoft agreement in front of you.
Three reasons come up repeatedly in evaluations. None of them is “because our dashboard is nicer”.
Direct Routing is not bound to that list — it reaches wherever your provider operates. DialPhone’s international calling reaches 46+ countries, and it is worth being precise about what that means: “we can call there” and “we can give you a number there” are two different questions. Ask us the second one about your specific countries.
Numbers held by your own provider are easier to take elsewhere later. This matters more at renewal than teams expect it to: the question is never how easy a system is to arrive at, it is how easy it is to leave. Answer it while you still have a choice.
IVR and multi-site routing are on the entry plan; queues, recording and AI transcription are on Professional. Either way they are one platform rather than separate products to license and wire together. Compare that against the Teams Phone tier you would otherwise need, using your own Microsoft quote rather than anyone’s comparison page — the combined total is the only figure that decides this.
Chat, channels, files and meetings stay exactly where your team already works. What changes is what happens behind the dial pad: calls route through DialPhone rather than Microsoft, so routing rules, queues, recording and AI transcription come from our platform instead.
Same dial pad, same contacts, same call button. A different set of rules answering it.
Three things worth knowing before a cutover rather than during one. Two of them are ours to admit; the third is how Microsoft has documented its own support boundary.
It does not. Microsoft’s own planning page is unambiguous: Direct Routing users must have Teams Phone and Microsoft Teams licences assigned. Direct Routing changes who provides the calling, not whether you need the licence.
Read your Microsoft agreement before you model any total.Microsoft, Plan Direct RoutingDirect Routing needs a certified session border controller configured and paired to your tenant, and voice routing policies assigned to users. It is a setup task, not a signup — and the SBC is customer-provided, so somebody owns it.
Confirm the current timeline with support before you plan a cutover.Direct Routing is a three-party architecture and the support path reflects it. Microsoft supports it only with SBCs it has certified, and its documented process starts with the SBC vendor, who escalates to Microsoft with an investigation report if it turns out to be Microsoft’s end.
Ask who takes the first call, in writing, before you sign anything.Microsoft, Plan Direct RoutingIt connects Microsoft Teams to the public telephone network through your own telephony provider instead of buying numbers and minutes from Microsoft. A certified session border controller sits between the two.
Calling Plan if your needs are plain and Microsoft sells Calling Plans in your countries. Direct Routing for wider coverage, your own numbers, or call features Microsoft’s telephony does not carry. The five statements further up the page are a starting point, not a recommendation.
Yes. Microsoft requires Teams Phone and Microsoft Teams licences for Direct Routing users. Direct Routing changes who provides the calling, not your Microsoft licensing — check your agreement.
Yes. With Direct Routing your numbers stay with your provider, and porting to DialPhone is free.
No. Chat, channels, files and meetings stay exactly where they are.
It requires a certified session border controller configured and voice routing policies assigned to users. Confirm the current timeline with support rather than working from a number on a marketing page.
DialPhone’s international calling reaches 46+ countries. Number availability is a separate question and is per country — ask about the specific ones you operate in.
It is a third path: a participating operator appears in Microsoft’s admin centre and supplies the calling without you running an SBC. This page compares the other two. If Operator Connect is on your shortlist, ask us and your operator before you decide.
Direct Routing sits alongside your Microsoft licensing rather than replacing it. Model the combined figure against Teams Phone plus a Microsoft Calling Plan using your own quotes — the answer depends on your countries and your existing agreement, and anyone who tells you the outcome without seeing those numbers is guessing. Our own rates are on pricing.
Fourteen days, no card. Put the Teams Phone path and this one side by side with your real Microsoft agreement in front of you — that is the only comparison that settles it.
No credit card required · Keep your Teams licences · Cancel anytime
