Spent the last few years deploying both hosted cloud dialers and self-hosted VICIdial clusters for outbound call centers. The "which dialer is best" question comes up constantly and the answer is almost always "depends on your seat count." Here is what the actual math looks like: Under 20 seats: Hosted is usually cheaper. You are paying $150-300/seat/mo but avoiding server management, Asterisk updates, and carrier negotiations. Five9 and Convoso work well in this range. 50+ seats: Self-hosted starts making serious financial sense. Total cost works out to about $25-40/seat/mo including hosting, carriers, and maintenance. At 100+ seats the savings are substantial. The tradeoff: Self-hosted means you need someone who understands Asterisk, Linux, and SIP trunking. Not plug-and-play. But you get full control over AMD tuning, campaign pacing, and you are not locked into per-minute carrier rates. The hidden costs are what kill most comparisons. Most hosted vendors charge extra for call recording, CRM integration, supervisor monitoring, and even basic reporting. We put together a breakdown at vicistack.com/blog/predictive-dialer-cost-comparison/ covering the full picture including those extras. Anyone here running outbound operations? What is your current setup and seat count?