What counts as a minute.
On Five at a Time a minute is a billed minute: every answered call counts as at least one, voicemail included, and each call rounds up. The $150 seat (one is enough) includes 2,500 of them. At the rate measured on DialSheet's managed lines, that is about 2,690 dials a month.
Answered means billed.
Any call that is answered bills at least one minute. A person counts. A voicemail box counts the same.
Every call rounds up.
Each call is rounded up to the next whole minute by itself. Six seconds is one minute. Sixty-one seconds is two.
Unanswered is free.
A call that rings out, or fails because the number is dead, costs nothing. So does a line hung up while it was still ringing.
Each line is its own call.
On five lines, every line that gets answered is counted separately. Two voicemail boxes in one round are two minutes.
Set five lines and watch the meter
Pick what happened on each line. The number on each row is what that call bills. The panel adds them up beside the time anyone was connected.
Billed
6
minutes
- Lines answered
- 3 of 5
- Meter against connected time
- 1.8 times
- Cost if your pool is used up
- $0.30
Inside your pool these minutes are already paid for. The four outcomes are examples to show the rounding, not measurements.
What the meter does on real calls
We have not published numbers for Five at a Time yet. These are from DialSheet's managed lines, which bill answered calls the same way.
0.93
billed minutes per dial
On DialSheet’s managed lines, early September 2026. Counts every dial, answered or not.
2.25x
the meter against real connected time
On DialSheet’s managed lines, the 30 days to October 23, 2026.
33%
of all minutes went to calls under 10 seconds
On DialSheet’s managed lines, the 30 days to October 23, 2026.
What 2,500 minutes is in dials
2,690
dials a month from one seat’s 2,500 minutes, or about 128 a working day over 21 days.
2,500 divided by 0.93. A founder seat’s 3,000 minutes come to about 3,230.
| Dials a day | Minutes a month | Past the pool | The month |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | 1,953 | None | $150 |
| 250 | 4,883 | 2,383 at 5 cents = $119.15 | $269.15 |
| 500 | 9,765 | 7,265 at 5 cents = $363.25 | $513.25 |
One seat, 21 working days, 0.93 billed minutes per dial. A list that picks up more, or longer conversations, pushes your rate above 0.93. Set your own on the pricing calculator.
Why talk time is the wrong way to budget
The mistake goes like this. A rep expects to have about two hours of real conversations in a month, sees 2,500 minutes on the plan, and concludes there is room to spare. Then the pool runs out before the month does.
Conversations are a small part of what a dialer bills. Over the 30 days to October 23, 2026, on DialSheet’s managed lines, the meter counted 225 seconds for every 100 seconds anyone was connected. Calls shorter than ten seconds used 33% of all minutes. Those are voicemail greetings and people who hang up at once: a few seconds on the line, one full minute on the meter.
Five lines make more of those calls an hour than one line does. That is the dialer doing its job, and it is also why the minute count climbs faster than it feels like it should.
So budget by dials. Minutes used is roughly dials times your billed minutes per dial, and 0.93 is a fair starting figure until you have a week of your own numbers. The dial math calculator runs it for one line against five.
Past the pool: the wallet
Calls do not stop when the included minutes run out. This is what happens instead.
2,500
The pool
Minutes a seat, a month, shared by the whole team. Three seats make one pool of 7,500. Unused minutes do not roll over.
5¢
Each minute after that
Taken from a wallet on your account, at the same billed-minute rule as everything else.
$50
The reload
When the wallet runs low it charges your card by itself and adds 1,000 minutes. You do not approve each one.
The plan renews each month until you cancel, and seats and reloads are not refunded, unused minutes included. The refund policy has the exceptions. Pricing has the rest.
Use fewer minutes without dialing less
There are no savings percentages here because we have not measured any. These follow from the rules above.
Stop redialing known voicemail boxes.
A number that went to voicemail the last few times will most likely bill a minute the next time too. Move those leads to another channel. The product has follow-up sequences with email steps, and LinkedIn steps as tasks.
Use solo mode on lists that pick up.
When most calls are answered, extra lines mostly add answered calls you cannot take, and an answered call is a billed call. One line bills one call at a time. When to stay on one line.
Hang up before the minute mark, not sooner.
A voicemail greeting costs one minute at two seconds and one minute at fifty-nine. Rushing saves nothing on the meter. Sitting through one past sixty seconds costs a second minute.
Cleaning dead numbers saves time, not minutes.
Calls that fail were never billed. Take dead numbers out of the list because they waste a line in every round, and do not expect the minute count to move.
Questions about minutes
What counts as a minute?
A billed minute. Every call that is answered, by a person or a voicemail box, counts as at least one minute, and each call rounds up to the next whole minute. Calls nobody answers and calls that fail cost nothing.
Does a voicemail use a minute?
Yes. A voicemail box picking up is an answered call, so it bills one minute even if the call ends six seconds later. On five lines this is where most minutes go.
On five lines, do I pay for all five?
Only for the lines that are answered. Each answered line is its own call and is counted separately. Lines that ring out, or are hung up while still ringing because someone else answered first, bill nothing.
How many dials is 2,500 minutes?
About 2,690, or about 128 a working day over 21 days, at 0.93 billed minutes per dial. That rate was measured on DialSheet's managed lines in early September 2026. Your own rate depends on how often your list is answered and how long you talk.
How many minutes does a day of cold calling use?
Multiply your dials by your billed minutes per dial. At the 0.93 measured on DialSheet's managed lines in early September 2026, 100 dials use about 93 minutes. Talk time is the wrong thing to multiply.
What happens when I use all 2,500 minutes?
Calls keep going. Each minute past your team's pool costs 5 cents, paid from a wallet on your account. When the wallet runs low it reloads $50 from your card, which buys 1,000 more minutes.
Do unused minutes roll over?
No. Included minutes belong to their billing month.
Can I get a refund for minutes I did not use?
No. Subscription charges and wallet reloads are non-refundable, and that includes unused minutes. We refund our own billing errors and duplicate charges. The refund policy has the full wording.
Sources
- DialSheet, pricing page. Read November 10, 2026.
DialSheet’s prices change on their own schedule. The measured figures on this page are totals from DialSheet’s own calling data, not from a third party.
one at a time is for people with time.
10 conversations or one day on five lines, free. You add a card and we check your business before the first call. After the trial your plan starts on that card at $150 a seat a month unless you cancel.
Start free trialSee pricing or read the refund policy first.