Skype's calling subscriptions provide unlimited* calls to landlines (and mobiles in some countries). They offer a very cost effective solution for businesses. You can choose one country, one region, or a worldwide subscription covering 36 countries. Subscriptions start from as little as €2.95 per month for unlimited country.

There are no long-term contracts and you can choose the subscription that suits you best.

Subscriptions can now be purchased via the Business Control Panel, our free online tool to help you manage Skype in your business. This makes it easy for to centrally manage your company's Skype calling subscriptions.

How does it work?

1. Log in to your control panel (If you don't already have one you can register for free)

2. Make sure you have some credit on your account

3. Go to the subscriptions page



4. Select the member or members you want to assign a subscription to



5. Choose the appropriate subscription



The cost of each subscription will be deducted from your Control Panel credit each month. Read more about the subscriptions.

* The legal bit - as part of our fair usage policy you'll get up to 10,000 calling minutes per month per subscription. Subscriptions are for individual use only. Each subscription is to be used by one person only and is not to be shared with any other user (whether via a PBX, call centre, computer or any other means).

Our Managing Director has proceeded with process you have described and, has paid for the subscription under my name.

However, no number was allocated to my account; and, I had to open one on skype. I have received a 30day notice for the use of the said number; but, I was made to understand by our Managing Director that what he has paid for would be automatically be deducted from his credit card.

Who could I email directly at skype regarding this issue?

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Hello Victor, thank you for your post.

Some subscriptions assigned in the Business Control Panel have online numbers included in the price. These numbers are designated as "personal numbers" and are not managed by the Business Control Panel, but by the member himself.

That means that each member must log in to their Skype Account page and choose and manage the personal online numbers. These numbers are included in the subscription fee and will be valid as long as the subscription is active.

There are two options for the business control panel to actively manage online numbers:

1) Purchase online numbers in the Business Control Panel. These numbers can be chosen and managed fully by the administrators.

2) Transfer ownership of a personal online number to the control panel. A transferred number will automatically be reassigned to the same individual when transferred. Please note that the number will then no longer be part of any subscription and must be paid for and renewed separately. If the personal online number was not part of a subscription, it will retain its scheduled expiry date when transferred to the control panel.

Thank you, wlundborg

Since I belong to a group of comanies that has a skype account, I have transferred this "personal number" to the business' skype business control panel.

Will doing so allow our managing director, who also manages the control panel, to pay for the "personal number's" service beyond the 30-day period initially granted by skype? This was his original plan.. pay for my use of the skype number every 30 day period

Did I do the right thing for this case?

Yes,

The online number is extendable in the business control panel. It can be extended for either 3 months or 12 months.

Kind regards,

Wilhelm

I am just learning to use Skype! I have purchased three telephone numbers with 12 month subscriptions and I have also purchased one US and Canada 12 month subscription for our business.

All three telephone numbers ring to each of my three employees. When one answers the call, no one else can get through on any of the numbers. My intention is to have one of the three telephone numbers assigned to each of my three employees.

To have each employee use one telephone number as their direct dial telephone number, must I purchase two additional US and Canada subscriptions? If so, how do I allocate the telephone numbers to the subscriptions?

I have logged into the Business Control Panel. The three telephone numbers that I have purchased are not recognized in the Business Control Panel.

Please help!!!!

Bob

I have recently set up a business control panel for my company and have invited all members of staff to download Skype. I have purchased credit and now want to allocate subscriptions. I have followed the instructions on how to allocate subscriptions but I keep getting an error message saying "could not save your order,please try again". There are 15 members in my control panel but I have only been able to allocate 4 subscriptions. Any ideas on what I might be doing wrong

Hi, thank you for your post.

Have you been able to try again? I tried reproducing the error but it worked for me.

Let me know if you need further assistance.

Kind regards,

Wilhelm

We are doing a test run with Skype for Business to see if it will work for us.

I purchased SkypeIn numbers and bought credit to setup subscriptions. I was able to setup 3 subscriptions, however when I try to setup a subscription for another user I get the following error message:

We couldn´t save your order. Please try again.

I have a support request in but have not heard anything back, so I am hoping someone monitors this forum.

Thanks

I have assigned subscriptions to the members of our business control panel but now need to change the type of subscription from unlimited US & Canada to Unlimited World. However I cannot find anything that tells me how to do that. Can someone help me?

wlundborg, what else we need to do in order to get the automatic renewal of the subscription. Is just not hapening, I left more than enough money on the control panel, however the subscriptions are not been renewal by the control panel. Thanks.

Is this still an issue?
If so please advise with your username so I can follow it up.

Hello, I need some HELP!!

I sign people up for Business Control Panel. They then respond and I get a notice they have signed up. However they do not appear on the list. They show as being invitted and says waiting for them to login.

I have them try logging in and out but nothing changes and I cannot see them on the proper list.

What are we doing wrong?

I need help. I have setup the staff of my compny with skype out numbers and unlimited world subscriptions for each.

Everything works perfectly ... except

The subscriptions do not renew automatically (even though there is more than enough credit in the business control panel) and I find that I have to repurchase them when someone complains that their voicemail stopped working.

How can I solve this?

Thanks

HELPPPP!!!!!! I purchased Credit from The BCP Through MoneyBookers and the Credit Card of the Head of the Company. I received the Invoice With the VAT included.WHY????

URGENT

Is this automatic renewal working for anybody. I have several accounts in the business panel, enough money to cover all of them, make the subscription but no automatic renewal, everymonth the accounts needs to be purchase manually again. Any suggestion?

Hi there

I too am having problems, not only does the subscription not renew automatically, but I manually renewed it several times and it still reverts back to expired after a short time (despite there being enough credit in the control panel). I tried setting up a new subscription (as now we have lost the option to renew), but I can't get back the online numbers we had on the old subscription. Is this something to do with the fact that the online numbers were assigned from the individual subscription to the business control panel?

I have an existing online number which is expiring in a couple of weeks. Instead of simply renewing the number I've now purchased one of these subscriptions. How do I use the allocation/credit of one online number that I get from my new subscription to renew the existing phone number that I have? ie I suppose I want to transfer the actual number from my standalone online number to a subscription online number?

SusanR, regarding your problem this is what I am doing today due the problems with the business panel:
1)- You can not renew the subscription before it expire. Amazing, but true.
2)- After the subscription expire (we monitor this few times per day), I go ahead and buy the same subscription.
3)- Then you will need to go to the individual account (or request the owner to go), hit manage online number and reselect the number that they previously had, using add to my current subscription. Now you will have access to the same number again.
This is really cumbersone, specially for Business. In addition I am surprise that nobody from the Skype group cares about this problem.

I hope to find an answer to that very problem.. and it seems I'm not the only one.

It is particularly shocking that Skype promotes a "Business Control Panel" and then makes it so business unfriendly. If your business is very busy which mine is - luckily enough -, you don't have the time to monitor and renew 6 to 10 individual subscription every month.

What's the point of an automatic renewal feature if it doesn't work?

If I try to get around the Business Control Panel and renew directly from the account for 12 months, I can only use one credit card account per Skype account. Therefore, I would have to have about 10 credit cards to go through them all. As I said, not very user friendly.

Or is it just me? Am i missing something here?

New member
Posts: 1
*



Having just set up a few One country subs for members of my Business control panel at £1.95 each, I then log in to their each individual account to confirm this has been activated, which it has. WHilst in each account, I then proceed to choose a skype in online number and activate the one that is included with the subscription.

Afterwards, I log in to business control, check my allocation report, and am very ANNOYED to find that for each individual subscription that has been allocated for each member, there is an additional Online Subscription for o one month for the ONLINE NUMBER that is supposed to be included!!!!

I have contacted skype via help, but they dont understand my reuqest to get it deducted. Whats happening!!!
Any ideas anyone???

Really annoying as I dont want to pay twice for a online number that is INCLUDED in a Sub for One country!!

HELP

See attacehd copy of file attached

I could not agree with you more capitandanny. I've been using the Business Control Panel for over a year now. It has improved slightly but is still not as intuitive as many other online apps.

Anyway, the ongoing issue, and clearly I'm not alone here, is that the subscription auto renewal doesn't work. As has been said in this forum... why have it there if it doesn't work? It's been like this for ages and no one from Skype seems to be caring about it. Furthermore, I am finding that my subscriptions are inactivating each month along with auto (money) recharge not working. So here we are, using Skype and there are constant wide ranging problems.

Maybe wlundborg can help?? In summary, I can't:
1. Auto renew monthly subscriptions. I have to do it each month and activate auto recharge even though I come back the next month.
2. Keep the monthly subscription active - it keeps reverting back to no subs.
3. Auto recharge - I've got the numbers in there but nothing happens.

I'd really love a response as this stuff affects our business and we're paying every month for a service that we're not getting. Maybe there is an alternative? Any ideas anyone?

Help! I just switched out small business phone system to skype and can't buy "Add Credit" in the business control panel. I thought this was a small bug that would be fixed quickly but it has been almost 2 weeks and when I click "add credit" all I get is an HTML 123. Can someone from skype please fix this?

hey amapes and capitandanny

I encounter the similar situation too.

I am the admin of the a business account. today, I bought the unlimited world subscription (using the business credits available) and assign it to my business reception person (who is setup as a member in the business group) . Yes you guessed it, that will be my business HOTLINE.


A while ago, the reception lady sign on to her account and told me that I was wrong that about assigning 1 online number. She is able to do 3 online number sign up as PART OF THE SUBSCRIPTION.

Well, this is really a pleasant surprise.. because I was just expecting 1 online number per subscription!

Now after reading all these scary things about skype business accounts .. I have some big questions that really bothers me :

1. does unlimited world subscription accounts comes included with 3 online numbers? or is this a programming glitch? or it is something new which SKYPE has incorporate in the system but has yet to update their website about this? I would have expected them to manage this part better like have a more clear documentation or something on their website.

2. am I correct to say that in view of all these problems you guys mentioned... 1 mth later, the 3 numbers which my reception lady has selected for the assigned subscription plan ...(remember, this will be the business "HOTLINE" for my customers) will not be AUTO RENEWED even when the business accounts has enough skype credits?

3. I can tolerate the fact that if one of my 3 numbers rings, the other 2 will not get any calls thru.. but what bothers me is what will the customers hear if they call the other 2 numbers? Will their calls be queued? or they will hear voice mail? or nothing at all?

I wish skype can get all these questions and doubts answered .. I mean .. small businesses like us.. need to build our business credibility.. and it's GONNA HURT OUR BUSINESSES A LOT if your numbers worked for 1 mth and then does not work anymore the next!

This is really depressing .. especially in this bad economic climate.

You can pay for an online number on subscription for 3 euros a month.
On the business control panel 3 months cost 15 Euros.
It does not take a mathematician to work out that the subscription is much cheaper.
Therefore never ever transfer an online number to a business control panel.
I did and you can't transfer them back.

my name for reference: udini_skype
Everything that Skype offers for free works fine, everything we paid for mostly doesn't work. This is my last hope to solve our many problems with skype, since no human being ever answered my customer support requests.
The following issues keep us from using skype:
* business panel doesn't seem to be aware of "regular" skype account even if admin and skype name is the same.
* therefore online numbers etc. can't be transfered, payments don't show up etc etc etc
* localization (for non-English users) inconsistent and irritating, have to log-in on every page, skype never seems to know who I am
* no helpful response from skype whatsoever, so we asked for "paypal buyers protection" last year, still now response from skype but account got blocked, than unlocked again without an explanation
* so far skype has been a money grave for us, I strongly recommend not using the so called business features (although it might work better for US citizens)

dealing with skype has been the most kafkaesque experience i ever had as a customer, I'll keep an eye on this forum though...

thanks for reading!

How do you transfer an online number from an individual to a business control panel?
It says in the Skype FAQ that you cannot transfer online numbers between users (unless it's a business number).

Our office has 20 work stations with individual skype accounts with unlimited country subscription to US and Canada. We notice that about halfway through our work shift, calls would become chappy, simultaneous dropped calls on several stations, called party would have hard time hearing us and sometimes message with "your mic is really quiet" would pop-up. But if we switch to a different IP, then everything works fine again(Our internet service provider has assigned us 16 IP addresses). Then the cycle continues and we have to keep on switching our IP address when we would notice a decline on the call quality. We thought it was the internet problem but our other SIP accounts seem to work fine.

Does Skype server block IP's with heavy traffic to their network? Doesn't it determine how many accounts are logged on to that network?

Hope you can help. I can give the individual accounts that are running on our network. Would appreciate any reply from Tech Dept.

Thanks.

I just purchased $10 skype credit for my BCP account to purchase some subscription for my group. Unfortunately, it's not allowing me to purchase any subscription. I tried to purchase a subscriptin in my personal account and it's not allowing me purchase any subscription either.

Is there a problem with skype right now that users not aware of or it's just me?

I do understand that advertising this SKYPE feature is a purpose of this forum. But I want to warn anybody who plans to spend money on this. As soon as you spend more than few dollars SKYPE will block your account and enjoy using your money while you can do nothing. I naivley paid 115 Euro and the experience is horrific. Skype collects millions by day and leaves customers with only option to come to this Forum. There is no hotline, telephone line or any customer service line. The so called support form is fake, nobody ever responds to it. I do hope this warning is not deleted by administrator. SKYPE seems to exploit decent people, do not repeat my mistake.

Stan

Hi Everyone!

Is anyone else having difficulty obtaining a Business Account?

I applied on behalf of our company on 5th April 2009, submitted all our company details such as registration number, VAT number etc., and read on the website that we would be contacted within 2 - 3 weeks by telephone to verify our company details and then the account would be activated.

I contacted Skype on 16th April and received the following response from Jean Sucquet - Skype / Business Project Executive on 20th April:-

From: "Sucquet, Jean" <Jean.Sucquet@Skype.net>
To:
Subject: RE: Skype for Business
Date: 20 April 2009 16:53

Hello D,

I confirm that we received your request to purchase credit on the Business Control Panel using a credit card.
Your request is in the queue and will be dealt with shortly.

Thank you for your understanding and patience.

Best regards,
Jean Sucquet

Skype / Business Project Executive


I have sent follow-up email on 20th April, 30th April, 11th May and today 18th May 2009 and have received no response and the business account has not been activated.

We have been purchasing credit €10 at a time with our company credit card and can no longer purchase as we have reached the limit.

We tried to use our company PayPal account, but as we changed our name in April, it is blocked to the old company name and we cannot use it for the new company name.

We think the Skype product is excellent and would very much like to use it as we are a company trading internationally, but feel that the customer service is dreadful.

Has anyone else had this experience and could someone please suggest what we can do to get Skype to activate our business account?

Thanks
Desiree

Hello EveryBody

I'm running a business control panel and have some sweets and bitters with that.

I give suscriptions to members to test the results, some have been good, but ALL got auto-recharge by default (i dont know how to disable) that means that when I forget to cancel the suscription (and usually try to do it the last day of the plan) suscription renews automatically and more money is charged to my credit card for a user that will not use the renewed credit.

Is there anyway to control this?

I tried to first asignate to the user the amount of the monthly plan to make him activate the plan himself, but when did that the man could not do it, the system forwards him to credit card direct purchase

any hints?

We are in a 'catch 22 sitauation'.

On one hand, when I try to allocate credit from my business account (skype name: levavie) using the business control panel I can't allocate credit to my employee. I can't do that since the employee's account is marked as private. The error message I get is "Member already has a subscription which must be canceled".

On the other hand, when orit.levav, my employee tries to cancel her subscription she can't see the recommended 'Manage subscription' link which is needed in order to cancel here subscription according to the documentation - the instructions don't seem to work (maybe because she is already a part of a business).

So what should We do?

Hello Skype Community,

I have recently set up a Business Control Panel for my company and have invited all members of staff to download Skype (30 members + administrator).

I am completely new to BCP that is why before purchasing credit and allocating subscriptions I need some clarifications.

How does it work: can i buy a credit and allocate a subscription (for 1 country - Italy) - only for main account - administrator and after that he allocate the credits for the members... or i have to buy a credit for main account and after that he allocates a subscriptions for every member.

if yes what how much it will be cost (for 30 members - monthly subsriptions). I saw some note about 3 or 12 months - how it works?

I would like to assing 2 on line numbers (for 2 members). Could yo please explain how to do it and how much this operation will cost.

Thank you in advance,
Best Regards

Hi there,
Have a small problem. Few days ago all my comp. members recieved a voucher from skype but when we want to activate it it says that there is still subscrition running and that we should wait till it expires the problem is it expired 3 days ago and still cant redeem the voucher what do i have to do to get it work?

as a member of the company I Have credit which I Like to transfer to other member of the company,How do I do that?

Its great that I have read some of the issues on purchasing a Skype telephone number using VOIP. I have been working online and I need to purchase additional Skype telephone number. Which I can use for my business. Reading the comments posted by other subscriber makes more interested.

I have a similar problem.

I purchased a skype pro subscription for myself to get used to skype and explore some features. Some time later I created a business account. Now I'm the situation of being the business owner, business account administrator, and I'm the only one who cannot be added to the business account because I have a 'private subscription' that cannot be transferred or cancelled.

Has anyone found a solution to this problem? Are there any Skype employees who would like to share their wisdom on how to get this working? I can use Skype itself to check call quality, but I still cannot find a skype contact for help from a human.

I bought yesterday the "Unlimited Calling Subscription" for 3 months and now I cannot allocate that subscription to a user in the business portal.

Is it a bug in the business portal or its just I am a bit naive.

Thanks.

your request amazed me, I am desperated by the opposite desire

Today I made a skype credit purchase of 30 USD, I activate a suscription for one user and logged out, when i came back my credit was 0.60 USD and two suscriptions one for country and one for world have been allocated - none of administrators has done this.

I am very upset because I assured that every active suscription was cancelled to prevent the automatic renewal - and those user have more than a month without renewal, i dont know why they were renewed without consent

I fear that if i purchase 1000 USD of skype credit then it will dissappear renewing every user that has been ever suscripted.

I want to cancel this allocations, if not possible tell me how to STOP the automatic renovation, its not business for mi business. thanks.