Pricing
What outsourced door-to-door sales costs, and what you only pay for.
Knoqly is paid per activated subscriber, one fee per plan tier, with a chargeback window for early cancellations. A month with no activations is a month with no invoice. Below: what the fee covers, how it compares with building your own team, and the contract terms that decide what an invoice says.
What the fee covers
Everything between your address file and an installed subscriber.
- Recruiting and vetting
- Reps sourced from local hires and the 500+ door-to-door fiber reps our founder has worked with since 2012, with background checks before anyone works your market.
- Training on your offer
- Every rep is trained on your plans, prices, service area and conduct standard before the first door.
- Field management
- Team leads in the field, turf assigned against your address file, and travel crews for launches.
- Rep pay and chargebacks
- Knoqly pays its reps and carries their chargebacks. You see one invoice per week for the prior week's installs.
- Cancel and missed-appointment saves
- The rep who made the sale gets the first chance to save a cancel or a missed install.
Against building in-house
A 10-rep internal team costs $567,200 to $988,900 a year before the first commission.
That is the fixed cost of salaries, payroll taxes, benefits, management, vehicles, recruiting and training for a 10-seat W-2 door-to-door team over 12 months. A per-activation vendor's fixed column is $0. Outsourcing stays cheaper until a ramped team would produce between 95 and 412 installs a month, depending on the gap between the vendor fee and your own commission.
The four pricing models, and who carries the risk
A fiber ISP asking a door-to-door vendor "what does it cost" gets one of four answers: a fee per activated subscriber, a monthly retainer plus a commission, an hourly rate per canvasser, or a price per lead. Each one puts the ramp risk, the turnover risk, and the cancellation risk on a different party.
| Model | What you pay for | Who carries ramp risk | Who carries turnover risk | Who carries cancellation risk | Where it shows up |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Per activated subscriber | Each account that activates, at a fixed fee per plan tier, less chargebacks | Vendor: no activations, no invoice | Vendor: a rep who quits costs the vendor the recruiting and training, not you | Shared: a chargeback window returns the fee for early cancellations | Fiber-specialist door vendors; dealer programs at AT&T, Frontier and Brightspeed pay dealers this way [Sequifi] |
| Retainer plus commission | A fixed monthly fee per agent or per team, plus a commission per sale | You: the retainer is due in month one while reps are still ramping | You: the retainer covers the seat, filled or not, unless the contract says otherwise | You, unless a clawback clause is written in | Generalist sales outsourcers (Sales Focus states 'monthly fee plus commission' and no commission-only) |
| Hourly canvassing | Hours in the field, often with a doors-per-hour target | You: hours bill whether doors convert or not | You: a new canvasser's first weeks bill at the same rate | You: no link between the hour billed and whether the account stays | Political and nonprofit canvassing firms; some cable retailers |
| Per lead | Each qualified inquiry, whether or not it activates | Vendor, on volume; you, on quality | Vendor | You: no relation between the lead fee and retention | Affiliate and lead-gen networks; rare for door-to-door fiber |
Per activation is the only model where the vendor's invoice is zero in a month with zero results, which is why fiber-specialist vendors use it and generalist outsourcers do not. Sales Focus, the largest generalist in the category, states on its own FAQ that it uses a monthly fee plus commission and will not run commission-only.
Terms that decide what the invoice says
Two vendors can quote the same per-activation fee and bill very differently, because the fee only means something once the trigger, the window and the offset are defined in writing.
| Term | Definition to require in writing | Weak version to refuse |
|---|---|---|
| The trigger | The account is installed and active in your system. The fee is earned then, not at the signature. | "Sale" or "signed order": pays for orders that never install [field experience: 10 to 25% of signed orders in a new market never reach install] |
| Chargeback window | A fixed number of days after activation (30, 60, 90, 120 or 180) inside which a cancellation or non-pay disconnect returns the fee. | No window, or a window that starts at the sale date so it runs out before install |
| Chargeback amount | 100% of the fee for that account, netted against a later invoice. Never more than was paid for that account. | A flat penalty, or a chargeback on accounts the vendor did not sell |
| Plan-tier schedule | One fee per speed tier, listed. | One blended fee with a 'premium tier bonus' defined later |
| What you supply | The serviceable-address file, the order portal or sales channel, the plan and price sheet, and an install report by account. | The vendor building its own address list from public data |
A worked month
Take a market where a crew activates 250 subscribers in a month at a per-activation fee of F, and 12 accounts sold two months earlier cancel inside a 90-day window. The invoice reads 250 x F, less 12 x F, for a net of 238 x F. There is no retainer line and no hourly line. If the same crew activated 40 subscribers in its first month on the ground, the invoice reads 40 x F; under retainer plus commission it would read the full retainer plus 40 commissions, and under hourly canvassing the full month of hours.
How Knoqly prices
Per activated subscriber, one fee per plan tier, set in each client's agreement, with a chargeback window for early cancellations. No setup fee and no monthly minimum. The rate for your build is quoted per engagement.
- How much does outsourced door-to-door sales cost a fiber ISP?
- Per-activation vendors quote one fee per activated subscriber by plan tier. Retainer-plus-commission outsourcers bill a monthly fee per agent plus a commission and do not publish rates. Compare every quote on cost per activated subscriber after chargebacks.
- What is a chargeback window in door-to-door fiber sales?
- A fixed number of days after activation, commonly 30 to 180 by channel and 60 to 90 for door sales, inside which a cancellation or non-pay disconnect returns the vendor's fee for that account.
- Does Knoqly charge a setup fee or a monthly minimum?
- No. There is no setup fee and no monthly minimum. The invoice is the activations for the period, less chargebacks.
- Is building an in-house team cheaper?
- Above a breakeven volume, a stable in-house team can be. A 10-rep W-2 team costs $567,200 to $988,900 a year before the first commission, and per-activation outsourcing stops being cheaper between 95 and 412 installs a month, depending on the gap between the vendor fee and your own commission. Many providers use outside crews for launches either way.
Get the rate for your build.
20 minutes with the founder: your markets, your plan mix, and what a crew would cost per activated subscriber.