In short: Inbound means customers call you. Outbound means you call customers. An AI voice agent can do both. On inbound calls it answers at once, responds to questions, books appointments and transfers to your team. On outbound calls it suits above all calls your customers expect: appointment reminders, missing documents, callbacks on enquiries. In Germany, advertising calls to consumers without prior express consent are prohibited, with or without AI. With EchoCall a call minute costs €0.30 in every plan, and phone number and telephony come on top.
We rewrote this post in October 2026. The old version gave €0.18 as the price per minute. That is what an extra minute costs, within a plan it is €0.30. It also promised unlimited simultaneous calls, real-time A/B tests of call scripts, automatic detection of emotional escalation and a handover with a context briefing. We cannot back up any of this. It also recommended cold calling "at the push of a button" and calls to shoppers who abandoned their basket, without saying that this is prohibited for consumers without consent. The hourly rate of €40 for staff had no source. All of that has been corrected.
Inbound and outbound: the difference
| Direction | Who dials | Typical calls | Legal framework |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inbound | the customer | questions, appointments, order status, faults, cancellations | GDPR and AI disclosure |
| Outbound | your company | reminders, callbacks, payment and delivery information, offers | in Germany also Section 7 UWG once the call is advertising |
For most companies, AI telephony starts with inbound. That is where the benefit is easiest to measure and the legal position is simple. Outbound comes in when there are recurring calls that a person works through today.
Automating inbound: what the agent takes over on incoming calls
An AI voice agent answers calls on your phone number. It often runs as a forwarding target: if nobody picks up or the line is busy, the call goes to the agent. It understands freely spoken requests and answers from the knowledge you give it: website, PDFs, price lists, FAQs. With EchoCall it understands and speaks more than 30 languages and can detect the caller's language automatically.
Typical inbound tasks:
- Answering questions: opening hours, services, prices from your list, process.
- Booking appointments: in Google Calendar, Outlook, Calendly or Cal.com.
- Taking enquiries: name, callback number, request, as a contact in HubSpot or Salesforce, as a ticket in Zendesk, Freshdesk, ServiceNow or Jira, or as a message to your team in Slack or Microsoft Teams.
- Looking up orders: in an online shop on Shopify or Shopware 6.
- Transferring: urgent calls to a phone number on your team.
How much this brings depends on the calls nobody answers today. How to work that out for your business is shown in Missed Calls Cost Revenue. How an agent pre-qualifies prospects on the phone is described in AI Lead Qualification by Phone in 2026.
AI outbound calling: which calls are suitable
With outbound calls, the purpose decides, not the technology. As soon as a call is meant to sell, renew or win something back, it is advertising. In Germany, Section 7 of the Unfair Competition Act (UWG) then applies. [1]
| Call | Advertising? | Suitable for AI? |
|---|---|---|
| appointment reminder, appointment confirmation | no | yes |
| missing documents, payment and delivery information | no, as long as it stays with the contract | yes |
| callback the customer asked for | no, as long as it stays with the request | yes |
| offer to contacts who have consented | yes | yes, with documented consent |
| cold calling consumers | yes | no, prohibited without consent |
| cold calling businesses | yes | legally open, details in the guide |
Can voice agents be used for outbound sales campaigns?
Technically yes. Legally only for contacts who have consented, or, with businesses, with a risk that no court has yet settled. With businesses, presumed consent is enough for a call by a person. Whether an AI agent counts as an automatic calling machine, which requires express consent even in B2B, is open. The full reasoning is in our guide AI Cold Calling in 2026. How to handle win-back calls is described in AI Outbound for Customer Win-Back in 2026.
How a campaign works in EchoCall
In EchoCall you create a campaign, upload a list as a CSV file or enter it by hand, up to 10,000 recipients, and start at once or at a scheduled time. The campaign view shows status, costs and the conversation history. Running or scheduled campaigns can be cancelled. Via the API you create campaigns straight from your own system.
EchoCall does not check consents and does not match against a do-not-call list. That remains your job. The steps in detail are in AI Batch Calling 2026: How to Run AI Outbound Call Campaigns.
Which GDPR requirements apply to outbound calls?
Besides competition law, the GDPR applies to every outbound call. The key points in brief:
- Legal basis: you need a legal basis under Article 6 GDPR. For service calls this is usually the performance of the contract, for advertising usually consent. [2]
- Duty to inform: if you did not get the number from the person themselves, you must tell them where the data comes from, at the latest at the first contact (Article 14 GDPR). [3]
- Objection: once someone objects to direct marketing, you may no longer use their data for it (Article 21(3) GDPR). The agent must understand "please do not call me again" and pass it on. [4]
- Documenting consent: for telephone advertising to consumers, Section 7a UWG requires you to document consent and keep the record for five years. [5]
- AI disclosure: Article 50 of the AI Act has applied since 2 August 2026. People talking to an AI must be told. [6] With EchoCall you write this notice into the phone agent's first message. The editor shows a hint for it, and the help centre has example sentences.
- Data processing: your provider processes the calls on your behalf. You need a data processing agreement. EchoCall runs in IONOS data centres in Frankfurt and Karlsruhe.
More on data protection for voice agents is in AI and Data Security 2026.
How AI outbound agents handle objections
A voice agent responds to objections the way you define in the prompt. It has no sales talent of its own and should not pretend to. A proven approach is to store a fixed response for the most common objections:
| Objection | Good response from the agent |
|---|---|
| "I don't have time right now." | Offer a better time or book an appointment in the calendar. |
| "Where did you get my number?" | Name the source, as you have stored it in the prompt. |
| "Send me that by email." | Confirm the email address and send an email via Gmail or SMTP. |
| "I want to speak to a person." | Transfer to a phone number on your team or promise a callback. |
| "Not interested." | End politely. No second attempt. |
| "Don't call me again." | Confirm, end the call and pass the objection on to your system. |
Two rules matter more than any wording. First: no means no. An agent that pushes back annoys people faster than a member of staff, because everyone senses a script running. Second: the agent promises nothing that is not in the prompt, so no discounts, no deadlines, no special terms.
Some outbound calls end up on voicemail. With voicemail detection, the agent can recognise whether a person or a voicemail answers. Test how this behaves with your contacts before you start a large list.
Handover to people: when and how
A good agent knows its limits, but only if you tell it what they are. EchoCall does not provide automatic emotion detection that escalates on its own. You define in the prompt when the agent hands over:
- The caller explicitly asks for a person.
- It is about a complaint, damage or a legal question.
- It is about an order above a limit you set.
- The agent cannot find the answer in its knowledge.
On the phone the agent then connects to a phone number on your team. For times when nobody is available, you specify that it takes a callback request instead and passes it on. In chat, your team can take over the conversation in the Live Inbox. Every conversation is then available as a history in the dashboard.
What does it cost? AI and people compared
With EchoCall the voice agent costs €75 for 250 minutes, €150 for 500, €450 for 1,500 and €1,500 for 5,000 minutes a month. That is €0.30 per minute, with no setup fee. Phone number and telephony are not included in the plan price. [7] Inbound and outbound come from the same minute plan.
A worked example with assumptions: each month 300 calls of 3 minutes each come in, which is 900 minutes. On top come 400 appointment reminders of 1.5 minutes each, which is 600 minutes. Together 1,500 minutes.
| Option | Calculation | Cost per month |
|---|---|---|
| AI voice agent with EchoCall | 1,500-minute plan, telephony extra | €450 |
| Outsourcing priced per minute | 1,500 minutes times €0.50 to €1.20 [8] | €750 to €1,800 |
| Own full-time employee | €2,420 gross median [9] plus roughly 21 % employer contributions [10] | roughly €2,930 |
The table does not compare like with like. A full-time employee does more than make calls, and a call centre also takes on difficult conversations. Per minute, a person is barely more expensive: €2,930 divided by roughly 140 working hours gives about €21 an hour or €0.35 a minute. The difference lies in availability and dialling. An agent also answers at night and at weekends, and on outbound calls it does not wait for the ringing tone itself. The full calculation with all items is in Call Center or AI Voice Agent? The 2026 Cost Comparison.
How to get started
- Demo without signup: enter your website address on /demo. The demo builds an agent from your public pages in about 20 seconds, which you can call in the browser.
- Trial: 30 voice minutes and 30 chat conversations for 14 days, and the credit card is verified with €1.
- Start with inbound: store your knowledge, connect your calendar, define the transfer and write the AI notice into the first message.
- Test calls: call ten times with different requests, including difficult ones. Check answers, appointments and transfer.
- Start outbound small: first 20 numbers with a service reason, such as appointment reminders, then read the conversations and sharpen the prompt.
If you have questions about the setup, you can reach us via the contact page.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between inbound and outbound calls?
Inbound calls are calls that come in to you, such as customer questions or appointment requests. Outbound calls are calls your company makes, such as appointment reminders, callbacks or offers. For outbound, competition law also applies as soon as the call is advertising.
Can an AI voice agent run outbound sales campaigns?
Technically yes. In Germany, advertising calls to consumers are only allowed with prior express consent. With businesses it is open whether an AI agent counts as an automatic calling machine that requires express consent. Calls to contacts with documented consent and service calls are safe.
Which GDPR requirements apply to outbound calls?
You need a legal basis under Article 6 GDPR, must tell people where their data comes from if you did not get it from them, and must respect an objection to direct marketing at once. On top come the AI disclosure under Article 50 of the AI Act and a data processing agreement with your provider.
How do AI outbound agents handle objections?
The way you define in the prompt. Store a fixed response for the most common objections: offer an appointment, send an email, transfer to a person. On "not interested" or "don't call me again", the agent ends the call politely and passes the objection on.
When does the agent hand over to a person?
When you define it in the prompt, for example on explicit request, for complaints, for larger orders or when it does not know the answer. On the phone it then connects to a phone number on your team. EchoCall has no automatic emotion detection.
What does AI telephony for inbound and outbound cost?
With EchoCall a call minute costs €0.30 in every plan, from €75 for 250 minutes to €1,500 for 5,000 minutes a month, with no setup fee. Phone number and telephony come on top. Inbound and outbound calls come from the same plan.
Sources
- Section 7 UWG, unacceptable nuisance (in German): gesetze-im-internet.de
- Article 6 GDPR, lawfulness of processing: gdpr-info.eu
- Article 14 GDPR, information where data have not been obtained from the data subject: gdpr-info.eu
- Article 21 GDPR, right to object: gdpr-info.eu
- Section 7a UWG, consent to telephone advertising (in German): gesetze-im-internet.de
- Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Article 50: eur-lex.europa.eu
- EchoCall pricing: echocall.de/en/pricing
- yoummday, Call Center Costs, market ranges for German-language providers: yoummday.com
- brutto-netto-gehaltsrechner.de, call centre agent salary, median €2,420 (in German): brutto-netto-gehaltsrechner.de
- lohnklar.de, employer social security contributions 2026 (in German): lohnklar.de
All links were checked on 6 October 2026. Third-party prices can change. This post is not legal advice.
