Microsoft Teams Audio Conferencing with Dial-Out to USA/CAN: What the $0 License Includes, and When You Still Need the Paid One

In Microsoft's October 2026 Commercial price list the product is "Microsoft Teams Audio Conferencing with dial-out to USA/CAN" and the SKU title is "Microsoft Teams Audio Conferencing includes dial-out to USA/CAN only". Its list price is $0.00 per user per year on an annual term, $0.00 per user per month on a monthly term, and $0.00 on the annual term billed monthly (Microsoft list price, October 2026 price list, Commercial segment). The Non-Profit and Government variants are $0.00 as well. The one exception in the same product family is the SKU for India-based users, which is $24.00 per user per year, or $24.00 ÷ 12 = $2.00 per user per month on an annual term.

It is still a license: it has a term and a quantity, it is assigned to named users, and it appears on every renewal. We add it to quotes at $0.00 so the count matches the people who organize meetings; order it from the Microsoft Teams Audio Conferencing with dial-out to USA/CAN page.

Microsoft's documentation describes the license as including unlimited toll dial-in minutes and 60 dial-out minutes per user per month, pooled at the tenant level, to United States and Canadian phone numbers, and states that a Microsoft Teams license is required. In practice that is three things.

Dial-in numbers. Every meeting scheduled by a licensed organizer carries a conference bridge number and a conference ID in the invitation. Anyone with the number and the ID can join from any phone, inside or outside the company. The default bridge numbers are toll numbers; toll-free numbers are covered below.

Dial-out from the meeting. A participant can use "Call me" to have Teams ring their phone, and an organizer or presenter can add a phone number to the meeting. With this license, those outbound calls go only to numbers in the United States and Canada. That is the "only" in the SKU title.

A pooled minute allowance. Microsoft's documentation states that the pool is 60 minutes per licensed user per month, pooled across the tenant, and sized by the licenses assigned to users rather than purchased: in Microsoft's example, 100 licenses bought and 20 assigned gives a pool of 1,200 minutes. When the pool is used up, further dial-out in the month needs Communications Credits.

Microsoft's add-on licensing documentation lists the license as an add-on for Microsoft 365 and Office 365 E1 and E3, F1 and F3, and the Microsoft 365 Business plans, and states that Microsoft 365 E5 and Office 365 E5 already include Audio Conferencing. The license goes to the meeting organizer, not to attendees; the person who schedules the meeting is the one whose license puts the dial-in number on the invitation.

Assignment is the same as any other license: buy the quantity through your CSP subscription, then assign it in the Microsoft 365 admin center to each user who organizes meetings, or through a group-based licensing rule for the whole staff. In the Teams admin center, under Users, you can set each organizer's default bridge number, a toll-free number if you have one, and whether unauthenticated callers wait in the lobby.

The paid Microsoft 365 Audio Conferencing license is $30.00 per user per year, $2.50 per user per month on an annual term (Microsoft list price, October 2026 price list). The difference is the dial-out footprint. Microsoft's documentation states that each standard Audio Conferencing subscription includes 60 minutes per user per month for dial-out calls to non-premium numbers in any Zone A country or region, again pooled at the tenant level, and that the benefit applies to monthly subscription licenses and not to pay-per-minute licenses. If your meetings need to call out to a participant in London or Sydney, the $0.00 license cannot do it from its pool and the paid license can.

Dial-in is the same on both; the paid license is not a better conference bridge, it is a wider dial-out allowance. For a United States organization whose outbound meeting calls stay in North America, the paid one is $2.50 per user per month for a capability nobody uses.

A second add-on sits alongside: "Extended Dial-out Minutes to USA/CAN", listed under the Microsoft 365 Audio Conferencing product at $48.00 per user per year, $4.00 per user per month on an annual term (Microsoft list price, October 2026 price list). Microsoft's documentation describes it as an offer for customers with a high business need for dialing out to the United States and Canada, allowing virtually unlimited US and Canada dial-out minutes for audio conferencing users, subject to a fair use policy. It is for the few tenants whose pooled minutes run out every month; confirm with us which base conferencing license it attaches to before ordering.

Audio Conferencing, paid or not, is about meetings. It does not give a person a phone number, does not let them place or receive ordinary calls, and does not build auto attendants or call queues. For that you need Teams Phone, which is the PBX, and a way to connect it to the public telephone network: a Microsoft calling plan, Operator Connect, or Direct Routing. Our Calling Plan vs Operator Connect vs Direct Routing article covers that choice; here are the list prices for the calling-plan route, all Commercial, annual term, annual price divided by 12 (Microsoft list price, October 2026 price list):

• Microsoft Teams Phone Standard: $120.00 per year, $10.00 per user per month. The PBX license: a number, calling, voicemail, auto attendants and call queues. It needs a base license with Teams and a PSTN connection.
• Microsoft Teams Domestic Calling Plan, the SKU for customers in the US, UK and Canada: $96.00 per year, $8.00 per user per month. Pooled domestic minutes on top of Teams Phone Standard.
• Microsoft Teams Domestic and International Calling Plan: $288.00 per year, $24.00 per user per month.
• Microsoft Teams Phone with Calling Plan, country zone 1 (US): $204.00 per year, $17.00 per user per month. Teams Phone Standard and the domestic plan in one SKU.
• Microsoft Teams Phone with pay-as-you-go calling, zone 1 (US): $156.00 per year, $13.00 per user per month, with minutes metered through Communications Credits; the plan-only version, Microsoft Teams Calling Plan pay-as-you-go, is $36.00 per year, $3.00 per user per month.

So the rule is simple. Stay on the $0.00 license when your organizers are in the United States and outbound meeting calls go to US and Canadian numbers. Buy the paid Audio Conferencing license for the organizers who dial out to other Zone A countries, and Extended Dial-out Minutes for the few who exhaust the pool on North American calls. Buy Teams Phone Standard plus a calling plan, Operator Connect or Direct Routing when people need a phone number, inbound calls, voicemail, an auto attendant or a call queue; no conferencing license does any of that. Under New Commerce the $0.00 license still has a term and a quantity, so count it at renewal like everything else; our renewal checklist for Teams Phone and calling plans covers what to verify before the anniversary.

Communications Credits are a prepaid balance in your tenant that Microsoft draws down for calls your licenses do not cover. Microsoft's documentation states they are needed to provide toll-free conference bridge numbers and to support conferencing dial-out to international phone numbers, and that dial-out to countries outside the included list is charged per minute against them. They also cover conferencing dial-out once the pooled monthly minutes are exhausted, and the metered minutes behind the pay-as-you-go calling SKUs.

Three practical points. First, with the $0.00 dial-out license, Communications Credits are optional: if you never need toll-free dial-in or international dial-out and the pool is enough, you can leave them unfunded, and dial-out simply stops when the pool is empty. Second, if you want a toll-free number on invitations, you must fund them; a toll-free number costs you per minute for every caller who uses it. Third, the charges are Microsoft's metered consumption, billed as used, and they are the customer's cost; they are not in our price list and no fixed figure for them appears in this article.

Is the dial-out to USA/CAN license really $0.00?

Yes, on Microsoft's October 2026 Commercial price list it is $0.00 per user on the annual and monthly terms. It still needs an eligible base license with Teams, it is assigned per organizer, and the only metered charges are Communications Credits if you choose to use them.

Can a licensed user dial out to the United Kingdom?

Not from the pooled minutes on the $0.00 license; it covers US and Canadian numbers only. Dial-out to other countries needs the paid Audio Conferencing license for Zone A countries, or Communications Credits per minute for the rest.

Does Microsoft 365 E5 need this license?

No. Microsoft's documentation states that Microsoft 365 E5 and Office 365 E5 already include Audio Conferencing. The add-on is for E1, E3, F1, F3 and Business plan users.

• Microsoft Learn, "Audio Conferencing Dial-Out/Call Me At minutes", "Office 365 Audio Conferencing Extended Dial-out Minutes to US and Canada", "Microsoft Teams add-on licenses", "Plan Audio Conferencing for Teams meetings" and "What are Communications Credits?", and Microsoft's Teams Audio Conferencing product page (www.microsoft.com): as reported by search excerpts opened 2026-10-05; learn.microsoft.com and microsoft.com were not reachable from our environment, so verify there
• Microsoft Commercial price list, October 2026 (every list price above): CFQ7TTC0JXCZ (Microsoft Teams Audio Conferencing with dial-out to USA/CAN), CFQ7TTC0LHSL (Microsoft 365 Audio Conferencing and Extended Dial-out Minutes to USA/CAN), CFQ7TTC0LH0T, CFQ7TTC0LHXJ, CFQ7TTC0LHXT, CFQ7TTC0HL73, CFQ7TTC0MJ20 and CFQ7TTC0QR79 (Teams Phone and calling plans)
• IT Partner blog: teams-phone-calling-plan-vs-operator-connect-vs-direct-routing-how-to-choose; renewing-teams-phone-and-calling-plans-under-nce-the-checklist
• IT Partner pages: content/services/ITPWW170IMPOT and ITPWW420MSPRC; subscription pages for the products above
• IT Partner quoting notes, October 2026