4. Cost Comparison

A good way to compare the relative costs of Vonage and Skype is to see what the Skype equivalent of Vonage's Basic 500 plan would cost. Since all Skype prices are in Euros (€), I've converted them to U.S. dollars (USD) using the 1€ = $1.26 USD rate in effect as I write this.

Table 1 shows that you won't save a pile of money with Skype if you use your 500 minutes of off-network calling each month. But if you're a light caller, your savings could increase since you have 180 days (6 months!) from your last Skype call before the SkypeOut credits go away. (Skype recently changed this credit expiration policy from 6 months after purchase.)

Table 2 compares per minute costs to a few international locations. Given that (with a few exceptions) SkypeOut's per-minute international rates are around 20 to 50 percent cheaper than Vonage's, it stands to reason that the more international calls you make over SkypeOut, and the longer each call is, the greater your savings will be. (Click on the links in Table 2 to check out the International rate tables.)