How SMBs Save Money with 3CX Hot Desking
Kalamazoo, MI | August 19th, 2026
This article at a glance:
- 3CX hot desking lets multiple people use one desk phone.
- Hot desking is a great way for SMBs to save money on overhead.
- Hot desking is easy to set up with the help of an MSP like us at Omega.
Hot desking is a 3CX feature that allows users to log in and out of desk phones anywhere in their organization.
Being able to log in to desk phones anywhere in your organization is so helpful because it downloads all your contact information in seconds.
In other words, you can access your contacts, voicemails, and speed dials from anywhere with a 3CX desk phone.
But while these features seem small, they’re actually saving businesses thousands of dollars.
How SMBs Save with 3CX Hot Desking
The way I see it, there are two major costs to desk phones: purchase cost and management cost.
Saving on Purchase Cost
The cost of purchasing a VOIP phone isn’t small. Just one phone can easily run you $150 or more. Spread across a business of 30 people, that means an investment of at least $4,500.
But for many businesses, not everyone is using their desk phone at the same time.
Take a call center, for example. Even though there might be 30 employees working there, they work in three shifts. As a result, there are only ever 10 employees in-office at the same time.
So, here’s the question: if only 10 employees are ever in-office at the same time, why buy 30 desk phones?
With 3CX hot desking, employees can just log into their account at the start of each shift and log out at the end—it only takes a minute at most. So instead, our call center could just buy 10 phones, saving $3,000 on redundant phones.
And let’s not forget, when the time comes to upgrade these phones, our call center is only upgrading 10, not 30.
Saving on Management Costs
There’s also a subtle long-term savings for using 3CX hot desking: management costs.
By “management costs,” I really mean all of the headaches that come with having assigned desk phones.
Let’s think about another type of business: a law firm.
If you worked at a law firm with multiple locations, then you’ll probably end up traveling between offices at some point. But when that time comes, you’d have to take your desk phone with you every time you travel. And not only that, but you’d also need IT to set it up once you get there.
Though it might seem like an inconvenience, remember the cost of paying a lawyer’s salary. Throughout multiple years and dozens of lawyers, the time spent hauling desk phones from place to place could cost thousands of dollars.
So instead, your company could just buy a couple of extra desk phones for each location. That way, you can log in using hot desking and never worry about hauling your bulky desk phone around again.
How to Set Up 3CX Hot Desking
Want to learn more about setting up 3CX hot desking? We actually just created a short video guide to walk you through the whole process (presented by yours truly).
Learn About VOIP Services for SMBs
As a managed service provider with decades of experience, we’ve set up VOIP phone services like 3CX for hundreds of SMBs. And now, we’d be happy to share that expertise with you.
Click here to chat with us about setting up the right VOIP phone service for you!
