For the last few years, Phonecarddepot.com has tracked the sales and customer satisfaction levels of many of Toronto's top Calling Cards.

The prepaid calling cards included in our study are:

20/20
CiCi
First Choice
Gold
Jia
Phonebuster Flat
SIFA

Our study has revealed that consumers making purchases online are much more selective than those purchasing through traditional streams such as variety stores, post offices or video store locations.  This selectivity causes consumers to purchase "clean" (no-fee) calling cards with higher per-minute rates over maintenance/connection fee based cards.

Phone Card Depot attributes this selectiveness to 3 factors available online and not available in-store:
1.  Comparison shopping and tools
2.  Immediate access to rating detail
3.  Wide selection of calling cards online.

1. Comparison shopping allows consumers to quickly calculate whether a fee based card yields the same number of minutes as a no-fee calling card.  By typing in a few simple equations into Excel, the consumer is able to calculate the actual number of minutes that a fee-based card will yield.  In almost all cases, a no-fee card yields a higher number of actual calling minutes than a fee-based card with lower per minute-rates.

2.  Determining the per minute rate to a calling destination can be tricky while standing in-line at a local variety store or post office.  Usually posters are available, but often these posters do not include every calling destination.  On-line systems such as the one at phonecarddepot.com enable consumers to access per-minute rates immediately.

3.  Many variety stores carry a very limited selection of prepaid calling cards.  The cards included in their inventory are usually fee-based cards because they typically have a higher retail profit margin.  Consumers have so many options online, because of this they are not forced to purchase a certain brand of card due to availability.

Of the calling cards included in our study, only CiCi Calling Card and First Choice Calling Card are truly no-fee cards.  These cards have continued to provide consumers with the best value when calling from Canada to the USA and to international destinations.