Opportunities › Self-hosted AI voice agents for telecom operators › Proposed app
Switchboard Keep
Self-hosted AI voice agents for Asterisk and FreePBX, with tenants and no lock-in
- Score
- 44
- confidence 55
- Evidence
- 4
- items on the page
- Rivals
- 2
- named in sources
- First version
- 45 d
- estimate
- Type
- Desktop app
- PWA: runs in the browser, installs on Mac and Windows
- Market since
- 2023
- Emerging market · AI estimate
ScreensConcept
Desktop app: PBX administrators and operators configure agents, manage providers, and review call transcripts—dense technical work requiring sustained keyboard and screen interaction. Sample screens on a computer, in the proposed brand. Their numbers are sample data.
Tenants
All PBX links healthy12 tenants
About this appAI proposal
Switchboard Keep is a control panel for running AI voice agents on your own Asterisk or FreePBX systems. Operators and PBX administrators set up agents, pick which speech-to-text, language model and text-to-speech providers each one uses, and keep call data on their own servers.
It is built for service providers who run voice for many customers. Each customer gets a separate tenant with its own agents, prompts, providers, keys and call logs. You can swap a provider in one place without touching the dialplan.
The material says people turn to self-hosting because SaaS voice AI tries to lock them in. Keep is designed to be provider-neutral, with local processing as an option wherever you can run it.
- Tagline
- Your phones, your models, your data.
- Voice
- PlainTechnicalSteady
- Why this name
- A switchboard is where calls get routed; a keep is a place you hold and defend. Together: routing you control.
In the first version
Members say which features they would use. It tells PWAS what people want; it changes no score.
Native Asterisk and FreePBX hookup
Connect to your PBX, map extensions or inbound routes to an agent, and test a call from the panel.
No member yet
Swap providers per agent
Choose STT, LLM and TTS separately. Hosted APIs or local engines, changed without rebuilding the agent.
No member yet
Multi-tenant by design
Separate tenants for each customer, with their own agents, keys, logs and limits.
No member yet
Local processing option
Run speech and language models on your own hardware so audio and transcripts stay in your network.
No member yet
Brand identityAI proposal
Check the name against trademark registers before using it.
Palette
#0F4C5CDeep Teal · primary#F6F3ECPaper · surface#17242AInk · text#E09F3ESignal Amber · accent#5B8E7DLine Green · data
Typography
Aa
Switchboard Keep
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ 0123456789
Your phones, your models, your data.
PricingAI proposal
The material gives no competitor prices. These tiers are a starting point to test, based on the monetization ideas: tiered licensing for operators, support, and services.
Single PBX
$49 a month
- 1 PBX
- 3 agents
- 1 tenant
- Community support
Operator
$199 a month
- Up to 10 tenants
- Unlimited agents
- Usage export
- Fallback chains
- Email support
Provider
$599 a month
- Up to 50 tenants
- White-label panel
- Priority support
- Deployment help
What it could be worthEstimate
What a software business making this much sells for today, from real deals. Pick a monthly revenue.
If it makes
Worth about
$194,000
Sale range $132,000 to $263,000
$120,000 a year in revenue
From 87 software businesses listed and sold on Empire Flippers in the last year, revenue vetted by the broker: they sell for about 19× their monthly revenue, most between 13× and 26×.
Measured on profit, the middle deal is 32× monthly net profit: about 2.7 years of profit.
An estimate, not an offer or financial advice. A real price depends on profit, growth, churn, how much of the work is the owner's, and the buyer.
How it would growAI proposal
How the product would reach new customers through its own use, and how the first ones would be found. A plan to test, not a result.
- Built-in loop
- No loop in the product. Operators deploy it for their own customers, who hear an agent on the phone but do not see the product. Growth comes from content, community posts and direct outreach to Asterisk and FreePBX users.
- Do they become customers?
- Callers and tenants are not buyers. Only operators and PBX admins can become customers. Test whether admins in Asterisk and FreePBX forums will pay for a managed panel over free alternatives.
- First customers
- Small VoIP service providers running FreePBX or Asterisk for 5 to 30 small-business customers, led by the person who administers the PBX.
- Where to reach them
- FreePBX and Asterisk forums: Post a demo of an agent answering a call on a test PBX and offer a free pilot to admins who reply.
- Hacker News and open-source communities: Share a write-up on provider-neutral voice agents and invite operators to a design-partner list.
- Direct outreach to small providers: Email PBX providers with a fixed-price setup for one customer tenant.
- First milestone
- Three small operators each pay for a pilot covering at least two customer tenants within 60 days.
Why people already pay for this
- VerifiedHacker News post received 32 points and 11 comments
- Public claimExisting SaaS voice AI solutions force vendor lock-in, limiting customer control and flexibility
- Public claimThe Asterisk/FreePBX community has significant adoption and interest in self-hosted AI voice agent solutions
- Public claimOperators need multi-tenant capabilities to manage multiple customers
Tech stack
Every proposal builds on the same PWA base, installable from the browser on any phone or computer. Dashed boxes are what this app adds.
- AppNext.js and TypeScript
- PWAManifest and service worker
- UITailwind CSS
- Data and authSupabase Postgres
- PaymentsStripe
- EmailResend
- HostingVercel
- This app · Telephony bridgeAsterisk ARI/AudioSocket connector serviceStreams call audio between the PBX and the agent runtime; must run next to the customer's PBX.
- This app · Self-hosted runtimeDocker-packaged agent workerOperators run it on their own servers so audio stays local; the PWA is the control panel.
RisksAI inference
- TechnicalReal-time voice needs low latency. Streaming audio between Asterisk, STT, LLM and TTS can feel slow, especially with local models on modest hardware.
- CommercialThe evidence is a single Hacker News post with 32 points and 11 comments. Willingness to pay is untested, and an open-source tool may satisfy many admins free.
- TechnicalFreePBX and Asterisk versions and configurations vary widely, so the connector may need much support work.
- RegulatoryRecording and transcribing calls triggers consent and retention rules that differ by region. Operators need settings for them.
- AIAgents can misunderstand callers or invent answers on live calls. Operators need guardrails, handoff to a human and clear logs.
Everything marked AI proposal or AI inference was written by a model from the evidence on the opportunity page. The proposed name must be checked against trademark registers before it is used.