The 13 Best Business VoIP Providers in 2019

RingCentral: Best Overall

RingCentral isn’t an instantly recognizable name with a lot of VoIP advertising hype behind it, but the San Mateo, California, company has been in the small-business telephone game since 1999. With network backbones in the US, Europe, and Asia, its reliability is well established. RingCentral’s VoIP service also isn’t the most inexpensive out there, but it includes features that others charge extra for (such as generous toll-free minutes and unlimited video conferencing), so it kind of evens out.

For small to midsize businesses, RingCentral’s Premium plan ($34.99 a month) would cover most office phone needs more than adequately. Features include unlimited users, a toll-free or local number, 2,500 toll-free monthly minutes, unlimited internet faxing, inbound caller ID, automatic call recording, and 50-person video conferencing (which sounds like professional—if not sensory—overload, but it’s available).

On the customer service front, RingCentral receives mostly positive reviews, offering phone assistance during standard work hours, 24/7 online chat service, and ticket service, in addition to weekly webinars and an extensive online knowledge base. Businesses of 20 users or fewer should note, however, that RingCentral favors larger enterprises for US-based support and outsources smaller-office support overseas.

If you’re looking for a feature-loaded, easy-to-implement VoIP system that you won’t have to think about too much, RingCentral is a proven player that does it all. If you’re OK with paying a little more for the comfort, that is.

Ooma: Best for small businesses (with less than five employees)

Based out of Sunnyvale, California, Ooma is our top small-business phone service. The pricing is affordable, and the service offers scalable solutions that can grow with your company. That makes Ooma phone systems ideal for small businesses looking to expand and keep their communications costs low as they grow.

Ooma advertises only one plan: Ooma Office. Ooma Office includes unlimited domestic calls, three-way calling, virtual fax machines, plus most of the industry-standard features you’d expect from a leading private branch exchange (PBX) provider. Of course, if you need more lines, you can always get an Enterprise plan. Enterprise plans get you a unified communications solution that’s completely customized to your business, so costs vary depending on your phone service plan.

Ooma also offers a lot of customer relationship management (CRM) integration features with its Enterprise plans. In other words, you get complete integration of your phone system into your existing customer relationship management software. This allows you to enjoy extra perks like transferring an entire customer workspace whenever you transfer a customer call within your workspace—that way, you don’t lose all the progress you made on your customer’s account just because you have to transfer them to another station.

There is a catch, though. While Ooma’s starting prices are low, they don’t include hardware costs. It’s true that customers can mix and match between their existing analog phones and IP phones, and they can even go mobile-only, but our research showed that other PBX providers include the cost of devices in their plan costs.

Still, if you’ve already got digital phones and hardware, the integration features and low costs of Ooma make it a top-notch choice for small businesses.

Nextiva: Best inexpensive VoIP

You don’t want to cheap out on your business’s VoIP plan, but . . . admit it, you sort of want to cheap out on your business’s VoIP plan. Nextiva, a company based in Scottsdale, Arizona, offers an impressive balance of pricing and features that could assuage any guilt over saving a few bucks. Also, their online management platform makes it simple to juggle multiple lines and employees in different locales (read our review of Nextiva for more info).

*With a prepaid 36-month agreement on 100+ users plan

Nextiva’s pricing can be a little misleading—you’ll want to click those question mark prompts and read the fine print. The basic Office Pro plan is only $19.95 a month if you have 100 or more users and sign a 36-month contract. For one to four employees and no contract, it’s $34.95 a month. Mid-level plan Office Pro Plus starts at $22.95 for the same high employee count and contract, but it climbs to $37.95 a month with the smaller employee base and a month-to-month agreement. With the full-blown bells-and-whistles plan Office Enterprise, it’s the same deal: $29.95 a month with the high count and contract, $44.95 without.

Still, with all the features and functionality Nextiva includes, the fact that no plan exceeds 50 bucks a month is notable. A micro-sized office could get by easily with the bare-bones Office Pro setup, but the advanced features of Office Pro Plus and Office Enterprise are tempting for a few dollars more: the Nextiva mobile voice and video app and the Team Presence status indicator (both included in Office Pro Plus) are useful upgrades, as are call recording and the number-meshing Nextiva Anywhere app (Office Enterprise).

Nextiva VoIP service does a whole lot for very little—and that’s not even mentioning that its customer support is handled completely in-house with no overseas outsourcing. As with Jive, Nextiva is not recommended for heavy international calling, but for a small business on a tight budget, Nextiva could be a simple answer.

Grasshopper: Best for mobile businesses

Let’s face it: the office environment isn’t for everyone. If you frequently work out of office or run a mobile business (like a food truck or pop-up store), you may find that Grasshopper is the best phone service for you. Grasshopper offers iOS and Android apps that allow you to make and receive calls on your cell phone using your business number—that way, you can keep your personal and work communications separate. It’s a great VoIP software for any entrepreneur who doesn’t want or need desktop phones as part of their PBX solutions.

*With annual billing

While we think Grasshopper is great for small businesses, it misses out on our “Best Small-Business Phone Service” title because, compared to Ooma, Grasshopper is a little expensive. Grasshopper plans start at $26 per month, assuming you sign up for annual billing. And starting plans include only one business phone number with up to three extensions.

Still, we like that (unlike many business VoIP solutions) Grasshopper offers the same features on each of its plans. In other words, small businesses that need only a few extensions get the same high-end features as a large company with unlimited extensions. That makes it easy to find the right Grasshopper communications plan for your business, saving you valuable work time.

That being said, Grasshopper also offers fewer unified communications features than other PBX solutions on the market, and it does place some industry-standard features behind paywalls. Grasshopper also requires you to provide your own devices, which means lower monthly costs but potentially higher up-front costs if you need to upgrade your office’s old analog phones.

Long story short: Grasshopper doesn’t provide perfect, low-cost phone systems. But if you’re looking for a solution that offers complete integration with your personal mobile devices, Grasshopper is a good bet.

Vonage: Best for growing businesses

Vonage is probably one of the most well-known PBX providers on the market—and for good reason. Vonage phone service is easily scalable, so it can keep up with your business as it grows while maintaining affordable pricing. As we covered in our Vonage review, Vonage also offers integrations with everything from Salesforce to Slack. So if your business outgrows your current customer relationship management tools, you can switch without having to worry about whether your VoIP communications service offers integration with your new CRM.

Vonage is also one of the more inexpensive virtual PBX providers. For a mobile plan that includes just one to four lines, it’s just $19.99 per month (per line)—just 4￠ more than our budget pick. And as your business grows, your cost per line goes down dramatically.

Vonage’s Premium and Advanced plans also pack a punch with their integrations and features. With a Premium or Advanced plan, you can use Vonage on your mobile devices or desktop phones, so you don’t have to pay extra for devices and hardware. You do, however, have to pay extra for some features (like toll-free numbers and paperless fax to replace your outdated fax machines).

We think that’s understandable, though, considering Vonage offers top-notch customer support to match its top-notch phone systems. All Vonage customers enjoy 24/7 customer support and IT solutions. And with Advanced Vonage plans, business owners get Orange-Glove Setup of their phone systems. And in case you’re wondering, Orange-Glove Setup = white-glove setup, but, you know . . . orange to match Vonage’s colors.

Basically, between its features, integrations, and scalable pricing, Vonage can keep up with any changes your growing business experiences—whether it’s a company-wide device upgrade or just a growing salesforce.

Verizon VoIP: Best for medium-sized businesses

You know Verizon; everybody knows Verizon. It’s a mobile leader, and its ultra-fast Fios (fiber-optic internet) service is expanding rapidly—so of course it’s also in the VoIP business. Verizon has built-in  bring-your-own-device (BYOD) solutions, as well as the internet connections (both fiber-optic and DSL) to support a reliable VoIP business service. Consolidation of all your business’s telecommunication needs into a single bill could be easily accomplished with New York–established Verizon. It would be more convenient than cheap, however.

Verizon’s Business Digital Voice VoIP plans start high but come down in price as more users are added. For under 10 employees, it’s $35 a month; 11 to 20, $30 a month; and 21 or more, $25 a month. It’s a sliding-scale illusion that would end up costing about the same no matter the number of people in your enterprise. But Verizon isn’t a budget choice for small businesses: it’s a reliability choice.

If you’re located in one of the 21 states currently serviced by Verizon Fios—which are mostly in the northeast—you’ll have access to one of the fastest internet connections available, which is perfect for VoIP. If you’re in DSL-only country, the speed will be slower, but uptime is still guaranteed at 99.95%. Either internet option will support steady VoIP service, and if your business is more medium-sized than small, Verizon could add up to a better value in the long run (especially if you’re in Fios territory).

Since Verizon is a massive company, customer service ratings are in line with what you’d usually read in the comments section—meaning, people are far more motivated to complain than praise. Navigating Verizon’s bundling plans for businesses may be like a choose-your-own-adventure odyssey, but its support lines are segregated well, with separate contacts for small, medium, and larger businesses. Verizon also offers competitive SLAs (service level agreements) for quality and service and 24/7 support via phone, email, and tickets.

Verizon Business Digital Voice isn’t necessarily budget friendly for a smaller business, but the upper-tier plans should be attractive to medium and larger outfits that demand reliable uptime, or at least prefer an all-in-one telecom provider.

8×8: Best VoIP for international calling

San Jose–based 8×8 is one of the earliest VoIP providers, launched in 2002 and now serving over a million businesses. And it keeps it simple: 8×8 has only three VoIP plans, but they’re loaded with features, and small companies conducting international business should be especially interested in what they have to offer. Additionally, 8×8 is set up to integrate with many a useful third-party business app, including Salesforce, Zendesk, Netsuite, and Microsoft Dynamics.

The 8×8 plans have all of the expected VoIP features and then some, and the calling zones are inexpensively expansive: the basic Virtual Office plan can put your business in touch with Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK—as well as the US and Canada. The Virtual Office Pro plan adds 18 more countries, while Virtual Office X8 beefs up that reach by 14 for a total of 46 countrie. Mobile, special, and premium number access is limited in some countries, but 8×8’s coverage versus cost is still impressive.

It’s relatively easy to set up and get started with 8×8, and its multi-channel 24/7 customer support and online knowledge base are on point. Plus, 8×8 offers an additional, unique help solution in a form of crowdsourcing, wherein certified, established customers provide assistance and firsthand know-how to newcomers for rewards. So you can become a helpful 8×8 consultant for warm fuzzies and cold cash.

Even if your business doesn’t make many outgoing calls outside of the US and Canada, 8×8 is a solid VoIP choice in terms of service and features. For regular international callers, it’s a practically unbeatable value.

Jive: Best feature-rich VoIP

Should you trust a company called Jive? The reviews say yes: Jive has nearly as many glowing critical quotes as the Radiohead discography, minus the pretentious lyricism. The Orem, Utah, VoIP provider has established a positive industry reputation since its launch in 2006, thanks mostly to its interface simplicity, focus on small businesses, and large array of telephone features that are available to all pricing tiers.

Like Verizon, Jive’s monthly per-user rates come down as employee count goes up. But the Tier 1 plan (1 to 4 users) at $29.95 a month is just 10 bucks more than the Tier 5 plan (50 or more users) at $19.95—not a huge bump in costs, which are already quite inexpensive. Also, Jive includes the same 75+ VoIP features across all of their tiers, with a handful of extra-charge exceptions (like international calling and number porting).

Jive VoIP is a simple setup if you buy their preconfigured phones—which come from recognized names like Cisco, VTech, and Panasonic, so quality isn’t an issue. Jive’s customer service is US-based, with 24/7 phone, live chat, and email options, as well as specific lines for small businesses, larger businesses, government entities, and education clients. Jive also hosts an exhaustive YouTube channel dedicated to understanding phone systems and features.

For a smaller company conducting business within the US, Jive is a simple and feature-loaded VoIP that could be hooked up and running immediately for little money and no long-term contracts. Companies planning on extensive international calling, however, might want to look elsewhere.

5 more VoIP providers reviewed by Business.org:

What other business owners say

The takeaway

Copper phone lines are almost a thing of the past—like it or not, VoIP systems may soon be your only business phone choice. Fortunately, you have plenty of VoIP options to choose from, with more digital features and price-point variations than the telephone companies of ye olden days could have ever provided. It’s an increasingly competitive market—do your homework before settling on a small-business VoIP system.

Not convinced VoIP is right for your business? Check out our guide to how VoIP differs from other options, or click over to our summary of the different types of phone systems for business.

Disclaimers

At Business.org, our research is meant to offer general product and service recommendations. We don’t guarantee that our suggestions will work best for each individual or business, so consider your unique needs when choosing products and services.

Sources:

1. BuiltWith, “Squarespace Usage Statistics”