The 13 Best Business VoIP Providers in 2020

Now that the coronavirus has become a full-blown pandemic and many businesses have been forced to transition to at-home work, a reliable business phone plan has become more important than ever. Fortunately, business VoIP services can help.

VoIP transforms outgoing or incoming calls into a digital signal and sends it through the internet, converting it to a standard telephone signal to reach a non-VoIP number. This allows you to receive business calls on your personal mobile device. You can even make calls through your VoIP provider’s app on your smartphone—and you won’t have to worry about clients ignoring your call since their caller ID will register your business number instead of your personal number.

All this makes VoIP service a more important tool for your business than ever before. We’re here to help with a list of the best business VoIP providers on the market.

Curious to find out more about the phone companies near you? Answer a few questions to find out more about the options in your area.

RingCentral’s cloud-hosted VoIP service isn’t the cheapest option right out of the box, but it does include features that other providers charge extra for (such as generous toll-free minutes and unlimited video conferencing). Plus, RingCentral offers price matching on plans with less than 50 lines, so you can rest easy knowing you’re getting the best possible price for your business phone plan.

To help businesses work from home, RingCentral provides unlimited internet faxing and audioconferencing on all the plans listed above. Video meetings can include up to 100 participants, and meetings can last up to 24 hours—just in case your group needs to burn the midnight oil. Standard plans and higher also include popular communication integrations like 365, G Suite, and Slack.

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.

With its affordable pricing and scalable solutions, Ooma is one of our favorite small-business phone plans. But Ooma also stands out as one of the best VoIP phone services for businesses working from home.

Ooma phone systems are flexible, so you can use your office phone while working at home, place and accept work calls on your cell phone, and even use the Ooma desktop app to place calls on your computer. And Ooma’s plans stay affordable even with an upper-tier plan.

But while we’re mostly focusing on Ooma’s business solutions, we also need to talk about Ooma Telo. Ooma Telo is an advanced firewall router for your home that also acts as a voicemail machine and call forwarder. The basic version costs $99.99, but once you have it, you can enjoy free VoIP service at home. That’s great for your wallet if you’re a solopreneur trying to manage your business from your house.

Or let’s say you have an at-home employee who’s struggling with a terrible internet connection. Ooma has a 4G version of the Telo that operates on a cellular network instead of an ethernet internet connection. Users with this option can essentially enjoy VoIP phone systems at home, even if they’re in the middle of nowhere with no internet connection. And unlike other business internet and phone providers, Ooma still offers free VoIP service on its 4G network—though you do have to pay a $12.99 per month cellular access fee.

Companies working from home will also appreciate Ooma’s remote features. For starters, Ooma offers a mobile app that lets you make and receive unlimited calls within North America from your smartphone using your business number. You can also set up ring groups, which allows you to group extensions together within your phone system so they all ring simultaneously—then the call gets transferred to whichever remote employee picks up first.

Businesses working remotely should keep in mind, though, that Ooma doesn’t offer any videoconferencing tools. Instead, you get a conference line that lets at-home employees collaborate over the phone. That puts Ooma a pace behind some of the other providers on our list, but with providers like Nextiva currently offering their video collaboration tool to businesses for free, it shouldn’t be a major issue.

Nextiva offers an impressive balance of pricing and features that make it perfect for a midsize business on a budget. Also, its online management platform makes it simple to juggle multiple lines and employees in different locales (read our review of Nextiva for more info).

Nextiva also provides a number of helpful features for businesses working from home. For starters, there’s the Nextiva app, which lets you use your business phone number to make calls remotely from your desktop or mobile devices. Nextiva’s team collaboration tool, Cospace, also lets your team collaborate via video chat, so you can keep everyone one the same page.

With all the features and functionality Nextiva includes, the fact that no plan exceeds 60 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. Keep in mind, though, that Nextiva does not offer international service or numbers, so businesses outside the US will need to find another solution.

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.

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 all Grasshopper plans offer the same features, which includes some great tools for at-home work. With the Grasshopper app, business owners and employees can make and receive calls using your business number. You can even send text messages.

That being said, Grasshopper doesn’t offer any conferencing tools. For that, you’ll have to sign up for join.me—Grasshopper’s sister company. This service offers both video and audioconferencing, but it does cost an extra $10–$30 per month. That’s another strike against Grasshopper, since most providers in Grasshopper’s price range include conferencing features.

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.

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.

8x8 keeps it simple with only three feature-loaded VoIP plans—all of which offer an impressive number of VoIP phone service features for the price. That makes it appealing for small and large companies alike, especially since 8x8 is set up to integrate with many useful third-party business apps, including Salesforce, Zendesk, Netsuite, and Microsoft Dynamics.

All 8x8 plans include team messaging, HD videoconferencing, and screen sharing, you you can easily keep all your at-home team members engaged and collaborative. And contact centers that have transitioned to remote work can still enjoy features like omnichannel routing, which allows your employees to engage with customers via chat, social media, text, and phone—all in one platform.

And of course, you can’t ignore the fact that 8x8 offers full internet phone services that start at just $12 per month. The company’s introductory plan even offers an auto attendant to help transfer calls to the appropriate extension without you needing to pay a receptionist to answer the phone—a feature other internet and phone providers don’t offer except on upper-tier plans.

That being said, 8x8’s plan upgrades are not the cheapest on our list. But considering the number of features you get for the price, we think it’s a good value for most companies looking for a VoIP phone system that offers a lot of bang for your buck.

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. 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. Mobile plans with just one to four lines start at $19.99 per month (per line), but prices go as low as $14.99 per month (per user) for plans with 20 or more lines.

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, Vonage has also made the mobile and desktop app available on every plan. However, if you want videoconferencing for up to 100 people, you’ll need to upgrade to a Premium plan. You’ll also have to pay extra for a Mobile Unlimited Extension if you want to place local calls within the UK, Australia, or Israel.

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.

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 to support a reliable VoIP business phone service.

And ultimately, that’s what it comes down to with Verizon: reliability. The telecommunications giant offers both fiber-optic and DSL connections nationwide. And say what you want about Verizon’s customer service—the company is one of the few internet and phone providers with a reputation for maintaining a state-of-the-art network with few to no dropped calls on its internet phone services.

Verizon’s Business Digital Voice VoIP plans start high, but if you need more lines, you’ll need to call and get a quote to get exact pricing. 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 VoIP phone services 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.

GoToConnect has nearly as many glowing critical reviews as the Radiohead discography, minus the pretentious lyricism. GoToConnect has established a positive industry reputation since its launch as Jive 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.

GoToConnect 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. GoToConnect’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. GoToConnect also hosts an exhaustive YouTube channel dedicated to understanding phone systems and features.

GoToConnect also offers virtual international numbers within over 25 countries—though you’ll have to pay a $19.99 setup fee, plus an additional monthly fee (which can be anywhere from $5.99 to $23.99 per month depending on the country where the number is located).

For a smaller company conducting business within the US, GoToConnect 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.

Since VoIP is a relatively new technology that differs from traditional copper-line telephone systems, there may be a bit of a learning curve before you dive into adopting it for your business. Here are a few elemental points to get started.

Just as a smartphone can do more than a landline phone, a VoIP phone system for business can perform all the expected tasks of standard business phone plans and then some. They’re a great choice for small businesses that need full functionality, and the VoIP systems we’ve reviewed include most, if not all, of the following features:

• Web-based system administration
• Mobile management (iOS and Android)
• Automated attendant
• Hold music
• Call forwarding
• Conference bridging
• Conference calling
• Caller ID
• Call blocking
• Call waiting
• Call transferring
• Find Me/Follow Me
• Ring groups
• One-line sharing on multiple phones/devices
• Videoconferencing
• Voicemail to Email (as audio file)
• Voicemail to Text
• Fax to Text (as PDF)

A private branch exchange (PBX) is the closed telephone network within a business, which employees share for outbound, inbound, and interoffice phone calls. VoIP systems manage PBXs off-site through cloud PBX hosting, eliminating the need for costly (and space-hogging) on-premise equipment and maintenance.

A SIP (session initiation protocol) trunk carries voice, data, and video through a “trunk” that replaces copper telephone connections through the conventional PSTN (public switched telephone network), consolidating phone and internet service into a single digital line.

In plain English, SIP trunking allows you to physically disconnect from your phone company, opening the door for digital, internet-powered options (read: VoIP). And unlike hardwired telephone lines, digital lines allow you to scale your phone solutions as your business grows.

A VoIP phone number is just like a regular telephone number, but it’s assigned to a user rather than a specific physical phone line.

When landline providers set up your telephone system, they map your new number to the physical copper connections that are hardwired into your home. But with VoIP phone systems, your number is assigned to your internet phone services account. That allows you to access your VoIP phone number (and make VoIP phone calls) from any device with an internet connection. That gives you the flexibility to use your VoIP phone number at home, in the office, or even from your smartphone.

If you’ll be switching to a VoIP business system, will you want to keep your current phone number? Most VoIP services offer number porting, which lets you transfer—or port—your number to a new service. Check for number porting in a VoIP service’s features; some will apply it for free, while others may charge a one-time fee.

BYOD stands for bring your own device. This term refers to employees conducting company business on personal laptops, tablets, and phones instead of on company-owned gear. Most VoIP companies offer BYOD features and solutions within their plans, either included or at additional cost. However, extra IT security layers and company guidelines for BYOD are on you.

As mentioned earlier, VoIP is entirely reliant on a high-speed internet connection—and is also entirely at the mercy of power outages. Telephone lines may be archaic, but they still work in a blackout—internet equipment and connections, not so much. If your business requires 24/7 uptime, make sure backup power sources are in place.

Unlike traditional telephone lines, VoIP numbers can’t be traced by 911 operators. This doesn’t mean you’d be helpless in case of a natural disaster or Sasquatch attack, however. Upon initial setup at a location, you simply need to enter your info manually through the system’s E911 (Enhanced 911) feature, which will attach a physical address to your VoIP number.

The VoIP home phone service with the most potential for business use is, in our opinion, Ooma. Ooma offers residential plans that feature free VoIP service, which already makes it a cut above many traditional phone service providers (let alone residential VoIP providers). Ooma’s VoIP home phone service is even available for residential customers with poor internet access, thanks to the Ooma Telo 4G’s cellular VoIP technology.

Landline providers are almost a thing of the past—like it or not, VoIP systems may soon be your only business phone choice. Moreover, VoIP phone systems may be the best method to adjust to an increasingly home-based work environment.

Fortunately, you have plenty of VoIP home phone and business telephone systems to choose from, with more digital features and affordable pricing than ever before. Even so, it’s an increasingly competitive market, so don’t sell yourself short—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.

Disclaimer

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.