Want to jump straight to the answer? The best phone service for most small businesses is Nextiva or Ooma.
Today’s small business phone systems are affordable and you can deploy them in minutes. All your calls go through the cloud, so all you need is good internet.
This is modern software your team can manage on their own. You don’t have to be an IT wizard to set up a phone tree, add an extension, or schedule a conference call.
All of the following providers are reliable and secure. However, they price out services in very different ways. I’ll review my top recommendations and walk you through how to find the best deal.
The Best Business Phone Service Providers for 2022
- Nextiva — Best overall (For a limited time get 25% off, plus a free phone when you sign up!)
- Ooma — Best physical phone system for small businesses
- RingCentral — Best for businesses that love to text
- Grasshopper — Best for solopreneurs
- Phone.com — Smallest price tag for smaller operation
- Vonage — Best for businesses that need it all
- GoToConnect — Best for helping your customers
- 1-VoIP— Best if you need phones—but don’t use them often
I’ve included some really affordable options in my top picks. You can find cheaper phone systems out there, but I would be cautious of going with a provider that’s not well known.
Below, you’ll find reviews to help you compare the pricing, plans, and features of each option on my list.
Following the reviews is a short guide that explains my recommendations and lays out the important considerations when choosing a phone service for your business.
Nextiva – The Best Overall
- Starting at $11.95 per month
- Affordable enterprise-level plans
- Unlimited calls
- Free local & toll-free number
Nextiva is an industry leader in the communication space. You can start fairly small with Nextiva and grow without ever having to switch providers.
They can outfit a small business with a phone system that makes employees reachable, or help you build out a world-class call center with voice, video, text and chat.
If you want to keep using phones you have, no problem, though you can buy whatever hardware you need directly from Nextiva. It will all come pre-programmed ready to go out of the box.
You can also just download the app and use a headset from any device. All the security is handled by Nextiva, so people can work wherever they are without causing IT headaches for administrators.
With the Nextiva App, you’ll be able to use the same phone numbers you use at your office desk from the comfort of your own home. You can even use the same extensions you’d use in the office.
Nextiva offers all of the essential phone system features, such as voicemail, call routing, and an auto attendant that automatically greets your callers and directs them to where they need to go. Customers also get access to voicemail to email which streamlines your voicemail inbox.
The auto attendant tool is helpful whether your business uses a physical office or if you’re distributed—allowing you to easily funnel your callers to the right people no matter where they are.
You get to choose between three simple plans. The price depends on the number of users and the length of your contract.
Here are the starting rates:
- Essential — $18.95 per month
- Professional — $22.95 per month
- Enterprise — $32.95 per month
These are some of the most affordable rates on a modern phone system. There’s not too much you can get for less than this without sacrificing on capabilities.
Some other highlights of Nextiva’s small business phone service include:
- Unlimited calls
- Call queuing
- Automatic call forwarding
- Hold music
- Free online fax
- Free local and toll-free number
Some sought-after features are not included in the Basic plan. If you want to use the Nextiva app, get unlimited conference calls, pre-recorded greetings, and text messaging, you’ll need to upgrade to the Pro plan.
Call recording, voice analytics, and voicemail to text delivery are only available on the Enterprise plan. Try Nextiva for free today.
Ooma – Best Physical Phone System for Small Businesses
- Flat rate $19.95 per month
- No contracts, cancel at any time
- Unlimited calling
- Virtual receptionist
Ooma is an ideal solution for businesses that want to keep using hard phones. Some offices want a phone at everyone’s desk. Large organizations need numbers tied to locations, not people. Hotels aren’t going to offer guests headsets and a tablet.
The reason I like Ooma so much is that it’s a true plug-and-play system. It’s easy to set up, very straight-forward to customize to your workplace, and it’s going to tie into your existing technology without much of an issue.
Once you install an Ooma base station, you’ll be able to hook up any old phones and fax machines with adapters.
New businesses might be swayed by their lucrative pricing. Just pay a flat rate of $19.95 per month per user. No contracts and you can cancel at any time.
You can use virtually any type of phone with Ooma, so it’s not a problem to keep using what you’re using. If you do want new phones, Ooma has excellent prices on all of the top models.
But by purchasing your hardware with a relatively low one-time fee, you’ll end up saving the money in the long run as opposed to renting it each month.
Ooma does have a mobile app, which allows you and your staff to make calls on the go from your smartphones. So you could opt to go mobile-only and skip the hardware costs.
But I don’t recommend this. There are better options out there if you’re looking for a business VoIP phone service without any hardware.
So stick with Ooma if you want straightforward rates for your office phone.
For those of you with a growing team, Ooma can scale with you. It’s easy to add on users, devices, and manage everything on your own.
Your plan will come with unlimited calling, a toll-free number, low international rates, and a virtual receptionist. Ooma also has exceptional customer support if you have any trouble setting up the hardware or managing your service. Learn more at Ooma.
RingCentral – The Best for Businesses that Love to Text
- Unlimited SMS & MMS
- 100 toll-free minutes per month
- On-demand call recording
- Small to enterprise solutions
RingCentral is one of the most popular VoIP solutions in the industry. That’s because they offer an all-in-one phone service solution at a competitive price.
While their plans are great for your typical VoIP phone service and video conferencing needs, they also offer unlimited business SMS and MMS across all of their plans.
That’s an amazing deal if your team regularly relies upon text messaging for your day-to-day business. For example, this is great if you want to send automated text messages alerts to your team members frequently.
RingCentral stands out because they offer specifically designed plans for small businesses. It’s reliable, secure, easy to use, and delivers a high-quality voice for crystal clear calls.
RingCentral is also affordable. You can save over 30% if you sign up and prepay with an annual plan as opposed to a month-to-month contract.
Here’s a quick overview of the plans and pricing:
Essentials
- Starting at $14.99 per month per user
- Up to 20 users
- 100 toll-free minutes per month
- On-demand call recording
- Unlimited calls within US and Canada
Standard
- Starting at $20.99 per month per user
- 1,000 toll-free minutes per month
- Unlimited internet fax
- Unlimited audio meetings
- Unlimited video conferencing (up to 4 people per meeting)
- On-demand call recording
- Custom app development and deployment
Premium
- Starting at $26.24 per month per user
- 2,500 toll-free minutes per month
- Unlimited video conferencing (up to 100 people per meeting)
- Automatic call recording
- Multi-site support
- Salesforce and Zendesk integration
Ultimate
- Starting at $37.49 per month per user
- 10,000 toll-free minutes per month
- Unlimited video conferencing (up to 200 people per meeting)
- Automatic call recording
For most, I recommend the Standard plan. It offers plenty of great features and all the essentials a business might need.
You can also customize your plan to pay extra for things like additional toll-free numbers, vanity numbers, international numbers, and international toll-free calling.
As mentioned before, all of the plans come with basic features like unlimited business SMS and MMS, along with mobile apps for iOS and Android, HD voice, team collaboration, call log reports, and 24/7 customer support.
The plan you choose will largely depend on how many toll-free minutes you plan to use as well as the number of users you’re going to onboard. Try Ringcentral today.
Grasshopper – Best Phone Service for Solopreneurs
- Starting at $26 per month
- VoIP and Wifi calling
- No calling limits
- 24/7 live support
Grasshopper offers a handy virtual phone system targeted to smaller operations like freelancers, startups, and small businesses.
This is a simple phone system. You can make you first call minutes after downloading the Grasshopper app. They make it easy for you to find toll free numbers, vanity numbers, 800 numbers, local numbers, and or port your old number.
Once you have the app, you can set up greetings and after-hours messages, voicemail, and set up basic call flows if you have more than one line.
Instantly, your business is more professional. If you can’t get the the phone, callers are greeted by a menu. You’ll also be able to see what’s a business call and what’s personal, so there are no more surprises.
Grasshopper’s Solo plan includes one phone number, three extensions, and every phone system feature the company offers, including:
- VoIP and Wifi calling
- Virtual fax
- Mobile and desktop apps
- Business texting
- Ability to handle simultaneous calls
- Call reporting
- Call forwarding
- Voicemail
- Call transfers
- Extensions
You never have to upgrade to get any of these features–every plan comes with every feature, you just need to pay for additional lines or extensions.
Grasshopper handles everything a basic phone system should and has modern add-ons like business texting that can help you grow your business.
You’ll want to upgrade to the Partner plan if you have a small group of up to three employees working for you. For anything more than that, you’ll need the Small Business plan to accommodate your needs.
Grasshopper also gives you the option to integrate your business interactions into one inbox that’s easy to manage. You can access your emails, texts, business calls, and contacts in one place.
Phone.com – Smallest Price Tag for Smaller Operations
- Starts at $11.99 per month
- Over 50 standard features included
- E911 dialing options
- Premium add-ons
Phone.com offers some of the most straightforward and simple VoIP business phone plans that you’ll find.
They’re also incredibly affordable, with some of the lowest priced plans for small businesses out there.
And it’s not just the sticker price–the licensing is way more flexible than other top business phone systems.
With Phone.com, you can mix and match plans, which many other providers don’t let you do. You can buy basic plans for people who don’t use the phone a lot, and you can upgrade licenses for your employees that need unlimited minutes.
You’re not upgrading everyone’s license to access a feature that only a small slice of your employees actually need.
You can sign up and get started in minutes. Building and managing your entire business phone system from the intuitive dashboard is easy for anyone, regardless of their technical skill level.
Phone.com has more than 50 features that come standard, including:
- Fax to email
- SMS messaging
- International dialing
- HD conferencing
- Call screening and blocking
- Call routing
- Call queuing
- Auto attendant
You’ll also benefit from E911 dialing, which is not offered by all VoIP providers. Premium features like call recording, video conferencing, and CRM integration cost extra.
Another feature you can add is caller analytics. This helps you get a deep dive into the metrics of your call such as call durations over time, busiest hours, and your top performers. You can also see a handy breakdown of your incoming and outgoing calls by extension numbers.
That’s great for the data-driven companies out there. Plus it’s great to integrate into your sales funnels and marketing strategy.
Phone.com is HIPAA and HITECH compliant, which means it’s safe to use if your company is in the medical field.
They do all of this with an incredibly low price tag. In fact, it’s the lowest one on this list starting at $11.99 per user per month. With that you get 500 pooled minutes, 1000 pooled texts, and video conferencing for up to 10 people.
And remember–you can upgrade some plans if you have users that need unlimited minutes, call recording, or other advanced features. The ability to mix and match lets you drive the price even lower, because you’re not paying for more than you need.
That’s why we recommend it to small businesses where budgets are tight—but you still want a solid phone service to get you through your work day.
So if your calls are relatively short and infrequent, you can definitely save some money with one of these budget plans. Get started at Phone.com
Vonage – Best for Businesses that Need It All
- 50+ voice & communication features
- Compatible with Vonage Meetings
- Simple to set up and scale
- Three different plans
Vonage offers a wide array of solutions and features that are great for organizations that need a bit of everything.
That includes their unified communications service which allows you to talk through voice, SMS, team messaging, fax, paperless fax, social—you name it.
It’s great for office settings and also gives you flexibility for conferencing. That’s why I recommend Vonage if your business needs a lot more than one or two communication channels and tools.
Vonage offers three different plans, with rates based on the number of lines you need. Here’s a brief overview of the plans and costs:
Mobile: Make and receive calls from your mobile device and desktop computer. Best for smaller businesses that don’t need physical office phones.
1-4 lines — $19.99 per month per line
5-19 lines — $17.99 per month per line
20+ lines — $14.99 per month per line
Premium: Made for traditional office teams. Allows for calls from any device, including desk phones.
1-4 lines — $29.99 per month per line
5-19 lines — $27.99 per month per line
20+ lines — $24.99 per month per line
Advanced: The best option for businesses that need a phone service for team setups and onboarding.
1-4 lines — $39.99 per month per line
5-19 lines — $27.99 per month per line
20+ lines — $34.99 per month per line
If you want CRM integrations, you’ll need to sign up for the Premium or Advanced plan. The Advanced plan also comes with on-demand call recording, group calls, and visual voicemail. Learn more at Vonage.
GoToConnect – Best for Helping Your Customers
- Lots of all-inclusive features
- Call recording & monitoring
- Custom greeting & hold music
- Enterprise-level communication
>> Compare Quotes
GoToConnect is an all-inclusive business phone service.
They offer tools you usually pay extra for in other business phone services come with their plans at no extra cost.
GoToConnect also strives to make enterprise-level communication available for small businesses. Their system is very easy to use, no matter how large or small your team is.
With them, you’ll get basic features like:
- Call recording
- Auto attendants
- Call monitoring
- Conferencing
- Virtual fax
- Custom greeting
- Custom hold music
- Dial by name or extension
- Individual call logs
And that’s just the basic features.
Where they really shine though is their Support Center tool. It allows you to easily connect with customers to help answer their questions and walk them through technical issues with ease.
As such it’s perfect for IT or SaaS organizations that have agents who need to easily talk to clients, view their information on a single intuitive dashboard, and see real-time analytics.
GoToConnect phones are extremely easy to set up. All you need to do is plug them in and you’ll be ready to make calls in minutes.
Compare Quotes1-VoIP – Best If You Need Phones—But Don’t Use Them Often
- 40+ standard features
- Pay for what you use plans
- Cost-effective & flexible
- Metered pricing structure
>> Compare Quotes
1-VoIP is a VoIP phone service that offers a solid solution for small to large businesses.
They offer a great metered pricing structure. That means you only pay for the time that you do use the phone. In this case, you’ll be charged just $0.02 per minute.
Unlike other providers on the market, 1-VoIP doesn’t cut out basic features if you sign up for the metered plan. You’ll still have all of the features that come with the other plans, including:
- Queues
- Hold music
- Virtual fax
- Digital call forwarding
- Call recording
- Hours of operation
- Extension transfers
- Call waiting
Altogether, there are 40+ features that come standard.
This is a perfect solution for businesses that know they need a phone plan, but don’t necessarily anticipate the same call volume as, say, a telemarketing service or IT support organization.
If you’re only using up to 200 minutes per month, the metered plan will be your best bet. Otherwise, they have package plans starting at $19.97 and $29.97 per month per extension.
Compare QuotesHow to Find the Best Business Phone Services For You
Compare Quotes From The Best Business Phone Services
Get matched up with a business phone service that fits your specific needs.
You’ve read my reviews of the top business phone services. Now it’s time to choose a plan for your organization.
Below I have identified the essential qualities I looked for in each of the options above. My team benchmarked each of the business phone services against this methodology to narrow down the very best ones.
Now, you can use the same criteria to find the best business phone service for your own business.
Remote Access
If there’s one thing that organizations across all industries have learned from the pandemic, it’s that remote work is here to stay.
That’s why we honed in on each business phone services’ remote features when reviewing the options. Specifically, do they offer remote access?
First of all, every provider I recommended uses voice over internet protocol, or VoIP, which means calls are made over the internet instead of a phone line.
This means that your employees will be able to make calls and access voicemail wherever they have the internet. They simply sign into the service, and they can start making secure calls.
Services such as Nextiva facilitate this through handy mobile and desktop apps. Using the app, you’ll be able to take business-related calls on your smartphone.
RingCentral (pictured above) also offers a standout app that enables remote access and work. It includes excellent integrations with tools such as Office 365 and Google Workspace, so you don’t have to keep switching between windows constantly.
As you do your own research, take a look at what remote options are available with the business phone service you’re interested in. Is it enough for your business’s needs? Will it be grow with your business? These are important points to consider.
Audio and Video Connection Quality
Since the point of having a business phone service is effective communication, we also placed a high value on the services with the best connection quality.
We reviewed each phone service for HD video quality, instances and frequency of dropped calls, and connection issues. Both the audio and video quality needed to be top notch in order to be recommended on our list.
Providers like Nextiva will actually let you test your connection quality on their site. Run a speed test on up to 200 calls to see how your network performs.
Some services have a greater emphasis on video calls than audio (and vice versa). For example, RingCentral offers Glip, a video conferencing service that uses carrier-grade infrastructure to facilitate high-quality video calls for up to 100 people.
Whereas a service like Phone.com is more focused on—you guessed it—phone calls. The calls you can make with their service are pristine, though, with clear connections and high-quality audio.
A service like Vonage gives you the best of both worlds with phone call service and video conferencing solutions. Its interface is a lot like Zoom’s—that is to say, highly intuitive and straightforward. You can easily share meeting links for people to join as well as dial in numbers for those who prefer to use their phones.
SMS and MMS Messaging
Texting is a great way to keep in touch with coworkers, employees, and clients. It’s also a great way to send messages and share photos or videos quickly. That’s why it’s crucial to find a business phone service that lets you leverage this channel easily and often.
We took a close look at what each business phone service offered (or didn’t offer) for:
- Short message service (SMS). This is your standard text messaging. Great for firing off quick messages to anyone you need to communicate with.
- Multimedia message service (MMS). This is for sending pictures, video, and/or audio. It’s a great feature of media-based businesses that need more depth to their communications.
Some of the business phone services we reviewed offer plans with unlimited SMS and MMS messaging each month as part of their UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) offerings. This refers to a combination of different communication services businesses rely on such as phone, fax, video conferencing, instant messaging, SMS, and MMS.
For example, RingCentral offers unlimited SMS and MMS as part of their service. If sending text messages is important to you, I highly recommend going with them.
A few services—like Phone.com—only offer SMS messaging, which can also be fine if your business doesn’t rely on it as much.
Responsive Customer Support
For many businesses, if the phones go down, so do your profits.
You need a support team who will immediately spring into action to help. So we took an in-depth look at the responsiveness and helpfulness of the customer support of the options on this list.
We also checked reviews specific to customer support for each one to see what real clients’ experiences were.
You should also take a look at how often their support is available. If you’re a distributed company with employees all over the world, you’ll want to find a service like Grasshopper and RingCentral that offers 24/7 live support for all of their plans.
Vonage also has a very noteworthy support team who are responsive to any issues you might have. Along with the ability to contact them via an online contact form and a 1-800 number, Vonage has a comprehensive tutorial compendium called the VBC Training Center. It houses any tutorials and quick start guides you need for learning how to use their service.
And if you’re migrating from one service to another, you’ll want to make sure your new service has a team that will help you each step of the way. For example, Vonage’s customer support team will help you with everything from number transfers to using new equipment.
GoToMeeting offers a knowledge base for you to search for the answers you need quickly and easily. If you can’t find the answer, you can turn to their community of users or call for live support.
Conversely, Ooma only has live caller support, which may result in longer wait times to get the help you need.
The Top Business Phone Systems in Summary
Phone service needs can vary wildly from one organization to another. But no matter how big your team is or how small your budget is, you can definitely find a reliable phone service for your small business.
Most companies opt for a VoIP phone system instead of a landline. VoIP is easier to set up, easier to manage, and cheaper than traditional phones. You don’t have to worry about securing calls or maintaining any expensive equipment on site.
Compare Quotes From The Best Business Phone Services
Get matched up with a business phone service that fits your specific needs.
No comments:
Post a Comment