11 Best VoIP Providers for Business in 2023: Fees & Feature Breakdown

In the modern era, phone calls are still a vital part of the business world, but technology has advanced past the standard systems that rely on phone lines. Instead, Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) systems use the internet to more reliably connect businesses and customers for audio-based communication, and some providers are better than others.

The best VoIP provider for small businesses in 2023 is RingCentral, thanks to its unlimited audio conferencing, powerful AI-powered toolkit, and 200+ integration options. It also offers excellent value for money, with a scalable payment structure and affordable entry price of $20 per month. 

If cost is your top concern, we've developed a free VoIP quotes tool to help you compare custom VoIP prices from all the leading providers on the market. Read on to learn more about how all the leading VoIP providers compare.

In this guide:

• What Is VoIP?
• Best 11 VoIP Providers for 2023
• How to Choose the Best VoIP Provider
• Methodology: How We Rate VoIP Providers
• Advantages of VoIP
• How to Get Started with VoIP Providers
• Top VoIP Providers: The Verdict
• Top VoIP Providers FAQs

What Is VoIP?

Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) is a means of audio communication that uses broadband internet to connect people rather than standard phone lines. The technology digitizes your voice and sends the signal through your network to ensure reliable, high-quality audio. The technology uses computers, smartphones, and VoIP-enabled telephones to help callers reach their intended users.

Best 11 VoIP Providers for 2023

Our in-house experts have conducted user-testing and extensive research into the VoIP industry — examining the top VoIP providers based on their service, value, customer support, and features offered. The reviews below are based on this independent analysis and testing.

With more and more companies working remotely, or in a hybrid fashion, it's more important than ever to ensure you have the right tools to keep your business and customers connected. A cloud-based VoIP system and the unified communication features that come with it, will enable your team to operate as effectively from home as in the office, whether they're in sales or support. But choosing the right VoIP provider for your specific use case is essential to long-term success.

Choose the wrong VoIP provider and you could struggle to onboard your team, be unable to implement it smoothly with existing software and systems, or overpay for unnecessary features. Read on for the low down on all the top VoIP providers for 2023 so you can find the right choice for your needs, or compare custom price quotes from top VoIP providers to dig into those all-important numbers.

RingCentral – Best Overall VoIP Provider

RingCentral serves more than 300,000 businesses for a reason. It's a great fit for the hospitality, retail, healthcare, and customer service industries in particular, thanks to great customer support and a range of useful features designed to field high volumes of inbound callers.

With advanced capabilities like voicemail to text and spam prevention available on its entry-level plan, our researchers awarded RingCentral a score of 4.4/5 for its features on our most recent round of VoIP testing, a result bettered only by 8×8 (4.9/5) (more on this below). The provider offers unlimited audio conferencing with up to 1,000 attendees, AI meeting transcription, and collaboration features like a task manager and a whiteboard for keeping everyone on the same page.

RingCentral's 4/5 security score, in part, is arrived at thanks to the provider's multi-factor authentication options and extensive compliance certifications. This was the third-highest score on our tests, with 8×8 and Google Voice scoring 5/5. It's a lot more secure than a provider like Zoom Phone, however, which only scores 2/5 for security.

Compared with other VoIP providers, RingCentral is extremely scalable too, making it a great option for businesses whose needs are likely to change over time too. Due to its great security features, as well as the fact it let us set up teams and departments,  we gave the VoIP provider a near-perfect scalability score of 4.9/5, tied in first place with 8×8. Its business analytics platform, which can provide larger teams with the granular data needed to see where things are going right and wrong, also helped it achieve the almost perfect score.

RingCentral features

RingCentral offers unlimited calls in the US, as well as unlimited business SMS messages. All RingCentral plans offer number porting, custom greetings, a virtual receptionist, spam prevention, voicemail to text, caller ID, call transcripts, and custom call routing. All plans have management features including team messaging and document sharing.

Video conferencing is available for up to 100/200 participants, depending on your plan, and RingCentral supports third-party hardware from Poly, Cisco, Yealink, and Unify. Compared to Zoom, however, RingCentral's web conferencing features are quite limited.

Check out our Zoom vs RingCentral guide for more information

RingCentral integrates with Salesforce, and you can match incoming calls to existing client contact information within the CRM program with RingCentral's call management feature. Overall, RingCentral can connect to over 200 applications, helping it to a test-high 4.3/5 for integrations. Zoom Phone, which scores a respectable 3.7/5 in this assessment area, only integrates with 71 apps.

RingCentral also offers a “collaborative contact center.” It allows your employees to easily share files with customers, consult experts within the business, and keep in constant contact using instant messaging.

RingCentral support

RingCentral offers 24/7 phone and live chat support. Plus, it has an extensive FAQs section which can help you fix your own problems.

What's more, RingCentral offers an extensive suite of training videos, forums, and webinars to help you learn the platform.

RingCentral pricing

RingCentral offers four pricing plans: Core, Advanced, and Ultra. 

Overall, RingCentral scores 3.5/5 for value for money – its first plan isn't quite as cheap as Zoom Phone's $10 per user, per month Metered package, which helped it to a 5/5 score for this assessment area. However, RingCentral has better collaboration and advanced outbound comms features.

The Core plan costs $20 per user, per month (paid annually). The number of lines you can buy at this price is capped at 20, after which you'll have to contact sales to discuss your plan – however, this is the case on all RingCentral plans. The Core plan offers an auto-attendant, call conferencing, integrations for Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, voicemail-to-email, and on-demand call recording. Video calls support up to 100 participants.

The $25 per user, per month Advanced plan adds automatic call-recording, a Salesforce integration, single sign-on functionality, call queuing, ring groups (which lets multiple phone numbers all ring when one extension is called), call monitoring, call barge, call whisper, and analytics. You'll also get access to many more integrations for CRM, email, helpdesk, web conferencing, and both internal and external live chat services.

The Ultra plan ($35 per user, per month) includes unlimited storage for files, contacts, videos, and meeting recordings, as well as access to RingCentral's business analytics platform. Video calls support up to 200 participants.

Check out our RingCentral pricing guide for more information

Should you choose RingCentral?

RingCentral is our top VoIP system pick, across the board. Its wide range of inbound communication features, combined with top-rated customer service, make it a great fit for industries including hospitality, retail, and healthcare. It's also a lot cheaper than 8×8, which was the only other provider that came close to RingCentral.

Of course, the best way to ensure you're getting a good VoIP deal is by taking a look at our price comparison tool. We've developed the tool to give your business custom quotes from the leading suppliers, so be sure to take a look.

Related: Best Softphone VoIP Apps

Who should use RingCentral?

• Growing businesses
• Businesses that prioritize security
• Businesses looking for a quick and easy set-up

Who shouldn't use RingCentral?

• Businesses handling over several calls at once
• Businesses with advanced web conferencing requirements

8×8 – Best VoIP Provider for Sales Teams

8×8 is a perfect fit for sales teams thanks to excellent video conferencing features and a collection of useful tools for training staff, such as call monitoring and recording. 8×8 also has features, like custom call lists, that support the high volumes of outbound calls sales teams make.

8×8 offers unlimited calling to up to 48 countries on its X4, X6, X7, and X8 plans – Vonage and RingCentral will charge you extra for this. This is in part why we recommend 8×8 to sales teams making lots of outbound calls, and RingCentral to hospitality and healthcare teams that field high numbers of inbound calls and will benefit from features like spam prevention, which 8×8 doesn't offer.

Not a sales team? You're still in luck. 8×8's call handling features such as caller ID and ring groups make it an equally viable option for companies in industries (such as retail or healthcare) dealing with high volumes of inbound calls too.

8×8 features

8×8 offers plenty of features, including ring groups, mobile and desktop apps, voicemail-to-email, team messaging and file-sharing, a virtual receptionist, extension dialing, and directory assistance.

Like RingCentral, 8×8 will let you add features like a power dialer and predictive dialing function, the latter of which will be ideal for sales teams looking to delegate calls out to free agents quickly and efficiently. It does cost a little extra, granted, but VoIP systems like GoTo Connect don't have a predictive dialing function at all.

8×8 also integrates fully with sales-focused CRM systems like Salesforce. All in all, 8×8 seamlessly connects to over 300 applications which is why our testing team gave it a score of 4.2/5 for integrations, second only to RingCentral (4.3/5). The collection of apps is a lot more than VoIP providers like Google Voice, which only really integrates with Google Workspace apps and a couple of additional core programs.

Along with its outbound call features and integrations, 8×8's security score (4/5) meant it became the joint-most scalable provider (4.9/5) we tested. You can safely manage sensitive client information with 8×8 thanks to multi-factor authentication, user permissions, and password rules. This was a much better security score than Ooma (1/5) which lacked similar features for securing accounts.

As mentioned previously, 8×8 has a solid video conferencing system, too, which offers HD video and audio for up to 500 people with no time restrictions. Conferences can also be recorded and saved in the cloud. External video calling is available, which is handy for sales teams that will need to pitch to clients from outside of your company.

Find out more about this VoIP provider in our full 8×8 review.

8×8 support

8×8 offers 24/7 phone support, as well as live chat and email support.

8×8 also has 24/7 online training for new employees. It can be completed at their own pace and covers everything they'll need to know. If that wasn't enough, you can also take part in virtual, trainer-led courses with blended learning modules for new systems administrators.

8×8 pricing

8×8 has five different pricing plans, with costs ranging from $24 to $140 per user, per month: the X2, X4, X6, X7, and X8.

The X2 plan costs $24 per user, per month. On this tier, you'll be able to make voice and video calls, and there are features like call routing, an auto attendant, hold music, voicemail, a virtual receptionist, number porting, and unlimited calls to 14 countries total on offer (including US/CA). Video meetings can have up to 500 participants, and team messaging, voicemail-to-text, business SMS, and a 99.99% uptime guarantee have recently been added.

X4 costs $44 per user, per month. The big news here is that you can call 48 countries completely free, up from 14 on the X2 plan. You also get call monitoring, call barge (lets a user join another user's call), call whisper (lets a user stay muted when joining another's call), and supervisor analytics.

The next three plans are designed especially for contact centers. X6 costs $85 per user, per month. It has new reporting and analytics, skills-based routing, IVR, call recording, and CRM. X7 costs $110 per user, per month, and adds chat, email, SMS, social media, and co-browsing. Finally, the X8 plan costs $140 per user, per month, and includes quality management tools, speech analytics, and a screen recording feature.

You can get started with 8×8 for less than providers like GoTo Connect and Net2Phone. But if you need advanced features like predictive dialing and task management, you need to pay a premium for the provider's X6 plan. This is why 8×8's value score of 2.5/5 falls so short of other providers like Zoom (5/5) and Net2Phone (4.5/5).

Should you choose 8×8?

8×8 offers businesses the secure lines, helpful customer support, and piles of features they need to remain competitive. Get some obligation-free quotes today and find out how much you could save. Alternatively, read our summary of the most reliable softphones and IP hardphones to discover other fail-safe solutions.

Who should use 8×8?

• International businesses
• Sales teams
• Businesses with advanced telephony needs

Who shouldn't use 8×8?

• Businesses on a tight budget
• Businesses that require productivity features

Zoom Phone – Best Value for Money

Zoom is more than just a video conferencing tool for facilitating personal calls. The company also offers a business VoIP solution — called Zoom Phone — which is quite competitive in the industry.

Our research found Zoom Phone to be the third-best overall VoIP solution available, scoring 4.2/5 overall in our testing. This is largely due to the impressively affordable plans on offer, which provide plenty of features at the low starting price of just $10 per user, per month. This helped it to a better value-for-money score (5/5) than even Google Voice (4/5) was awarded. In other words, you'll get your hands on more features for less money with Zoom phone than any other major VoIP system.

Security is one of the only downsides of Zoom Phone. There is a complete lack of features such as multi-factor authentication or password rules. Zoom only achieved 2/5 for this category, whereas Google Voice offers these features on all of its plans, scoring 5/5 for security – the best score achieved by any provider on this list. This is largely due to the superior security provisions that come with Google Workspace accounts.

Still, this consideration might not be a dealbreaker for small businesses in need of a robust VoIP solution that won't break the bank.

For more information, check out our Zoom Phone review right now

Zoom Phone features

When it comes to features, Zoom Phone's low price does not impact how vast the catalog is. In fact, Zoom Phone scored a solid 4.2/5 on our last round of VoIP testing, representing the fourth-best score we awarded. Considering the price tag, that's mighty impressive. For comparison, our top-rated provider RingCentral scores 4.5/5 for features, but costs twice as much.

In terms of features, Zoom Phone covers lots of bases, including unlimited internal calling, HD call quality, and native apps for desktop and mobile across virtually all operating systems.

You'll also find some more advanced features in all pricing plans, including call recording, voicemail with transcription, unlimited auto-attendants, and even holiday and business hours routing.

The inclusion of these features, which are geared towards larger businesses and companies that need to regularly train new staff, makes Zoom one of the more scalable VoIP products we tested. Overall, it scores 4.3/5 for this assessment area, which isn't as high as RingCentral(4.9/5) – largely due to Zoom's poor security score (2/5) discussed earlier.

Zoom Phone integrates with Slack, Salesforce, Microsoft 365, and Google Workspace, as well as more than 60 other apps. While this is short of RingCentral's 200+ add-on options, it should be enough for most teams.

The service also seamlessly integrates with the provider's video platform: Zoom One. This gives the VoIP service an edge for businesses that are already familiar with the features and user experience of the video app.

Zoom Phone support

After testing out Zoom Phone, we weren't very impressed by its customer support services, which is why we only gave it a research score of 3.3/5 in this category. Yes, the provider offers a knowledge base and user forums to solve problems. But when it comes to actual support, VoIP providers like RingCentral and 8×8, which both score a perfect 5/5 for this assessment area, provide contact avenues that Zoom Phone doesn't, such as phone support.

Users can still reach out to Zoom via email, or live chat, but no direct onboarding support is available on any plan. It's not ideal, but the comprehensive interface shouldn't cause you enough problems to require customer support too often.

Zoom Phone pricing

Zoom Phone offers three different pricing plans: Metered, Unlimited, and Pro Global Select.

The Metered plan costs only $10 per user, per month, making it one of the more affordable starting plans on the list. It offers unlimited domestic minutes as well as a pay-as-you-go payment system, so you won't have to pay more than you need.

The Unmetered plan costs $15 per user, per month, and as you can likely guess from the name, provides inclusive outbound calling, so you won't have to pay too much for making a call.

Finally, the Global Pro Select plan costs $20 per user, per month, and unlocks some solid international features, like unlimited minutes to over 40 countries around the world, along with all the features from the previous two plans.

You can also purchase Zoom Phone as part of Zoom One, which rolls the provider's Meetings, Team Chat, Whiteboard, and Zoom Phone products into one single package. You will need to purchase the Business Plus tier ($25 per license, per month) or the Enterprise tier (no public pricing – contact sales for a quote) if you'd like Zoom Phone, however, and it's significantly more expensive than just buying Zoom Phone as a standalone product.

Should you choose Zoom Phone?

If you're in the market for a low-cost VoIP solution that still provides a lot of features, Zoom Phone may be your best bet. Starting at only $10 per user, per month is a steal, and its other plans are competitively priced as well, so you can really keep your monthly outgoings down. On top of that, it has a bevy of other communication tools to integrate with, which is always helpful for a growing business. Plus, hey, it's Zoom, so you might be familiar with it already.

Grab a customized Zoom Phone VoIP quote now with our handy tool

Who should use Zoom Phone?

• Smaller teams that can do without advanced calling features
• Businesses with smaller budgets
• Businesses already using Zoom Video

Who shouldn't use Zoom Phone?

• Businesses that prioritize security
• Larger teams with advanced VoIP needs
• Businesses looking for onboarding support

Vonage – Best Training Features

Vonage is best suited to retail and customer service businesses since they benefit the most from easy onboarding, and our researchers found Vonage’s training tools to be some of the best in the industry.

The service works great through mobile devices and desktops as well as through third-party desk phones, making it a flexible option.

Check out our guide to the best VoIP desk phones.

Vonage features

We gave Vonage a score of 4.4/5 for VoIP features, the same score in this assessment area as our top-rated provider, RingCentral, but falling short of 8×8's near-perfect 4.9/5.

Vonage packs admin portals, voice mail, spam prevention, voicemail to text, call queue, caller ID, external video calling, SMS support, custom call lists, internet fax, call conferencing, call forwarding, call flip, analytics, team messaging, document sharing, and call logs into its cheapest plan.

Vonage also offers unlimited calls to the US and Canada, as well as integrations with a huge range of providers including (but far from limited to) Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Teamsm Google Workspace, Office 365, Zoho CRM, Slack, HubSpot and Zendesk.

However, video conferencing and live chat integrations come at an additional cost, which is one of the main reasons why Vonage (3.5/5) didn't score as high as RingCentral (4.3/5) for integrations. What's more, without password rules or multi-factor authentication, it was unable to match Google Voice's 5/5 score for security and was instead awarded a score of 3/5.

Check out our Vonage review for more information

Vonage support

Vonage didn’t score too well in our testing for customer support, with 3.4/5 stars compared to 5/5 from both RingCentral and 8×8 — phone and email support is available with Vonage, but live chat isn't. What's more, none of it is 24/7. Onboarding support is also available but for an additional cost.

The service does include a range of online training documents and videos to help your team become accustomed to the software.

Vonage pricing

Vonage offers three pricing plans: Mobile, Premium, Advanced. However, while the plans start from $19.99, $29.99, and $39.99 per user, per month respectively, Vonage will give you some discounts depending on how many users you have.

Like many VoIP providers, the price per user gets better value the more users you add. For example, if you only have one user, Vonage's most popular Premium plan will cost $29.99 per user, per month. However, if you have 20 users, that price will drop to $24.99 per user, per month for a saving of almost $60 per user over the course of a year. If you have more than 90 users, though, you'll need to get a custom quote from Vonage.

The cheapest plan, Mobile, gives you unlimited calls and SMS messages, plus all the features listed above and access to the Vonage app center.

The Premium plan offers unlimited video for up to 100 users, custom greetings, ring groups, a multi-level virtual receptionist, and CRM integration with Google Workspace, HubSpot, Office 365, and Salesforce. Plus, it works with desk phones, unlike the mobile plan.

Finally, the Advanced plan gives you on-demand call recording, call grouping, visual voicemail, and full installation.

Check out our VoIP quotes comparison tool to get bespoke quotes for your business today.

Should you choose Vonage?

If training employees quickly and effectively is a priority, Vonage is for you. The service's a great pick for retail as well, due to its inbound features and multiple ways to contact potential customers, including call conferencing, video calls, and (for an additional cost) SMS. Check out how Vonage compares to the best VoIP providers on the market with our VoIP price comparison tool.

Who should use Vonage?

• Retail and customer service teams
• Businesses that onboard regularly

Who shouldn't use Vonage?

• Businesses that don't want to rely on add-ons
• Businesses with advanced web conferencing needs

GoTo Connect – Great VoIP Provider for Scaling

If your company is looking for plenty of internal video call meetings, GoTo Connect might be the right fit for you. It's also a great fit for a company that handles more inbound calls than outbound ones, due to the features on offer. What's more, the more users you have, the bigger the plan discount you'll get.

We found it to be a particularly good telephone system option for scaling, scoring it 4.4 stars out of 5 – only Vonage, 8×8, and RingCentral score higher in this regard.

This was helped majorly by its commendable security score (4/5), which is much better than Ooma (1/5) and Nextiva (3/5), neither of which offer multi-factor authentication. Plus, key features for dealing with a high call volume, such as ring groups and call queues, as well as collaborative features like a team messenger, make it a viable option for any growing business.

GoTo Connect features

GoTo Connect has strong call management features, including custom greeting, voicemail, spam prevention, voicemail to text, custom hold music, call queue, ring groups, and the ability to set company hours, as well as a find me/follow me feature which allows for calls to be routed through several devices, including mobiles.

You can also forward, hold, or queue, and even send calls to a virtual receptionist to keep customers on the line.

As we mentioned, GoTo Connect has excellent video conferencing tools (though only for internal use). You can video conference with up to 250 people, with HD video for up to 25 people. You'll also find that sharing documents and files is a piece of cake, as is screen sharing. It even supports breakout rooms.

GoTo Connect has continued to add new features over the last few years, like introducing the functionality needed for a native Microsoft Teams integration and refreshing its mobile app.

GoTo Connect support

GoTo Connect scored the same as Vonage for customer support in our 2023 VoIP testing, earning 3.4/5 stars. You can contact the provider by phone, email, and a support ticket system, and live support is offered on a 24/7 basis.

This is much better support than Google Voice, which doesn't offer onboarding assistance and scores just 3.1/5 in this assessment area, but some way off RingCentral, which scores 5/5 for customer support.

GoTo does, however, maintain its own dedicated online customer center, where you can find videos, factsheets, forums, and even ebooks to help find the cure for your VoIP maladies.

GoTo Connect pricing

GoToConnect used to have a confusing pricing system that charged a different amount per user based on how many users a business had. In 2021, it changed to an industry-standard pricing system and now offers two plans: the Basic plan at $27 per user, per month and the Standard plan at $32 per user, per month.

Basic is capped at 20 users and 4 video meeting participants, Standard expands this to unlimited users and 150 meeting participants.

In comparison to other VoIP providers, GoTo Connect is also very affordable. Although its Basic plan costs $27 per user, per month and is pricier than RingCentral's Core plan ($20 per user, per month), GoTo's Standard plan costs just $32 per user, per month if you have more than 10 employees.

This is significantly cheaper than 8×8 and Vonage's second paid plans. GoTo Connect came second in our value-for-money category, scoring 4.3/5 stars – only Zoom Phone scores higher.

Should you choose GoToConnect?

We're big fans of GoToConnect's pricing system and awarded it a 4.3/5 value-for-money score. Add a high average customer approval rating, and you have a great value option: The service won't break the bank, but it'll keep everyone happy.

To get a good look at each provider side-by-side, take a look at our VoIP comparison page, which will give you bespoke quotes from the leading suppliers.

Who should use GoTo Connect?

• Small budget-conscious businesses
• Businesses looking for a combined phone and video solution

Who shouldn't use GoTo Connect?

• Businesses that require onboarding assistance
• Users looking for streamlined Mac compatibility

Ooma – Great for Customer Experience

After completing our VoIP research and testing, we found that Ooma offers a particularly good customer experience, due to high customer satisfaction from existing users, as well as good-quality customer support and features that enable you to provide a good experience for your own customers. Ooma is a strong choice, therefore, for small-medium sized businesses in customer service industries, like retail, or any business with a high volume of inbound calls from customers.

The service also offers a level of pricing transparency that isn't always found in the VoIP industry. As such, it might be worth your time to take a look at our price comparison questionnaire to see how good a deal you can get.

Ooma features

Ooma has excellent call management features including Call Flip, which lets you easily move calls between devices, and Call Park, which lets users put a call on hold before picking the call back up on a different device, or with a different handler.

Your customers will also appreciate the clarity and ease of having a virtual receptionist, effective call queuing, and local numbers to call, which are all available to set up with Ooma.

In addition, Ooma offers integrations with Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Zendesk, Microsoft 365, G-Suite, and ServiceNow. This, of course, will make managing sales and support calls significantly easier for your teams – although Ooma only scores 2.7/5 for integrations, whereas VoIP providers like RingCentral (4.3/5) offer a much wider selection (200+).

It also offers a mobile app for Android and iOS, which can be helpful if your teams are working from home without a full desk phone.

Despite its selling points, the service does lack some features that other VoIP providers on this list offer, however. For example, no Ooma plans include custom call lists, auto or predictive dialing, call transcripts, call monitoring, or task management.

We could only score Ooma a 1/5 for security features in our testing, too, as the service offers no multifactor authentication and doesn't display its compliance certificates. Google Voice, the most secure provider we tested, offers multi-factor authentication on all plans.

Ooma support

Ooma offers 24/7 customer support over the phone or via live chat, although not over email. It also offers an online forum, where experienced users can help you diagnose and fix problems yourself.

Ooma pricing

Ooma offers four pricing plans: Office Essentials, Office Pro, Enterprise, and Enterprise Call Center. It offers flat costs, and unlimited coverage of Mexico, Puerto Rico, Canada, and the US.

The Office Essentials plan costs $19.95 per user, per month. Your teams will get access to the mobile app, custom greeting, ring groups, company hours, caller ID, call routing, call forwarding, call flip, hold music, and call transfers.  You also get a virtual receptionist, something Google Voice's Starter tier can't match.

The Office Pro costs $24.95 per user, per month, but gives you call recording, the desktop app, enhanced call-blocking, analytics, video conferencing, spam prevention, and voicemail transcripts. What's more, it ups the usage limits for audio conferencing and extension monitoring.

The Office Pro Plus plan, which costs $29.95 per user, per month includes useful integrations with CRM software like Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics 365, advanced call management features, and a call queue function, which is useful for businesses making a lot of outbound calls.

The Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Enhanced, and Enterprise Call Center plans are designed for larger businesses.

The Enterprise Standard plan costs $19.99 per user, per month, and includes onboarding assistance, a dedicated customer success manager, hot desking, a virtual receptionist, and 24/7 support if you're based in North America.

The Enterprise Enhanced plan costs $27.99 per user, per month but adds custom CRM and productivity tool integrations, as well as business analytics and video conferencing. The Enterprise Call Center plan is $49.99 per user, per month. It offers a call flow builder, position-in-queue tracking, estimated wait time for callers, and advanced reporting tools.

Check out our Oooma review for more information

Should you choose Ooma?

If your business depends on high-quality customer experiences, Ooma is for you. Compared to other VoIP providers it offers excellent customer support, scoring 4.5/5 on this assessment area, only missing out on top marks due to a lack of email support. All in all, only RingCentral and 8×8 scored higher (both 5/5) for customer support.

Who should use Ooma?

• Customer service businesses
• Retail stores
• Businesses managing a high-volume of internal calls

Who shouldn't use Ooma?

• Businesses that rely on software integrations
• Businesses that require a crystal clear connection
• Businessnes that prioritize security

Nextiva – Great for Professional Services

Nextiva is a well-regarded name in the VoIP world with solid customer support options, a straightforward interface, and enough inbound call tools to satisfy a small or medium-sized business.

Nextiva is a great choice for small professional service businesses fielding low volumes of inbound comms. Consultants, accountants, contractors, or creative agency teams won't be disappointed with Nextiva.

Nextiva features

Nextiva's suite of features promises to give you all the tools your business needs to hit the ground running. Its desktop app supports voice and video calls, emails, messaging, and sales and service tools, as well as analytics.

Nextiva also reckons its suite of AI and automation tools can help improve repetitive tasks such as data collection. It can even offer real-time predictions and offer suggestions based on the situation you're currently facing. Overall, it scores 3.8/5 for features but doesn't quite have the management features to compete with the likes of Vonage, which scores 4.4/5 for features overall.

This lack of management features is partly why the provider isn't easy to scale up. It ranked 2.9/5 for that category, putting it only the eighth-best VoIP provider for scalability, well behind RingCentral and 8×8, which both tied for first with 4.9/5 scalability.

Nextiva is also held back by its lack of features to aid group calls. It doesn't offer call monitoring or transcription and call recording features are limited to the plan you choose. It only scores 3.3/5 for features overall, far off RingCentral's test high 4.3/5 score.

Nextiva support

Nextiva offers 24/7 unlimited customer support via phone or live chat. Email support is available, although it is not 24/7. The service also has a large help center to help you fix problems yourself. Overall, Nextiva scores 4.5/5 for customer support, finishing joint-third with Ooma and Dialpad, behind 8×8 and RingCentral's perfect 5/5 scores.

Nextiva pricing

Nextiva has three pricing plans, and it also varies its plan prices, depending on the number of users you have.

The Essential plan costs $23.95 per user, per month with annual billing if you have between one and four users. If you have between five and 19 users, that price drops to $21.95 per user, per month. Between 20 and 99 users will see the price drop to $18.95 per user, per month, while if you have more than 100 users, it'll cost you $17.95 per user, per month.

The Essential plan gives you unlimited voice and video calls, a virtual receptionist, toll-free numbers, voicemail-to-email notifications, spam prevention, caller ID, video calling, and unlimited internet fax. It also offers integrations with Outlook and Google Contacts.

The Professional plan, which starts from $27.95 per user, per month, offers unlimited conference calls for up to 40 participants. It also gives you unlimited video conferencing for up to 250 participants, Call Pop (which helps your employees know who's calling and about what before they pick up the phone), unlimited business SMS, and further integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot, and Zendesk. Nextiva will also set the system up for you.

Then there's the Enterprise plan, which starts from $37.95 per user, per month. In return, you get unlimited participants on voice and video conferencing, unlimited video conference and call recording, unlimited Call Pop, voice analytics and voicemail transcription, and integration with Microsoft Teams, Oracle Sales Cloud, and ServiceNow. Plus, you get single sign-on.

Check out our Nextiva review for more information

Should you choose Nextiva?

Nextiva is a great fit for a business in a professional industry like consultancy or accounting since it offers great security and customer service, but limited features for the large amounts of calls that a contact center might need to field.

We'd recommend taking a look at our pricing comparison tool to find out whether Nextiva is the right service for your business.

Who should use Nextiva?

• Professional service businesses
• VoIP first-timers looking for a shallow learning curve

Who shouldn't use Nextiva?

• Contact centers
• Other large customer service businesses
• Businesses that require dependable customer support

Net2Phone – Great for International Businesses

Net2Phone is a great option for international businesses interested in low VoIP system starting costs and international calling. With plans starting at just $24.99 per user, per month, unlimited international calling to more than 40 countries (only 8×8 can match that), and the costs of installation, Net2Phone proved to be one of the best VoIP for value for money. 

In our testing, Net2Phone’s scores were in the middle of the pack in every area. It doesn’t offer the most impressive feature set (3.6/5) – RingCentral, Vonage, 8×8, and Ooma all score over 4/5 – but it achieved a better value for money score (4.5/5) than all VoIP providers other than Zoom Phone (5/5) thanks to its affordable packages and great international call offering.

Net2Phone features

Net2Phone's cloud PBX solution offers apps for Windows, MacOS, Android, and iOS to help your staff communicate with customers and clients effectively.

It has SMS, MMS, and live chat messaging, as well as live chat to SMS hand-off. You can use it for internal comms, with user-to-user, department, or company-wide messaging. It also has extension-to-extension calling, hold music and messaging, time-based greetings, three-way conferencing calling, group conference calls, and easy call transfer.

Net2Phone will also allow for voicemail transcription and voicemail-to-email functions. Plus, it has “find me/follow me” call routing, call queuing, and call forwarding, and can support multiple virtual receptionists.

Finally, Net2Phone has strong analytics, with sortable reports by time frame, department, office, and agents. Plus, it has dashboards that let you see all this information at-a-glance.

Net2Phone support

Net2Phone offers 24/7 support on all its plans, as well as an extensive online knowledge base. 3.9/5 is a pretty commendable customer support score. In this regard, it's better than Vonage (3.4/5) and Zoom (3.3/5) but not quite as good as RingCentral (5/5), which has a user forum for community troubleshooting.

Net2Phone pricing

Net2Phone's cloud PBX pricing falls into four plans: Office, Office Pro, and Office Power. On all plans, the given prices decrease at different user thresholds (more than 20, more than 50, and more than 100), making Net2Phone even better value for money.

Office costs $24.99 per user, per month. It offers unlimited domestic calls and free international calling to over 40 countries. Features include number porting, custom greeting, voicemail, spam prevention, SMS, caller ID, ring groups, call conferencing, and call forwarding.

Office Pro cost $26.99 per user, per month, and you'll get everything in the previous plan, plus a receptionist console.

Office Power costs $29.99 per user, per month, and adds a virtual fax feature, as well as CRM and API integrations. As far as top-tier plans go, this is more affordable than most of the other providers featured in this article.

Should you choose Net2Phone?

Net2Phone will be a great fit for any business that needs to keep costs low, particularly if they want to easily contact anyone in the 40 countries within the service's coverage, making it great for international businesses.

If that doesn't describe your operation, you can check out our pricing comparison tool to get bespoke quotes for your business.

Who should use Net2Phone?

• International businesses
• Businesses with high call volumes
• Businesses looking to grow through analytics

Who shouldn't use Net2Phone

• Businesses centered around external communications
• Businesses that depend on software integrations

NUACOM – Great for Customer Satisfaction

NUACOM is best suited to businesses that are concerned about a new system causing friction for their team. The easy-to-use interface makes adopting a difference process simple, even for beginners that aren't well-versed in business technology like this.

This is clear from the high customer satisfaction score (4.6/5) from NUACOM, as evidenced by the customer reviews we collated. Overall, users are more satisfied than those who opt for RingCentral (3.5/5), despite the latter provider's superior features.

NUACOM also offers a decent set of inbound call tools and a reasonable number of tools for outgoing calls as well. As VoIP goes, it's pretty easy to get to grips with, whereas a more feature-rich provider like 8×8 can be a little overwhelming at first.

NUACOM features

A few of the streamlining tools that make NUACOM so easy to use include customizable call routing functionality, as well as a call-flow designer, both of which are available across all plans.

The service has a range of inbound call tools that any VoIP expert will know and love: number porting, custom greetings, voicemail, a virtual receptionist, voicemail to text, customizable hold music, call queues, ring groups, and the ability to set company hours.

Outbound features are a little more limited. In addition to not offering video calls, NUACOM doesn't have an autodialer or predictive dialing, and SMS messages will cost extra. Call conferencing is supported, as are custom call lists.

Security features (3/5) include end-to-end encryption and user permissions, but no password rules to nudge users towards safer types of passwords like RingCentral and Google Voice offer. They scored 4/5 and 5/5 respectively in this assessment area.

NUACOM support

Support formats include email, phone, and live chat, although none are available 24/7. A knowledge base is available, but no community forum. Onboarding support is offered in the form of a 15-minute session to guide users through the process.

NUACOM pricing

NUACOM has three pricing plans: Unlimited, Enterprise, and Contact Center. You'll need to contact the company with your specific needs for a custom quote on all tiers, and there's a two-user minimum across all plans.

The Unlimited plan includes unlimited domestic minutes, a HubSpot CRM integration, and all the inbound and outbound tools, security, and support features mentioned above. The Enterprise plan adds more features: call whispering, call barge, and a “call wallboard”, so you can see every call agent's status. Call Center also opens up more integrations: Zendesk, Salesforce, and Pipedrive all join HubSpot.

Opting for the Contact Center plan lets you “design a plan that meets your specific needs, whether you're looking for a large contact center solution or a more tailored business solution”, as NUACOM themselves put it.

Should you choose NUACOM?

NUACOM is definitely a great pick for keeping all your employees happy, offering easy-to-use features and automation that can reduce a workload.

It isn't designed for aiding in collaboration with a team, however, offering no tools for video conferencing, task management, document sharing, or team messaging. However, if your business just needs an easy service that keeps your team members happy while receiving customer or client calls, go for NUACOM. Our quick price comparison tool is another option to help guide you to the best option—whether it's NUACOM or not.

Who should use NUACOM?

• Businesses new to VoIP
• Busy businesses looking to streamline call functions

Who shouldn't use NUACOM?

• Businesses focused on external communications
• Businesses that depend on software integrations

Dialpad – Low Cost for Startups

The biggest advance that Dialpad has over other VoIP solution is its pricing. In an industry where a good VoIP service averages about $35 per user per month, Dialpad's plans start at a mere $15 per user, per month. As a result, businesses on an extra tight budget might find Dialpad to be the best solution, if you can do without some features.

DialPad savings do mean you'll miss a few features, though not as many as you might think. A lack of call queuing is the one big downside of the cheapest Dialpad plan, though it also cuts out phone and email support. The other essential tools for inbound and outbound calling are all present, however, as we'll detail below. Startups with a smaller audience and needs will benefit from the low prices without minding the feature limitations.

Dialpad features

Dialpad scored just 3.2/5 in our VoIP testing, the lowest score besides Google Voice and far behind RingCentral's overall score of 4.7/5.

Even so, every Dialpad plan covers plenty of useful calling features, such as custom greetings, voicemail, a virtual receptionist, voicemail to text, customizable hold music, ring groups, and company hours. Users will get one localized, toll-free number each, with no options for adding more. Where it lets itself down is integrations – it just can't keep up with 8×8 and RingCentral.

Dialpad scores 4.2/5 overall for features, however, which isn't far behind 8×8's test high 4.9/5 for features. Outbound call functions contained within Dialpad include caller IDs, SMS, custom call lists, and call conferencing. Unlike NUACOM, Dialpad includes both spam prevention and video calling, although both services lack auto or predictive dialing features offered by the likes of 8×8.

All Dialpad plans have encryption and user permissions, but there are no password rules or multifactor authentication settings, giving it a 3/5 for security in Tech.co’s tests. Google Voice, which scores 5/5 for security, offers these features for a similar price.

Dialpad support

Customer support encompasses a user forum, an online knowledge base, and live chat for all plans, with 24/7 support hours and phone support available on all but the cheapest plan, giving it a score of 4.5/5 in Tech.co's tests.

There's also onboarding assistance available on every plan, which Zoom Phone and Google Voice don't offer. It doesn't have an email support system, however, which stopped Dialpad from matching RingCentral's 4.9/5 score for this assessment area. No email support options are available for any plans.

Dialpad pricing

Dialpad has three pricing plans: Standard costs $15 per user, per month; Pro costs $25 per user per month (with a minimum of three users); and Enterprise is available for a custom quote, although it comes with a hefty 100-user minimum.

The Standard plan includes the features mentioned above, plus integrations for Slack, G Suite, and Office 365.

Pro adds a call queue, as well as an open API, phone support, and integrations for Salesforce, Zendesk, and Hubspot. Enterprise adds a 100% uptime guarantee and single sign-on for better security.

Should you choose Dialpad?

In addition to being a money-saver, Dialpad is well-loved by its customers – its average customer score is 4.4/5, which puts it third only behind NUACOM (4.6/5) and Zoom (4.7/5).

Trying our price comparison tool can give you a clearer idea of what cost to expect for your specific needs, but on the whole, Dialpad offers a good selection of functions for its cost, which is why it's made our list of the best VoIP providers.

Who should use Dialpad?

• Startups looking for a low-cost VoIP system
• Businesses that can get by with the basics
• Businesses new to VoIP software

Who shouldn't use Dialpad?

• Larger teams with advanced VoIP needs
• Businesses with multiple toll-free numbers

Google Voice – Most Secure for Small Teams

Google's VoIP service stands out for one big reason — great security. This is due its myriad of compliance certifications, multi-factor authentication, single sign-on, password rules, encryption, and user permissions across each and every plan.

Google Voice's limitations are worth mentioning, however. First, it's only available for those with a Google Workspace subscription, meaning that this service is really only for businesses that are locked into Google's suite of (admittedly pretty good) business software offerings. Second, Voice has a slim range of features, lacking many of the tools that the rest of the VoIP offerings in this guide have.

Google Voice features

On our tests, Google Voice came out at the bottom for features, earning just 2.6/5 compared to RingCentral's 4.4/5. All Google Voice plans to offer voicemail support, voicemail to text, spam prevention, video calling (via Google Meet), SMS for those in the US, analytics, and custom call lists (via Google Contacts).

However, it doesn't have many management features at all, nor features like call recording and call transcripts which are useful for training staff and are offered by Vonage, 8×8 and RingCentral, and Zoom. There are also no call queues, custom hold music, caller ID, auto or predictive dialing, call conferencing, call forwarding, call flip, call barge, or call whisper. Calls can't be monitored, and there's no call-flow designer.

If those features sound useful, you'd be better off picking an alternative provider for your VoIP solution, such as one of the ones above, or if you're a team that's already using Google Workspace, perhaps one of these Google Voice alternatives will be a better fit.

Google Voice's security tools are its real selling point, covering all basis and scoring 5/5 thanks to the features referenced at the start of this Google Voice review. For context, providers like GoTo Connect only score 4/5, and won't let you enforce password rules in your team like Google Voice. All in all, Google Voice is the most secure VoIP service out of all of the top VoIP providers, and offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee, too.

Google Voice support

Google Voice also ranked as one of the lowest for customer support out of all the providers we analyzed, scoring 3.1/5.

All plans have a user forum, knowledge base, and 24/7 phone support, but no email or live chat like RingCentral and 8×8 make available in their packages. They both score 4.9/5 for customer support.

Google Voice pricing

Google Voice offers three pricing plans: Starter costs $10 per user, per month; Standard costs $20 per user, per month; and Premier costs $30 per user, per month.

Starter includes every feature listed above, as well as a range of integrations for Zoho CRM, Copper, Pipedrive, Salesforce, Freshsales, Agile CRM, Hubspot, MiniCRM, and Apptivo.

Standard adds a number of common calling features: Custom greetings, a virtual receptionist, ring groups, company hours, custom call routing, and the option to integrate one hardware desktop phone brand, Polycom.

Premier may not be worth the cost. It mostly just adds the option to integrate toll-free numbers, but only for businesses with a real presence in that location, a restriction no other provider in this guide has.

Should you choose Google Voice?

Very small, security-conscious businesses are the best customer for Google Voice, as the price will be right, and the limited features and poor scalability are unlikely to be as large an issue as they would be for established operations.

Any companies worried about the chance of a ransomware attack or other type of cyberattack will be reassured by Google Voice's 5-star security options as well — although we'd still recommend an employee course on how to avoid phishing attacks.

Of course, our quick price comparison tool can help guide your decisions about which VoIP provider is best for your budget and needs as well.

Who should use Google Voice?

• Small teams that can get by with the basics
• Businesses that prioritize security
• Businesses with smaller budgets

Who shouldn't use Google Voice?

• Businesses switching from feature-rich systems like RingCentral and 8×8
• Larger teams that handle a high volume of calls

How to Choose the Best VoIP Provider

Choosing the right VoIP provider depends on a number of factors.

Overall costs

While many VoIP providers seem to offer similar pricing structures, each provider has little quirks in its pricing system which you might miss at first glance.

For example, most providers, including our top-rated picks RingCentral and 8×8, offer prices on a per user, per month basis. You also won't get as many features on the cheapest plans as you do with the more expensive plans

It's also worth pricing up the systems you're looking at in full before choosing. There might be hidden costs with international call fees, for example. The easiest way to get a complete price is by using our comparison tool, which will give you bespoke quotes from the leading companies.

You can also check out our guide to the cheapest VoIP providers to discover the best cost-effective solutions available to your business.

Upgrade and growth costs

Your business isn't standing still, and you'll (hopefully) need to start adding new team members as it grows. Again, you need to think here about which platforms will scale the best with your existing business. What's more, you'll likely need to add more complex features.

RingCentral is a good fit for businesses that will need to expand their feature set as they grow, as its four pricing plans each offer many core features in comparison to similar competitor plans. Our researchers termed this “scalability,” and ranked RingCentral and 8×8 in a tie for the most scalable, with Vonage close on their heels.

Customer support

If your business relies on its phones, any problem could be catastrophic to your bottom line.

Fortunately, most of the providers we've listed offer 24/7 support. RingCentral and 8×8 scored highest for support options overall (5/5) across all the VoIP providers we tested, while three more services tied for second place (4.5/5): Dialpad, Ooma, and Nextiva.

We would always recommend choosing a provider which offers 24/7 support where possible.

Devices

It is definitely worth considering what sort of hardware your business currently uses for its phone calls. If you rely on desk phones, you might find that your service isn't as flexible as it would be if you used software-only services.

Softphones, or even VoIP services that work through laptops or tablets, are a great way to help your staff remain mobile while working.

You might also have existing analogue desk phones and might be worried about whether they'll work with your new VoIP system. You can get adapters that will let them connect with your new system, but it's unlikely to be perfect. Instead, you can take a look at some new VoIP phones, or your provider might even lease you some.

Methodology: How We Rate VoIP Providers

Advantages of VoIP Providers

While landlines and personal cell phones might sustain a small business in the short term, if you're looking to grow, VoIP is the way forward. Here's why:

• More flexibility – Softphones are heaps more flexible than legacy phone systems because they can be installed on any device.
• Lower start-up costs – Unlike physical phone systems, VoIP systems are free to set up and install.
• Lower ongoing costs – Aside from reduced start-up costs, research has found switching to VoIP providers saves businesses an average of 30 to 50%.
• Lower international calling fees – VoIP systems often charge less for international calls than traditional services, making them a great option for global offices.
• More scalable – Most VoIP providers offer modular packages, making them easy to scale alongside your business.
• More advanced features – VoIP providers offer a range of enhanced capabilities that legacy phone systems lack, like call analytics, AI receptionists, and auto attendants.

The video below summarises the key benefits of using a VoIP phone system in 2023.

How to Get Started with VoIP Providers

Getting started with a cloud-based VoIP provider is easier than you think. As everything is done online, there's no need for a manual setup, and it can take under 15 minutes in many cases.

Once you're all set up, it's worth getting your staff trained on the new system. Fortunately, with all the companies we've listed offering dedicated knowledge bases explaining how to use their software, this should be a piece of cake, too.

However, you still need to choose a provider. You might now have a feel for which is the best fit for your business's needs, but it's always worth filling in our quote form to compare prices. It's completely free, and you'll be under absolutely no obligation to choose any of the providers. Best of all, it takes less than five minutes, but could potentially save you thousands.

Top VoIP Providers FAQs