8×8 Review: Does 8×8 Outperform the Competition?

Businesses looking for a comprehensive, scalable Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) solution will find almost everything they need with 8×8. With five tiers to choose from – all with varying levels of functionality – your business can opt for a plan that suits your needs.

8×8 is not the solution for businesses that are looking for a streamlined, affordable platform – a small business, for instance, where the owner is particularly time-poor and requires a shallow learning curve. While its prices are no longer publicly listed, the most recently available figures we’ve seen suggest that the entry-level X2 plan starts at a pricey $24 per user, per month. In addition, there’s no free version, so users can’t try before they buy. In effect, if you decide to go for 8×8, the chances are that you’ll pay for a lot of features that you don’t use.

There’s a lot to consider when evaluating a VoIP provider like 8×8. To inform my review, I spent a lot of time testing the platform, exploring different components, and evaluating its efficacy. Below, I’ve broken down the pros, cons, and everything in between, so you have all the information you need before you commit to a purchase decision.

In this guide:

• 8×8: At a Glance
• 8×8 Features and Layout
• 8×8 Plans
• Who is 8×8 Best For?
• 8×8 Integrations
• 8×8 Alternatives
• Testing Methodology
• Verdict: Is 8×8 Worth It?

8×8: At a Glance

Here are some key facts about 8×8 to give you an immediate idea of whether or not it’s the right platform for you:

• Scalable: Medium and large businesses will get the most benefit from 8×8, owing to its scalability. Choose from one of five plans depending on your business needs and desired functionality level.
• Great customer support: 8×8 offers support across a variety of channels, including user forums, knowledge bases, live chat, email, and phone.
• Integrate with different platforms: Users can integrate with a variety of apps, including syncing their contact lists and calendars with Google and Microsoft, to streamline their communications into one platform.
• Free international calls: While 8×8 plans fetch a high monthly fee, users can enjoy unlimited free calls to several countries, including the UK, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, and more.
• Average user experience: The user interface (UI) is clean and uncluttered, with minimal text. Rather than a centralized dashboard, the platform has a vertical sidebar. This is a slightly unusual choice when compared to rivals, and may take some getting used to.

8×8 Features and Layout

As 8×8 is geared towards scaling businesses, you can expect a rich suite of business features, with added functionality depending on the plan that you go for. Read on for a breakdown of 8×8’s key features in 2024.

Simplified interface

The 8×8 interface is clean and clutter-free, with a vertical navigation bar at the expense of a home screen or central dashboard. However, I did find this quite disorienting. I would have preferred a home screen, with an easy return or back button to speed up the navigation process. It must be said, though, that the app is clearly signposted, with different functions marked iconographically to rid the screen of unnecessary text.

8×8’s clean dialing interface. Source: Tech.co testing

Advanced communications features

8×8 offers excellent communication features, with phone, video, conference, and desk-to-desk calls. Users can place a call from their desktop and connect with anyone in the world – wherever they are. Added to this, they can forward calls to different extensions, both internal and external, without having to relinquish control of the call destination.

In terms of team management options, 8×8 has a raft of features to simplify your workday. Break up your department into sub-teams and provide clear feedback with the benefit of the monitoring and transcription. In a hybrid work environment, 8×8 is a powerful solution for managing your internal and external communications, with high-quality calls and video conferencing.

Making a video call with 8×8’s video calling feature. Source: Tech.co testing

Comprehensive customer support

Credit where credit’s due – 8×8 nails the onboarding process. Upon logging in for the first time, users are greeted with a step-by-step tutorial to get themselves acquainted with the platform. Each step is clearly signposted and explained, so there’s no danger of information overload, and the tutorial can be repeated at any time in case you need a refresher.

Alongside this, subscribers can access support through their preferred channel – whether that’s via live chat, over the phone, email, or online forum. To upskill your agents, navigate to 8×8 University through the Success Center for a raft of free and paid training options.

8×8 ‘get started’ tutorial in action. Source: Tech.co testing

Generous free call allowance

With 8×8, customers can make free international calls to a wide range of different countries, which increases depending on their membership tier.

The entry-level X2, for example, will enable you to make free calls to Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States.

If you subscribe to X4, however, you’ll also be able to reach Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, China, Cyprus, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Finland, Greece, Guam, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Norway, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Turkey.

High security and compliance

8×8 offers the highest standard of protection against data breaches and privacy theft, with several verified third-party security and compliance certifications. In addition, the platform conforms to the following specifications:

• Consumer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI)
• Secure coding practices, including the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) and Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) List
• Fraud detection
• Secure endpoint provisioning

8×8 Plans

8×8 stopped publicly listing its pricing towards the end of 2023, instead encouraging its customers to book a call with its sales team. The most recent figures that we’ve seen suggest that the entry-level X2 plan starts at $24 per user, per month. You can find an at-a-glance overview of each 8×8 plan below. For more detail, read our 2024 pricing guide for 8×8.

X2

The two flagship 8×8 packages are known as X2 and X4. The former offers a range of features including dedicated business numbers, free international calls to several locations, video conferencing with up to 500 participants, and SMS, MMS, and team chat. Unlike competitor Ring Central’s Essentials plan, it doesn’t offer task management capabilities, but creditably, it does offer call queuing functionality, which is not common among the starter plans for various VoIP providers.

X4

With X4, subscribers can make free calls to even more countries, and leverage call quality reporting, supervisor analytics, and tools that enable managers to observe calls in real-time. Otherwise, there isn’t a huge amount of difference in functionality between X4 and X2.

X6

X6 has the same core functionality as its predecessors, but with supplementary features. For example, users can benefit from contact center reporting and analytics, post-call surveys, and interactive voice responses. To boost efficiency and reduce friction, power dialer, predictive dialing, and auto-dialer are available, but at an additional cost.

X7

This tier empowers users with omnichannel routing of voice, chat, email, SMS, social media, and messaging applications – so it’s perfect for businesses that are looking to unify their communications channels.

X8

This is geared towards businesses that run advanced contact centers, with in-built quality management and speech and text analytics. Unlike preceding models, X8 does offer call transcripts at no added cost, as well as auto-dialer, custom call lists, predictive dialing, and power dialer.

Who is 8×8 Best For?

8×8 is best suited for growing or enterprise businesses, as it can be scaled up and down to suit your requirements. With five plans to choose from, you can opt for the tier that aligns most closely with the size and scope of your business. For example, companies that interact with countries around the globe are likely to benefit from X4, which enables free calls to 48 countries.

With its raft of outbound calling features, 8×8 is particularly useful for sales teams. For instance, auto-dialing, predictive dialing, and power dialing can be used to expedite the process and improve efficiency. What’s more, one of the hallmarks of a successful salesperson is their phone manner. The ability to record calls, create transcriptions, and monitor callers gives you the tools to make sure your agents are performing to the best of their ability.

Encouragingly, 8×8 offers customer support on a global scale, with multilingual teams so you can get the help you need. This flexibility is invaluable for a rapidly growing business, which may look to expand into other markets at relatively short notice.

In addition, 8×8 has a range of integration options. Users can sync their contacts and calendars with Microsoft and Google, as well as integrate with existing help desk providers like Salesforce and Zendesk and workspace apps including Google Workspace and Microsoft 365.

It should be noted that X2 only offers Outlook, Google Workspace, and Microsoft 365 integration.

8×8 Integrations

One of the biggest advantages that softphones have over traditional desk phones is their ability to integrate with existing software applications via API. 8×8 is no exception. Users can sync their contacts and calendars with Google and Microsoft, and enjoy full visibility of their upcoming meetings and events.

With 8×8’s Technology Partner Ecosystem, you can easily integrate with several different platforms to streamline your business processes. Salesforce, 1CRM, HubSpot, Slack, and Pipedrive are just a few examples. You can see the full list of vendors here. Below, we’ve outlined some of our favorite integrations.

PromptVoice

By integrating with PromptVoice, 8×8 users can access a range of prompts for in-queue and on-hold audio, designed to improve the caller experience. The library of prompts and messages on offer is actually pretty large, with prompts available in multiple languages.

Zendesk

Through its integration with Zendesk, 8×8 can optimize the caller experience by boosting your call-handling capabilities, automatically logging calls, and tracking call outcomes with bespoke codes. With its ability to work across desktop, mobile, and desk phone, this integration offers both flexibility and powerful functionality.

To get the best out of your VoIP system, we recommend integrating with a customer relationship management (CRM) platform like Zendesk. This connectivity is vital for sales teams or customer service agents, where the collection and organization of customer data is one of the top priorities. This will significantly free up time for agents by automating the process.

Google Workspace

8×8 integrates with Google Workspace, one of the most popular tools of modern business, to improve your productivity. Users can easily locate and view key contextual information ahead of taking a call from a customer or client. In addition, the integration automatically filters emails and work data as relevant calls arrive, for ease of visibility and reduced on-hold time.

8×8 Alternatives

While 8×8 is one of the best on the market, there are alternative VoIP providers that are worth exploring. We’ve listed some of our favorites below.

RingCentral

RingCentral is another hugely popular VoIP provider and a favorite here at Tech.co HQ. In fact, our research has shown that it’s the best VoIP provider for small businesses in 2024. Its feature-rich offering is equally geared towards hospitality, retail, healthcare, and customer service teams. For example, users can choose between 57 analytics apps, while 8×8 doesn’t offer any.

Zoom Phone

With its user-friendliness and simplified interface, Zoom is a great solution for time-poor managers and businesses that will need to take advantage of its comprehensive video calling features. And with a generous free plan, you can access excellent features without breaking the bank. Read our Zoom Phone review for more information.

Vonage

Vonage is a leading VoIP provider, with excellent customer onboarding and training tools. Like 8×8, users can choose between five plan options, as well as enjoy free calls within the US and to Canada. Retail and customer services businesses would benefit the most from its ease of onboarding.

Methodology: How Did We Evaluate 8×8?

We take our impartial research and analysis seriously, so you can have complete confidence that we’re giving you the clearest, most useful recommendations.

After conducting an initial exploration to identify the most relevant, popular, and established tools in the market, we put them through their paces with hands-on testing to see their real strengths and weaknesses. In this case, we put ten VoIP systems to the test across 78 areas of investigation.

Based on years of market and user needs research, we’ve established a VoIP system testing methodology that scores each product in seven main categories of investigation and 16 subcategories; this covers everything from the features and security options available to the product’s value for money and customer score, as well as much more.

Our main testing categories for VoIP phone systems are:

Customer Score: the external customer opinion as to their satisfaction with the VoIP product; the feedback and ratings given by customers who have used a particular VoIP system, as well as the market position and reputation a VoIP software holds.

Cost: the pricing structure associated with the VoIP service. It includes factors such as monthly subscription fees, call rates (especially for international calls), setup fees, hardware costs (if applicable), and any additional charges for add-on features or services.

Features: the functionalities and capabilities offered by the VoIP service. This can include basic features such as call forwarding, voicemail, call waiting, and caller ID, as well as advanced features like auto-attendant, conference calling, and call recording.

External Connections: the VoIP service’s ability to connect and integrate with external systems or devices. This can include compatibility with existing phone systems, integration with mobile devices, and support for softphones or IP phones.

Customer Support: the assistance and resources provided by the VoIP service provider to customers. This can include technical support, documentation, online resources, knowledge bases, and access to customer support representatives.

Security Options: Security options refer to the measures and features implemented by the VoIP service to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and protection of voice communications and data. This can include encryption of voice calls, compliance, password rules, and user permissions.

Scalability: the ability of the VoIP service to accommodate the growth and changing needs of an organization. This includes factors such as the capacity to handle a growing number of users, support multiple locations or offices, and scale up or down according to the organization’s requirements.

When it comes to calculating a product’s final score, not all testing areas are weighted evenly, as we know some aspects matter more to our readers than others, which are merely “nice to have.” We also re-run testing processes like these regularly to ensure our results remain reflective of the present day.

Learn more about our research.