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After extensively researching and testing the best business phone systems, we found that 8×8 is the best Vonage alternative. 8×8 has a better range of CRM and helpdesk integrations than Vonage, and scored full marks for security, integrations, and customer support in our independent testing.
While Vonage is a good VoIP solution, particularly for customer services and sales teams, it does have limitations. For example, some of its best features are gated behind more expensive plans or only available as paid add-ons, and analytics features are pretty basic.
8×8 isn’t the only Vonage alternative out there. We’ve collected a wide range of the best cheap VoIP providers that could be a better fit for your business than Vonage, analyzing everything from features and integrations to security and pricing.
Below, you’ll see what kind of businesses these Vonage alternatives are best for, and you can keep scrolling to find in-depth reviews of each provider.
Best Vonage Alternatives Overview
- 8×8 – The best Vonage alternative, best for sales
- RingCentral – The best business phone system overall, best for customer service
- GoTo Connect – Better value for the money than Vonage
- Ooma – Better customer experience than Vonage
- Nextiva – Better than Vonage for professional services
- Net2Phone – Cheaper than Vonage, especially for international calling
Use the links above to start comparing prices or read on for all reviews and cost information.
The Best Vonage Alternatives in 2024
Vonage is one of our top-rated VoIP solutions, scoring an impressive 4.3/5 in our research. It’s reasonably priced, offers a good selection of training features, and offers a lot of possible integrations. It does, however, have drawbacks – many of the best features are only available on pricier plans, or as a paid add-on, and its analytics features leave a lot to be desired. Still, sales and customer service teams could do a lot worse.
Below, you’ll find our list of the best Vonage alternatives and a breakdown of what makes them worth your time.
Price from The typical lowest starting price. The lowest price available for your business will depend on your needs. | Our Rating Relative score out of 5 | Best For | Pros | Cons | ||
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BEST ALTERNATIVE | BEST OVERALL | |||||
Vonage | 8×8 | RingCentral | GoTo Connect | Ooma | Nextiva | Net2Phone |
4.3 | 4.6 | 4.7 | 4.2 | 4.1 | 4.1 | 4.1 |
Customer service industries, due to impressive training features | Security | Integrations | Managing large volumes of inbound calls | Overall customer experience. Also great for retailers, due to strong inbound and outbound communication tools. | Professional services | Great for international businesses |
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| Lots of excellent features, especially in the advanced plans which offer call recording and voicemail to text. |
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| Some users state that the initial set up can be pretty time consuming. |
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If you’re looking for the best Vonage alternatives, the first thing you should know is that finding the right solution for your business is all about knowing what you’re looking for. The strength of Vonage is its excellent training features, with easy-to-use call recording, transcripts, and call monitoring making it ideal for retail, sales, and customer service staff — plus it’s cheaper than many top providers, including 8×8, as per the most recently available pricing, and RingCentral.
However, as highlighted in our full Vonage review, both RingCentral and 8×8 fared better in our VoIP software research series, due to their excellent value. RingCentral is our best-rated VoIP provider overall, as well as the best provider we tested for customer service, retail, hospitality and healthcare, while 8×8 is best-suited for sales teams.
Learn more about each of these Vonage alternatives below, or check out our free VoIP comparison tool to see quotes and solutions specific to your business needs.
1. 8×8
The Best Vonage Alternative
Pricing from: No longer publicly listed (last available figures: $24 per user, per month)
Tech.co Rating: 4.6/8
8×8 was the best Vonage alternative we tested and the second-best business phone system overall. It performed better in our research, receiving an overall score of 4.6/5 compared to Vonage’s 4.3/5 because of its superior VolP features, external connections, customer support and security safeguards.
While 8×8 will be a stronger choice than Vonage for most businesses, it’s industry leading call monitoring and recording tools and free training features make it an especially good fit for sales teams – as long as they’re willing to pay a slight premium for the package.
When we tested 8×8, we found it pretty easy to use, with some great customer support options and large selection of features, as well as possible integrations.
Pros
- Extensive outgoing call features are perfect for sales teams
- Great security features, perfect for sensitive data handling
- Training features like call whisper, call barge will help staff improve
- Onboarding assistance on all plans makes getting started smooth
Cons
- Unimpressive customer scores from those who've used the product
- Higher tiers are very pricey, and there are cheaper options for small businesses
- No dedicated spam prevention mechanism, which may prove problematic for large businesses
On all of 8×8’s plans, there are unlimited domestic inbound and outbound calls. There used to be a 10-user limit on its 8×8’s first paid plan, the Express package, which meant businesses or teams with more staff would have to look elsewhere. Now, that plan has been discontinued, so all 8×8 plans cater to any number of users.
As Vonage alternatives go, 8×8 would be our top pick for those looking to switch providers. 8×8 has more training tools than Vonage, and it doesn’t charge extra for them which is one of the key reasons we rated it as a better VoIP provider for sales teams.
Just like Vonage, 8×8 offers features like call monitoring and call recording tools for training staff, but we found it to have better video conferencing infrastructure and a better range of CRM integrations too.
Sending a message with 8×8 desktop. Source: Tech.co
Useful additional features offered by 8×8 include a Call Whisper (for monitoring) on X4 and above, call transcripts, call recording, and analytics/reporting tools (again, from X4 and above plans), whereas Vonage doesn’t have transcripts on any plans or recording on its cheapest plan.
Many of these management features factored into the reason we gave 8×8 a higher scalability score (4.9/5) than Vonage (4.5/5), as well as the wealth of useful software integrations 8×8 has. As mentioned, 8×8 also scored better for security, although Google Voice trumps all other providers for security, if that’s your main concern.
This guide doesn’t include Google Voice, but if it’s an option you’re interested in you can check out our Vonage vs Google Voice guide to learn more.
Viewing contacts on 8×8 desktop. Source: Tech.co
8×8 integrations
Vonage is tough to compete with when it comes to integrations, with plenty of options for CRM, helpdesk, video conferencing, live chat, and workplace functionality. Still, 8×8 is one of the few that comes out ahead of Vonage on integrations, offering more live chat options, no additional costs, and API access for all pricing plans.
8×8 pricing
The only real downside is that 8×8 is more expensive than most, at least according to the most recently available figures. What’s more, the first 8×8 plan doesn’t include all those training features mentioned above — so you’ll need to invest heavily to see the real value. How much you’re willing to spend on software might sway your decision. As 8×8 no longer lists its pricing, you’ll have to contact the 8×8 sales team to get accurate information for your business.
Price | Users | Video conferencing | Call monitoring | Task management | Email integration | CRM integration | Omnichannel support | ||
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X2 | X4 | X6 | X7 | X8 | |||||
Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | |||||
500 participants | 500 participants | 500 participants | 500 participants | 500 participants | |||||
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X2 (last known figures: $24 per user, per month)
This plan has no user limit and a lot of features, including voicemail-to-text, call queues, and voicemail transcription, and 24/7 live support. There’s a Microsoft Teams integration for communications and video conferencing. This plan also has unlimited calls to 14 countries including Australia, the UK, and Canada, and is cheaper than Vonage’s second plan ($29.99 per user, per month, currently discounted to $20.99 per month for one-year).
X4 (last known figures: $44 per user, per month)
This plan offers unlimited calling to 48 countries, which is fantastic news for large businesses that have a global client base. Features like call barge, call whisper and call monitoring are also included in this plan, which makes it a better prospect for sales teams and other businesses that are planning to do a lot of on-phone training to improve conversations. The most comparable Vonage plan is its Advanced plan ($39.99 per user, per month, currently discounted to $27.99 per month for one-year).
X6 (last known figures: $85 per user, per month)
This is the first plan with a task management feature, and there are several other communication features (like predictive dialing) that larger companies dealing with high volumes of calls would find useful – although they’re only available at an additional cost.
X7 (last known figures: $110 per user, per month)
The X7 plan by 8×8 is one of the most fully featured products our research team reviewed, with a huge range of communication, management, and conversation features, plus a full suite of security provisions and integrations. There are chat, email, and SMS options too.
X8 (last known figures: $140 per user, per month)
There isn’t a huge amount of difference between this plan and the X7 plan, aside from quality management, speech analytics, screen recording, and multi-screen monitoring, so will be best suited to teams where oversight of call management is important.
2. RingCentral
The best business phone system overall
Pricing from: $20 per user, per month
Tech.co rating: 4.7/5
RingCentral topped our business phone system testing with an impressive overall score of 4.7/5 because of its solid VoIP features and third-party connections. Also, RingCentral offers a number of customer support options that Vonage lacks, including 24/7 live support, which is why we awarded the Vonage alternative a stronger category score (5/5 vs 3.4/5).
Pros
- Highly scalable thanks to lots of team management features
- Lots of integrations, which make setup very easy
- Both sales and customer service functionality for all teams
Cons
- Limited inclusive toll-free minutes, and you'll have to pay extra if you need more
- Not as popular with its users as some of the other providers on this list
On top of this, RingCentral has more capacity for adding a range of integrations and includes collaboration features (which Vonage doesn’t have) that will help growing businesses. Because of this the VoIP provider received a stronger scalability score than Vonage in our research and testing (4.9/5 vs 4.5/5).
Our research team concluded that both Vonage and RingCentral would be good fits for retail, healthcare, and customer service teams, but that RingCentral is just that little bit more impressive in all cases.
For instance, RingCentral scored better than Vonage in our security research category (4/5 vs 3/5) because it offers multi-factor authentication (MFA) and strict password rules. This it better at safeguarding sensitive data that would cost you millions if it was mishandled, lost, or stolen.
RingCentral integrations
RingCentral has comparable selection of integrations that can work with the software, including Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, Slack, and 200+ other integrations that can help turn your platform into an all-in-one communication hub. However, some of these integrations are gated behind the more expensive plans, while Vonage offers them on all of its plans.
RingCentral pricing
Vonage and RingCentral plans start at $19.99 (with a 30% discount currently available for a one-year contract) and $20.00 per user, per month respectively, but RingCentral has a line limit of 20 before you’ll have to contact sales to discuss pricing, whilst Vonage sets no user limit. 8×8 used to have a cheaper starting plan than both Vonage and RingCentral at $14.99 per user, per month, but now, its first paid plan is more expensive than both of its rivals ($24 per user, per month, as per the most recently available pricing).
RingCentral also offers task management functionality in more expensive plans for easy scalability. Source: Tech.co testing
Price | Unlimited calls in US | Team messaging | Document sharing | Video conferencing | 24/7 support | Call recording | Analytics | Single sign-on | ||
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Core | Advanced | Ultra | ||||||||
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100 participants | 100 participants | 200 participants | ||||||||
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On-demand | On-demand/Automatic | On-demand/Automatic | ||||||||
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Core ($20 per user, per month)
On this plan, there are plenty of inbound comms features like spam prevention and a virtual receptionist, as well as video conferencing capabilities. There’s also the full range of customer service options (bar onboarding support) you get on all plans. Downsides include the fact there are not many management or training-focused features nor any software integrations to write home about, so we’d advise going for the Advanced plan.
Advanced ($25 per user, per month)
On this plan, the user limit is removed (now unlimited) and the inbound minutes are upped to 250 per month. There are also call monitoring features like call whisper and CRM integrations with popular platforms like Zendesk. Larger businesses (and businesses without dedicated IT teams) will appreciate the onboarding and implementation support included in this plan (as well as the Core plan). This costs extra with Vonage, which also makes it available on all of its plans.
Ultra ($35 per user, per month)
Big differences between this plan and the Advanced plan include its unlimited storage and device analytics and alerts, which allows IT employees to monitor the health of their company’s RingCentral Rooms. There’s also end-to-end encryption for video and messaging too, which can naturally be crucial for businesses expecting to make sensitive calls with important clients, and 10,000 toll-free minutes available. It still comes in at less than Vonage’s most expensive plan, however, which is $39.99 per user, per month (but currently discounted to $27.99 per month for a one-year contract).
3. GoTo Connect
A great VoIP for scaling businesses
Pricing from: $26.00 per user, per month
Tech.co rating: 4.2/5
GoTo Connect was only marginally beaten by Vonage in our last round of testing. However, GoTo offers a number security options Vonage lacks, including multi-factor authentication (MFA), which is why its security score is stronger (4/5 vs 3/5).
Pros
- Excellent 24-hour support service, minimizing downtime
- Uncomplicated product range, meaning no hidden costs or paid add-ons
- Lots of features for the price point, which is lower than 8x8 and Vonage's top-tier plans
Cons
- Setting up is quite complicated, so you won't be able to get started quickly
- No free trial, so you can't test the software before you buy it
- Users often complain about performance and connectivity issues
According to customer reviews, GoTo Connect is more popular among its base – receiving a customer score of 4.4/5 compared to Vonage’s 4/5. GoTo and was one of the best business phone systems in terms of value for money when compared with other providers’ offerings, and while the two providers both earned 3.4/5 for their customer support, GoTo offers onboarding support at no additional cost, unlike Vonage.
However, Vonage has a better set of features overall. GoTo’s first tier plan is quite limited when compared to Vonage’s, and it doesn’t have certain training-focused conversation features (like Call Whisper) available on all plans, like Vonage does.
GoTo Connect’s meeting room interface is simple and easy to use. Source: goto.com
GoTo Connect integrations
Another place where GoTo Connect falls down when compared to Vonage is in its integrations, of which it doesn’t have many. There’s only Salesforce, Zoho, Pipedrive, and SugarCRM for CRM integrations, for example, whereas Vonage offers many more options, and so do providers like 8×8 and RingCentral.
GoTo Connect pricing
GoTo Connect offers fewer pricing packages than 8×8. The provider lets you choose between three plans: Phone System, Connect CX, and Contact Center.
Price | Users | Unlimited calls in US | Team messaging | Video conferencing | 24/7 support | Call recording | Analytics | Email integration | CRM integration | Contact center features | ||
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Phone System | Connect CX | Contact Centre | ||||||||||
$26/user/month | $34/user/month | $80/user/month | ||||||||||
Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | ||||||||||
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250 participants | 250 participants | 250 participants | ||||||||||
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Phone System ($26 per user, per month)
On this plan, there’s no user limit and unlimited domestic calls, as well as a full range of inbound communication features. There’s not a huge number of integrations on offer, but there’s a decent set of collaboration features including team messaging and video conferencing. There’s a phone and email line for customer support too as well as onboarding assistance. It’s not as cheap as Vonage’s first plan, however ($19.99 per user, per month).
Connect CX ($34 per user, per month)
There are some handy additional features on this plan including social media and SMS campaigns, shared inboxes, enhanced reporting and analytics, and integrations with platforms like ServiceNow and Zendesk.
Contact Center ($80 per user, per month)
GoTo Connect’s premium package has everything in Connect CX, with additional AI Chat Analysis software, skills assignment and priority management tools, monitor and coaching features, and sophisticated calling features. Due to its bountiful feature package, it’ll be a natural fit for sales teams.
4. Ooma
Best for customer experience
Pricing from: $19.95 per user, per month
Tech.co score: 4.1/5
Ooma didn’t score as highly as Vonage on our last round of business phone testing, with a score of 4.1/5 overall compared to Vonage’s 4.3/5, preventing it from appearing further up our list of Vonage alternatives. In our full Ooma review, we note that its lower score was largely down to its poor security safeguards, but it’s still worth exploring whether it’s the best fit for your business.
Pros
- Free number transfer, so canceling your existing service is super easy
- Multi-level virtual receptionist, great for businesses fielding lots of incoming calls
- Easy DIY installation, so you can get going really quickly
- 24/7 support, which is nice to have in the back pocket
Cons
- Pricier high-tier plans without the features to justify the cost
- Scores poorly for security, so there are better options for businesses handling sensitive data
- Few third-party integrations, which will make it harder to slot into your business infrastructure
However, Ooma offers the best customer experience out of every VoIP provider we researched, largely because of its excellent customer reviews which earned it a customer satisfaction score of 4.4/5, compared to Vonage’s 4/5.
Unlike Vonage, Ooma also offers 24/7 live chat and phone support and has “Customer Success Managers” to help with onboarding and other queries. Vonage charges extra for onboarding support but does facilitate email support – a channel that Ooma currently lacks.
The Ooma meetings tab can be connected to Microsoft or Google Calendar. Source: Tech.co testing
Aside from that, our research found than Vonage is a superior VoIP phone system. It has more management features (like call monitoring) available on its plans, for example, which helped it gain a better scalability score (4.5/5 for Vonage compared to Ooma’s 4.1/5).
Ooma also scored poorly for security (1/5) – the provider isn’t HIPAA compliant, whereas Vonage is, and the provider doesn’t display any compliance certifications on its site, despite them being an important aspect of VoIP security. On top of this, Vonage has user permission capabilities, whereas Ooma doesn’t. This poor security score means it’s just not as useful as Vonage for sectors that deal with customer and/or client data.
Ooma integrations
We’re not going to sugarcoat it – Ooma doesn’t look great on integrations compared to Vonage. It offers no web conferencing or live chat integrations, and it’s very light on the CRM and helpdesk integrations. Even worse, those limited integrations are exclusive to the most expensive plans from Ooma, so you’re going to have to pay even more to get access.
Ooma pricing
All of Ooma’s plans have unlimited domestic inbound and outbound minutes, as well as no user limit – so for businesses of all sizes, it’s worth taking a look at Ooma.
Price | Team messaging | Document sharing | Video conferencing | 24/7 support | Call recording | Call monitoring | Analytics | ||
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Ooma Office Essentials | Ooma Office Pro | Ooma Office Pro Plus | Ooma Enterprise Standard | Ooma Enterprise Enhanced | Ooma Enterprise Call Center | ||||
$19.99 per user, per month | |||||||||
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Ooma Office ($19.95 per user, per month)
Ooma’s first plan has a solid selection of inbound and outbound communication features – and is priced very similarly to the Vonage Mobile plan ($19.99 per user, per month) – but a lack of management and conversation features like a Call Whisper or Call Transcripts means it’s not the best Vonage alternative. You do, however, get Ooma’s full range of customer support options (bar onboarding). There aren’t any software integrations available on this plan, however.
Ooma Office Pro ($24.95 per user, per month)
On this plan, spam prevention and voicemail-to-text are added to the already large list of communication features, as is external video calling. This is the first Ooma plan with a call recording capability and video conferencing. There are integrations, but only for email and workspace.
Ooma Enterprise Standard ($19.99 per user, per month)
This is the first of the Enterprise plans, which unlocks the ability to perform more team management operations, rather than just VoIP functionality. You’ll get team messaging and document sharing, which can help your team stay in touch. Also, you will get some added VoIP functionality, with this plan unlocking the call monitoring feature.
Ooma Enterprise Advanced ($27.99 per user, per month)
On this plan, CRM and Helpdesk integrations are added in the form of Salesforce, MS Dynamics, and Zendesk. There’s also video meetings, a web-based admin portal, and an open API framework.
Ooma Enterprise Call Center ($49.99 per user, per month)
This plan adds a Call queue to the list of communication features, as well as a call flow designer. Aside from that, it’s hard to split this from the Enterprise plan, although a call flow designer will reduce your number of missed calls meaning this plan would suit larger businesses receiving increasing numbers of calls.
To learn more about Ooma and Vonage pricing stacks up, check out our full Ooma vs Vonage guide.
5. Nextiva
Great for professional service teams
Pricing from: $20 per user, per month
Tech.co rating: 4.1/5
Vonage is a slightly better provider overall than Nextiva, because of its superior VoIP features and larger selection of external connections. However, when researching Vonage alternatives, Nextiva came out on top when it came to customer support, and security.
Vonage offers more scalable packages too. As mentioned previously, our scalability scores are determined by specific features that businesses will need to grow, from security provisions to protect data, to collaboration features to promote efficient group work. Integrations with other software are also important, and Vonage has slightly more than Nextiva.
Pros
- Unlimited users on all plans, ideal for large businesses on a budget
- Easy to use and simple set up, which makes it good for beginners
- 24/7 live support + excellent additional support options
- Lots of collaboration features like a team messenger, which is great for hybrid/remote teams
Cons
- Few management features, which means it isn't very scalable
- No multi-factor authentication, and there are better options for managing sensitive customer info
- Few integrations on the first paid plan, so you won't be able to sync it with your CRM
Nextiva has more in-house collaboration features when compared with Vonage, and other providers, which are key for many of the industries mentioned above, whereas Vonage has more training-focused features like Call Whisper, which is why it’s better for teams that require training (e.g. customer service).
Nextiva’s AI virtual receptionist feature in action.
Source: nextiva.com
Nextiva still remains one of the better options for professional services, including consultants, contractors, designers, and creative service teams, whilst Vonage is better suited to sales, retail, and customer service teams, based on the features each provider prioritizes. Consultants, for instance, have to be easily contactable by their clients, and Nextiva provides a great solution for low-volume inbound communications. It has a virtual receptionist, voicemail features, ring groups, and multiple ways to contact staff (like call groups).
Nextiva integrations
Notably, Nextiva has no capacity for external or internal live chat integrations, and you can only integrate with web conferencing software on Nextiva’s more expensive plans. You can do this with Vonage on all of its plans, although it does come at an additional cost. To be fair to Nextiva, it does have a better set of its own collaboration tools than Vonage, which may explain why communication integrations aren’t as numerous.
Nextiva pricing
Nextiva includes unlimited domestic inbound and outbound minutes on all its plans, and no user limits on any packages, so bear that in mind when contrasting it with other business phone systems.
Price | Users | Unlimited calls in US | Team messaging | Document sharing | Video conferencing | 24/7 support | Call recording | Call monitoring | Analytics | Task management | Single sign-on | ||
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Digital | Core | Engage | Power Suite | ||||||||||
Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | ||||||||||
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| 250 participants | 250 participants | 250 participants | ||||||||||
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Requires add-on | Requires add-on | Requires add-on | Requires add-on | ||||||||||
3 reports | 5 reports | 10 reports | Unlimited | ||||||||||
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Digital ($20 per user, per month)
This Nextiva plan has basic inbound communication features and some outbound comms features, but compared to other providers on this list, it’s a bit of a thin offering. There is, however, a good range of customer support options and collaboration features like live chat and messaging applications.
Core ($30 per user, per month)
On this plan, there’s everything on the Digital plan plus video conferencing, CRM, and helpdesk integrations, as well as call conferencing with 40 participants and an SMS/chat function. Vonage’s second plan ($29.99 per user, per month, currently discounted to $20.99 for a one-year contract) also has call conferencing, but there’s a cap on 30 participants and it costs extra.
Engage ($40 per user, per month)
This plan offers advanced reporting, MS Teams integration, a website chatbot, and more, in addition to the Core functionality. Social media management is boosted to 10 accounts, and 2000 toll-free minutes are available.
Power Suite ($60 per user, per month)
The final Nextiva plan goes one further, offering a supervisor dashboard, intelligent routing to match callers with best-fit agents, a unified team interface, AI-enabled call transcription and summation, and Advanced IVR, which enables you to quickly route customers to the correct place, in a timely manner.
6. Net2Phone
Great for international businesses
Pricing from: $19.99 per user, per month
Tech.co rating: 4.2/5
Net2Phone’s overall score of 4.2/5 falls slightly short of Vonage’s 4.3/5, but Net2Phone is great for international businesses. It’s an all-around cheaper alternative to Vonage too – with the Professional plan for teams of 10-24 costing just $26.99 per user, per month, with free international calling to over 4o countries on all of the provider’s packages.
While Vonage has better VoIP features, Net2Phone is best for international businesses, and was one of the the best value VoIP provider we tested (scoring 4.5/5 for pricing).
Pros
- Unlimited international calling to 40+ countries
- Video conferencing platform built-in for team communication
- Plenty of AI features to save time and improve productivity
Cons
- Extremely limited selection of third-party integrations
- Video conferencing and AI features very limited in Essentials plan
- Toll-free and international numbers cost extra in all plans
A large reason why Net2Phone appeared last on our list of the best Vonage alternatives, is because it doesn’t have any features that will improve the staff’s on-phone manner; there’s no call whisper function allowing managers to give live feedback to their employee, for example, or features that will let other users join the call when needed (call barge).
In contrast, Vonage has capabilities for both. There are no custom call lists or external video calling on any of Net2Phone’s plans either, which Vonage has. These missing features somewhat account for the lower price.
Our VoIP software research team did conclude that Net2Phone’s packages were a little more scalable than competitor Nextiva – but still, not as scalable as Vonage, which is better for growing businesses.
Net2phone VoIP analytics feature is a bit basic but gives you what you need.
Source: net2phone.com
Both Net2Phone and Vonage offer adequate security but Net2Phone does have the edge, with an updated scored of 4/5 in our latest round of testing because of its multi-factor authentication protections. This places the provider in line with other Vonage alternatives like RingCentral and 8×8 who both score 4/5 and 5/5 respectively.
Net2Phone also gained a better customer support score than Vonage (3.9/5 vs 3.4/5) – thanks to its 24/7 live support, which Vonage doesn’t offer. Net2Phone also offers onboarding assistance on all plans for free too, whereas this is only available with Vonage for an additional cost.
Switching to a VoIP service can save businesses anywhere between 30% and 50%. If you’re looking to make savings towards higher end of this bracket, Net2Phone will be a great Vonage alternative to switch too. Learn more about the providers pricing below.
Net2Phone integrations
Net2Phone doesn’t compare too favorably to Vonage on integrations. It offers virtually no live chat integrations and no workplace integrations, so you can’t combine it with Google Workspace or Microsoft 365.
Net2Phone pricing
As mentioned previously, all of Net2Phone’s pricing plans come with free international calling to over 40 countries, which is a lot more than other competitors featured in this article, making it the best bet for international businesses. There’s also no user limit on any of Net2Phone’s plans.
Price | Users | Unlimited calls in US | Team messaging | Video conferencing | 24/7 support | Call recording | Analytics | Single sign-on | ||
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Essentials | Professional | Enterprise | ||||||||
$17.99-23.99/user/month | $24.99-27.99/user/month | Custom | ||||||||
Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | ||||||||
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1-to-1 | Unlimited | Unlimited | ||||||||
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Phone & email | Phone & email | Phone & email | ||||||||
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Add-on | Add-on | | ||||||||
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N2P Essentials ($21.99 per month)
Net2Phone’s most basic tier includes every VoIP feature small businesses need to get started including unlimited domestic and international calling, a plethora of calling features — from call recording to time-based greetings — limited video conferencing, and SMS/MMS text messaging.
N2P Professionals ($26.99 per month)
This package includes everything that you can find in the Essentials plan, with added bonuses including messaging groups and channels, in-built extension mirroring, up to 100 guests per videoconference, and a suite of additional integrations.
N2P Enterprise (Custom)
Enterprise offers everything in the previous plans, as well as YouTube live streaming for video calls, ability to share videos from YouTube, in-built call sentiment analysis, AI coaching notes, and advanced call analytics.
Prices listed are for businesses with teams of 10-24.
Should You Choose Vonage Anyway?
If you’re not already a Vonage customer and are looking to switch, you might still want to consider Vonage as an option. Or, if you are a Vonage customer, you might have it better than you think. Scoring 4.3/5 overall in our research and testing, Vonage was ranked as the third best business VoIP phone system we tested, only bettered by RingCentral (4.7/5) and 8×8 (4.6/5).
The provider’s weighted customer score of 4/5 was actually higher than Vonage alternatives RingCentral and 8×8, which both scored a 3.5/5. This means that a lot more users end up satisfied with Vonage’s software in the end. Vonage fares marginally better for pricing too, with lower overall costs than RingCentral and 8×8.
What's New for 2024 with Vonage?
At the end of July, Vonage unveiled a series of new features and updates. For instance, it rolled out an Insights Stats API, as well as user experience improvements for customers using real-time analytics. Not only this, but users were granted early access to two-factor authentication (2FA) via SMS.
Vonage is a great fit for customer service and sales teams who will need to train their staff and provide feedback about their on-call manner, thanks to a number of useful training features. Vonage also provides very useful onboarding assistance, so you’ll be able to get set up quickly and efficiently. It also proved to be one of the more scalable products we tested, and it has no user limit on any of its plans so would suit growing businesses too.
Of course, there are definitely areas for improvement. Vonage doesn’t have any password rules for staff, for instance, which meant it lost marks when it came to security, despite having a decent list of compliance certifications, and there are better Vonage alternatives for handling sensitive data. There’s also no 24/7 live support, which many other providers do offer.
Pros
- Great central hub for collaborating, with team messaging on all plans
- Great training and management features on, perfect for sales and customer service teams
- Lots of big-name integrations means minimal changes for your team
Cons
- Analytics features are quite primitive, making it difficult to get actionable insights
- Lots of features include additional fees, so it's hard to get a good gauge of your final price
How to Choose the Right VoIP System for Your Business
Choosing the right VoIP system for your business is no easy task, especially with so many things to consider, from pricing to integration with your existing software.
- Where are you making calls too? You’ll need to consider if your business is going to be making exclusively domestic calls, or will you be expecting inbound and outbound international calls from other countries? If your business has an exclusively US or North American customer base, for instance, you won’t need to worry about free calling to international numbers, or how many countries are covered by the provider.
- What integrations does the provider offer? Another thing to consider is integrations, and whether a provider integrates with other software you use, such as an existing CRM system. If you use Microsoft Teams, Zoom or Slack for internal communications, then you’ll want to know if they can connect with your VoIP setup, as you may not want to transition to another comms platform, just for the sake of your VoIP system.
- Do you require scalable software? Next, you’ll want to consider if your business is going to be expanding in the near future, and if so, then you’ll want to consider how scalable a given piece of VoIP software is and how many employees there are in your company. For example, if your team’s soon increasing from 10 to 30, then picking a plan with a user limit of 10 might make sense for now, but not later. Plus, the more customers, clients, or patients’ data you’ll be handling, the better security features you’ll need, and the more compliance certificates it’ll be useful if your provider has.
- How strong is the customer support? Another thing you may want to consider, on top of these key areas, is customer support and if you’ll need onboarding assistance, which might be the case if you’re a big business. Whether you need conference call features, or features to train staff with, may also be important and will differ depending on what sector you’re in. So be sure to look out for that when you’re reviewing Vonage alternatives.
- What security safeguards are available? Healthcare teams will be handling sensitive and confidential data, so might prioritize security, whereas a retail or sales team might prioritize a provider with call recording and call monitoring functions in order to provide feedback to staff on their on-phone manner.
Methodology: How We Test Vonage Alternatives
We take our hands-on testing and impartial 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 business phone platforms on the market, we assessed ten of the top VoIP systems across 78 areas of investigation.
Based on years of market research, product testing, and user needs analysis, 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 feedback and ratings given by customers who have used a particular VoIP system, as well as the wider reputation a VoIP software holds.
- Cost: the pricing structure associated with the VoIP service, including factors such as monthly subscription fees, domestic and international call rates, setup fees, hardware costs, and extra costs like add-on features or services.
- Features: the functionalities and capabilities offered by the VoIP service, including basic features such as call forwarding, and voicemail, as well as more advanced features like auto-attendant, conference calling, and interactive voice response (IVR).
- External Connections: the VoIP service's ability to connect and integrate with external systems or devices. This can include compatibility with existing phone systems, mobile devices, or other third-party software.
- Customer Support: the assistance and resources provided by the VoIP service provider to customers, including online resources, knowledge bases, and access to customer support representatives and AI chatbots.
- 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.
- Scalability: the ability of the VoIP service to accommodate the growth and changing needs of an organization, including its capacity to handle a growing number of users, support multiple locations or offices, and scale up or down.
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." After hundreds of hours, our process is complete, and the results should ensure you can find the best solution for your needs.
Value How much of a value the service is | External connections How many third-party integrations the service allows | Customer support How available customer support teams are for the service | Security How many security features the service has | Customer Score How users rate the services in app stores and other sources | Scalability How many scalable features the service has | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Vonage | |||||||
3.8 | |||||||
3.5 | |||||||
3.4 | |||||||
3.0 | |||||||
4.0 | |||||||
4.5 |
Verdict: 8x8 is the Best Vonage Alternative
Our research team concluded that 8×8 was the best Vonage alternative. On the pricier plans geared to larger teams, 8×8 has collaboration tools that Vonage doesn’t (like a task management function), and 8×8 has better security provisions than Vonage, including multi-factor authentication. There’s also more on offer in terms of integrations with, 8×8 integrating with more CRM systems, helpdesk solutions, and external live chat integrations available.
Vonage does have an impressive range of training-focused features, though, like call transcripts and recordings, and it’s a great fit for retail and customer service teams. RingCentral, on the other hand, is better value for money and offers many of the same features for less. Suffice to say, your cup runneth over with VoIP solutions beyond Vonage, so get started today!
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