Ooma Office Review: Everything You Need to Know

Ooma is a great pick for your small business VoIP software, due in large part to strong support options and a focus on customer experience that makes phone calls simple and easy.

With pricing that starts from a competitive $19.95 per user, per month, along with a good selection of core features and a clean interface, Ooma is a good pick for small businesses. On the other hand, it doesn’t offer many integrations and it’s not HIPAA compliant, which led to Ooma losing marks in our last round of research (it earned a 4.1/5 score)

If you’re still interested, however, Ooma may be a cost-effective pick for you. Continue reading to find out how we got on when we tested out the software and to learn more about the specific features you’ll unlock with each plan available to you, so you can make an informed decision.

Ooma: At a Glance

Ooma is a popular VoIP solution with a suite of decent features including a mobile app, virtual receptionist, extension dialing and monitoring, and 500 minutes of inbound calls per month at its cheapest plan. Prices start at a reasonable $19.95 per user, per month, with no minimum contract required.

With a strong customer score of 4.4/5 during our last round of research, there’s clearly a lot to recommend Ooma. It’s a great solution for small businesses in the retail space, due to its selection of analytics tools, which are available across all plans, as well as a handy call flow designer which is perfect for small teams who want to ensure customers can get the information they need as quickly and efficiently, even if there aren’t any agents immediately available.

However, one big downside is that Ooma has few compliance certifications available out of the box, so companies that are handling sensitive data might want to steer clear. What’s more, while Ooma now provides multi-factor authentication options and role-based permission tools, these are recent additions that weren’t present when we conducted a deep-dive on the product a few years back.

In this Ooma Review, you’ll find:

• Ooma: At a Glance
• Ooma Core Features
• Ooma Pricing
• Ooma User Experience
• Ooma Alternatives
• About Our Research
• Verdict

Ooma Core Features

Ooma offers a solid range of business features. You’ll get a decent baseline set of functions and tools, no matter which Ooma plan you choose.

The provider excels in some areas, such as call management, while severely lacking in others, such as security and integrations. Here’s a quick rundown of Ooma’s core features, plan by plan:

Call management

Ooma Office comes with a wide selection of call management features that are designed to help you organize your incoming calls from clients. There’s Call Flip, which allows users to move a call between devices, without any interruption. There’s also Call Park, which lets users put a call on hold, and then pick it up from a different device. It can also be picked up by another call handler.

In addition, there are several varieties of call transfers available. Blind transfer sends the caller to a new extension with no need for interaction, while attend transfer lets the user announce the call before transferring it. It’s also possible to directly transfer a caller to a user’s voicemail.

The Ooma meetings tab can be connected to Microsoft or Google Calendar. Source: Tech.co testing

Integrations

While Ooma integrates with a sufficient number of other programs, it isn’t as compatible as some of its competitors, such as Vonage or RingCentral, the latter of which has over 50 CRM integrations.

With Ooma, integrations are available with Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Zendesk, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and Gmail. It’s no slouch in this regard, but there are now internal or external live chat integrations on any plans or analytics integrations.

You may run into some learning curves when figuring out how other brands’ interfaces function when integrated with Ooma – I found the Google Calendar integration to be a little cramped within the web version of Ooma, for example. The functionality worked perfectly well for me, in that case.

However, you’ll need at least Ooma Office Pro, Ooma’s second plan ($24.95 per user, per month), to get any integrations at all – and CRM and Helpdesk integrations aren’t available until the Office Pro Plus plan for $29.95 per user, per month.

Apps

Ooma Office is a modern telecom solution so, naturally, it has its own app. Available on the Apple App Store and Google Play, both versions are well-reviewed by users. The app includes a range of features, including group messaging, call transfer, voicemail access, and the ability to pick up calls from another device.

The Android app is compatible with devices running Android 5.0 or higher, while the iOS app requires iOS 12.0 or higher.

Security

This is one area where Ooma is noticeably behind the market, scoring poorly for security overall during our research. This is because Ooma does not display any compliance certificates online – and also, in its terms and conditions, it says that it isn’t HIPAA compliant.

To be fair, Ooma does now have HIPAA mode, but when a provider states so adamantly that their services are not designed to securely manage patient information, I’d suggest looking elsewhere, especially if data security is a top priority for your customers, clients or service users. RingCentral and 8×8 are both HIPAA compliant, by way of contrast. 

Ooma didn’t use to offer multi-factor authentication, and no password rules were enforced – although this is now a possibility for users. Again, providers like RingCentral – which is only slightly more expensive – have had these things in place for a lot longer.

The Ooma desktop app has a call log that tracks the duration and date of all calls. Source: Tech.co testing

Reporting

Ooma’s level of reporting depends on the package that you take. For the Ooma Office tiers, you’ll get all the basic information, such as what calls have been made, and when.

For high-level reporting, you’ll need to look to Ooma Enterprise. A customizable dashboard gives oversight of important metrics for your team, while also allowing a granular deep dive. Pre-built reports can identify trends for your team, phone numbers, and channels.

The Ooma Enterprise Call Center package goes even further, adding voice analytics to help identify training opportunities.

The Ooma homepage dashboard is a simple interface with plenty of white space. Source: Tech.co testing

Hardware

Ooma has VoIP phone hardware available, and its home phone hardware range is ideal for people with home offices, perhaps who work for themselves and are only expecting a low call volume.

In terms of hardware, Ooma Telo costs $99.99 (ethernet connection), while Ooma Telo Air with two HD3 handsets is available for $139.99 (Wifi router connection). Finally, Ooma Telo LTE costs $129.99 (cellular network connection) – which represents a $30 reduction in price since the last time we reviewed this platform.

You can buy IP and Wi-Fi desktop phone models from Ooma, with prices from $59.99, and prices begin at $69.99 for third-party phones, like the Yealink SIP-T21P E2 – a solid choice for small businesses.

Ooma Pricing

Ooma has two price plan categories, Ooma Office – which will suit small businesses – and Ooma Enterprise, which (you guessed it) is geared towards large businesses and includes a plan for companies that operate call centers. Ooma’s Enterprise plans have features that Ooma’s Office plans don’t, most notably management and collaboration tools. Read on for more details on Ooma pricing, or get a quote from Ooma now to find the best deal for your business.

Ooma small business plans

• Ooma Essentials ($19.95 per user, per month): although Ooma’s first plan is limited when compared with a provider like Vonage because it has no integrations available, it still has all the basics you need. This list of features includes voicemail, ring groups, localized and toll-free numbers, call conferencing, a mobile app, and phone-based 24/7 live support.
• Ooma Pro ($24.95 per user, per month): Ooma Pro is the first of its plans with email and workspace app integration, such as Google Workspace. It also has management features that include call recording, analytics tools, video conferencing, and a spam prevention feature, which other providers, like 8×8, don’t have on any of their plans.
• Ooma Pro Plus ($29.95 per user, per month): This is the last plan geared towards small businesses specifically, and it’s the first Ooma plan with helpdesk and CRM integrations, like Salesforce and Zendesk. You’ll also get the benefit of videoconferencing reporting, online whiteboarding, team chat, and team presence.

Ooma Enterprise plans

• Ooma Enterprise Standard is priced at $19.99 per user, per month: Ooma’s Standard plan for larger businesses has advanced features that aren’t available on any Office plans, such as a dedicated Customer Success Hero and White Glove onboarding.
• Ooma Enterprise Enhanced is priced at $27.99 per user, per month: This plan also offers spam prevention and voicemail to text for enterprises, as well as video calling, enhanced text messaging, a web-based admin portal, and more. CRM integrations, like Salesforce, are also available.
• Ooma Enterprise Call Center is priced at $49.99 per user, per month: The call center package has a call-flow designer and skills-based routing among its extra management features, plus a call queue, which is super useful for managing high volumes of calls.

Ooma Home phone plans

• Ooma Home Basic is priced at $99.99 (one-time payment). This will get you the Ooma Telo hardware you need (there’s no monthly subscription). On this plan, you’ll get free US calling, a mobile app, Amazon Echo integration, an answering machine, call logs via the MyOoma online portal, and a 60-day trial of Ooma Premier.
• Ooma Home Premier is priced at $99.99 + $9.99 per month. You’ll get everything in the free plan plus some useful additional features, including advanced call blocking, a second phone line, voicemail monitoring, call forwarding, voicemail-to-email audio forwarding, free calling to Canada/Mexico, and three-way conferencing.

It’s also worth pointing out that Ooma offers special “starter kits” for new customers. They’re a great option for small businesses that want to get started quickly, and currently don’t have the time to research a longer-term solution.

Ooma User Experience

Setup and installation

If the thought of setting up a new telephone system has you breaking out in a cold sweat, then don’t worry: with VoIP, it’s refreshingly simple. Gone are the days of disruption, specialist teams needing a site visit, and complicated hardware, as companies are able to set up VoIP systems quickly and easily by themselves.

In fact, Ooma is so confident in how quick and easy its system is to install that it quotes an average time of just 20 minutes to get up and running.

We can confirm that most tasks were pretty easy to figure out: When I tested the interface myself, I was able to add a new contact within 30 seconds. I also figured out how to connect my Google Calendar account to the Ooma Meetings page in less than a minute.

Installing the Ooma desktop app is a straightforward process. Source: Tech.co testing

Call quality

From somewhat rocky origins, VoIP has made some serious ground in recent years to compete with traditional analog phones, and it’s now difficult for the average caller to tell the difference between VoIP and landline.

For instance, call quality is exceptional. It’s something that Ooma takes seriously, so much so that it regularly sends out its own surveys to customers. In its most recent survey, 76% of Ooma Office users rated its sound quality as an eight or higher on a scale of one to 10. Less than 3% of users reported experiencing regular call quality issues.

Placing an outgoing call with the Ooma desktop app just requires pulling up a popup window and dialing the number. Source: Tech.co testing

Customer support

When it comes to customer support, Ooma users aren’t left wanting. Ooma scores well for customer support overall, since it makes a good selection of contact methods and online information available to its users. If you’d like to contact Ooma yourself and you’re using either the Office or Enterprise plan, you’ll have a live chat option, a phone line, and 24/7 live support.

If you’re someone who likes to troubleshoot issues yourself, then you can peruse Ooma’s user forum and knowledge base for answers to whatever you may be having.

User ratings and satisfaction

On the internet, a positive Ooma review isn’t difficult to come by. Ooma has an average customer score of 4.4/5 across major rating sites, such as Capterra, G2, and Trustpilot. This is better than RingCentral, our top-rated VoIP provider, and puts it in line with other services that offer a great user experience, like Google Voice.

Ooma Office actually scores very well on the App Store, with an impressive average of 4.9/5 stars from 7,100 people. The rating on Google Play (4.4/5) is less impressive, but still above average.

Alternatives to Ooma

Ooma offers an excellent customer experience and was also highlighted by our research teams as a good option for retail companies. This is because it has the features to deal with large levels of inbound calls and its plans have useful training features, like call recording. However, it is poor for security (for which it scores just 1/5) and isn’t even HIPAA compliant, which most VoIP systems we tested are.

The business VoIP world is a busy one, and there are plenty of Ooma alternatives. You may even want to skip all the hassle and instead fill in a 60-second questionnaire for a free quote tailored to your business’ size and needs: Just check out our comparison tool.

Ooma vs RingCentral

Our top Ooma alternative is RingCentral, which is also our top-rated VoIP provider, scoring 4.7/5 overall. Its plans are only slightly more expensive than Ooma’s, but you get access to a lot more features.

RingCentral stands out for scalability thanks to a range of useful management and collaboration features, and unlike Ooma, is HIPAA compliant and suitable for healthcare teams without the need for any further action. With Ooma, you’ll have to activate HIPAA mode. RingCentral has a wealth of available integrations, helping it to a 4.3/5 for external connections (the highest score of any provider we tested), with users gaining access to 96 CRM integrations, for example.

Even when it comes to Ooma’s strongest point, customer support, RingCentral still comes out on top, scoring a solid 5/5. It has everything Ooma offers, plus email support.

View our Ooma vs RingCentral Comparison.

RingCentral platform in action. Source: Tech.co testing

Ooma vs 8×8

8×8 scores 4.6/5 and is not quite as impressive as RingCentral overall, but it is better than Ooma for small businesses, in the long run. Although it may slightly pricier, it has great integrations and top marks for customer support and security, making it a great value for the money.

Ooma will let you enforce multi-factor authentication on all its plans and password rules after its first paid plan. It also has more compliance certificates than RingCentral and user permission options. This makes it an excellent choice for any company managing sensitive calls and data, such as those in the healthcare industry.

Using the 8×8 platform. Source: Tech.co testing

Ooma vs Google Voice

Although Google Voice can’t compete with Ooma or RingCentral when it comes to features, it does excel when it comes to security, and it has a great customer score, which means users are having a good time with the service.

Google Voice is also inexpensive, starting as low as $10 per month, and is significantly cheaper than RingCentral or 8×8. However, it’s only really suitable for small teams, and there are better options out there for enterprises. If your top concern is the security of your business, it’s worth a look.

View our Ooma vs Google Voice Comparison

Testing Google Voice. Source: Tech.co testing

Ooma vs MagicJack

MagicJack is a popular VoIP service but, with an overall score of just 2.5/5, it doesn’t even come close to competing with Ooma.

MagicJack has few relevant integrations and poor security, which will make it an inappropriate choice for businesses operating in industries like healthcare. There’s also a lack of management and collaboration features, which contributed to a poor scalability score of 1/5.

In fairness, MagicJack won’t set you back quite as much as Ooma, RingCentral or 8×8, but it’s got so few features that you’re almost definitely better off looking elsewhere.

View our MagicJack vs Ooma Comparison

Using Magic Jack. Source: Magic Jack

Ooma vs Vonage

Another big-name VoIP service, Vonage, is also a worthy contender.

One of the reasons we might suggest Ooma over Vonage is that the price you see is the price you get with Ooma. With Vonage, its base price is the same, but there are a number of optional extras that carry additional charges, such as installation, call transfer, and virtual numbers – which are all included with Ooma.

Ooma also has the advantage of phone support, which Vonage doesn’t offer. But otherwise, Vonage does score more highly on our tests for integrations, features, security and overall value, where it earns a 4.3/5 score, compared to Ooma’s 4.1/5 overall score.

View our Vonage vs Ooma comparison

Using the Vonage platform. Source: Vonage

Want to find out which VoIP provider fits your business best? Get a free quote using our comparison tool.

How We Reviewed and Tested Ooma

At Tech.co, we’re lucky enough to have a full-time research team who road-test software on a daily basis. They also conduct detailed market research so that we’re aware of the latest industry trends, changes, and movements. This team allows us to provide our readers with the most accurate, up-to-date information, and to assist our expert writers when they review products.

Features, customer support, security, scalability, customer score, and pricing were the areas of inquiry our research team focused on when testing business phones because these were found to be the most important factors to our readers, like you. Each provider we test gets an individual score for each category, based on how it performs against a variety of criteria.

Tech.co has commercial partnerships with some of the service and system providers we write articles about. However, it is important to know that we’re completely editorially independent. When we say a product is the best, that’s down to our independent testing and research – and nothing else. Find out more about our research – or read on to find out our final verdict on Ooma.