Ooma vs Google Voice: Price & Features Comparison 2023

While Ooma and Google Voice are both great communications providers, we think Ooma is the superior of the two.

Why? Simply put, Ooma offers more features, and better support than Google Voice does. Google Voice may be cheaper, but Ooma is better value — unless you're a one-man band and planning to stay that way, Ooma offers the best deals.

Choosing the right provider for your small business is one of the most important decisions you can make for productivity and growth. Read on to see exactly what you get with each provider. Or cut to the chase and get a VoIP price quote now to make sure you get the best deal for your business.

Ooma vs Google Voice: Which VoIP Service Is Better?

Google Voice and Ooma are both good choices when it comes to VoIP systems, but it's Ooma that has the edge. Google Voice may be cheaper (especially for smaller businesses), but it can't match Ooma for customer support and features. You get what you pay for, so do you really want to sell yourself short?

On this page:

• Which VoIP Service is Better?
• Best for Business
• Best for Value
• Best for Customer Service
• Best for International Calling
• Methodology 
• Ooma vs Google Voice Verdict

Best for Business Features – Winner: Ooma

Both Ooma and Google Voice offer a comprehensive list of business features, but as you can see from our list below, Ooma wins this round hands down.

Ooma boasts a feature score of 4.1/5 making it the obvious choice for businesses looking for a versatile VoIP solution. Ooma offers a wider selection of call management features and its wide range of CRM integrations makes it especially helpful for customer-facing businesses.

In comparison, Google Voice has only scored 2.6/5 for its VoIP features. But while Ooma's list of features is more extensive, Google Voice it's still a good choice for startup teams of 5 or fewer already using the Google ecosystem. Check out the lists below to see how the provider's features compare side-by-side:

Integrations

If a system offers lots of integrations, it will be easier to integrate into your business seamlessly. With this in mind, when researching third-party integrations we consider how well a VoIP system will be able to connect with your pre-existing hardware and software. Unfortunately, when it comes to external connections neither providers fair very well, with Google Voice scoring a dismal 2.8/5 in this category and Ooma Office achieving an even worse score 2.7/5

While Ooma does offer a decent range of add-ons, including major names like Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Zendesk, Microsoft 365, G-Suite, and ServiceNow, it lacks basic analytics, SSO, and live chat integrations. Google Voice, on the other hand,  lacks compatibility with major software providers Zendesk or Microsoft’s suite.

However, the solution does welcome ad-ons with CRM tools like Zoho, Hubspot, and Salesforce and integrates seamlessly with the rest of the G-Suite — making the platform easier to integrate with businesses already using Google infrastructure.

Call Management

Both solutions have a strong set of call management options, matching each other pound for pound here. These options include call transfer, voicemail (including transcripts), call forwarding, and call blocking.

Mobile Apps

Both Ooma and Google Voice offer apps for Android and iOS devices. Both have strong reviews and are clearly liked by their users, with no major complaints. The Google Voice app has more downloads across the platforms, but the Ooma app is more highly rated.

Scalability

Scalability refers to how capable a product is of adapting to your business's future needs. When it comes to finding a new VoIP system considering scalability is important because scalable solutions are able to save you much more money down the line.

According to our research, Ooma Office is much more scalable than Google Voice, with a category score of 4.1/5 compared to 2.9/5. This is because Ooma's software is highly customizable, flexible, and adept at growing alongside businesses. In contrast, Google Voice's software isn't quite as adaptable, making it a less obvious choice for businesses prioritizing scalability.

Security

When it comes to VoIP security, the difference between Ooma and Google Voice is night and day. With a perfect security score of 5/5, Google Voice is the most secure VoIP system we've tested. It offers every security mechanism needed for complete peace of mind, from multi-factor authentication and user persimmons to TLC and SRTP encryptions.

In contrast, Ooma has some major shortcomings when it comes to security, with its security options achieving a dismal score of 1/5. Not only does the provider lack essential options like multi-factor authentication and user permissions, but it's even short of basic compliance certifications, making Ooma isn't a bad option for businesses serious about keeping their phone lines secure.

Best for Value – Winner: Ooma

When it comes to price, at first it doesn't seem a fair fight between Ooma and Google Voice. Google Voice starts at $10 nearly half the price of Ooma’s lowest tier. What's more, its features seem fairly competitive while Google’s Voice’s Starter tier won’t suit businesses larger than a startup, its Standard tier could do the job, for $3.95 cheaper than Ooma.

However, on closer inspection, it's clear that Google Voice has a ceiling for users. Growing businesses who want a phone system they can stick with and rely on will see the value in paying for Ooma in the long term, with its more wide-ranging features and far stronger support team.

Ooma Office Pro is Tech.co's top pick for small businesses who are serious about improving their communications plus, it's cheaper than Google Voice's Premier plan.

Ooma Pricing

Ooma offers four tiers of pricing: Office, Office Pro, Enterprise, and Enterprise Call Center.

Ooma Office retails at $19.95 per month, per user and comes with plenty of features, including a mobile app, hold music, call transfer options, and more. You also get a virtual receptionist, a feature that Google Voice’s Starter tier doesn’t offer.

Ooma Office Pro costs businesses $24.95 per month, per user and offers the above, and also throws in call recording, the desktop app, enhanced call blocking, and voicemail transcripts. Plus, it gives companies higher usage limits for audio conferencing and extension monitoring.

Ooma Enterprise costs $27.99 per user, per month and contains everything in Office Pro, with additional team messaging and document-sharing tools.  This tier also features additional CRM integrations to help users drive up customer experiences.

Finally, Ooma's most comprehensive package, Ooma Call Center, offers everything in the Enterprise alongside intelligent routing tools, drag-and-drop call flows, and specialist routing features. This plan costs $49.99 per user, per month and is specifically designed for call centers.

Read our full review of Ooma.

Google Voice Pricing

Google Voice has three tiers of pricing, but there is no free tier for business users. While personal users can access Google Voice for free, this isn’t the case for companies. If you’re on the fence, you could try out the personal service first to get to grips with Google Voice before committing.

The first tier, Starter, is intended as the entry point, and for $10 a month, allows up to 10 users. It offers free domestic calls in the U.S., unlimited SMS, 24/7 support, voicemail, and call forwarding. However, it’s worth noting that this tier doesn’t offer any desk phone support.

Next up is Standard, priced at $16 per month, which offers everything that Starter does, but includes desk phone support as well as ring groups and a “multi-level” auto attendant. It can cater for an unlimited number of users in an unlimited number of domestic locations.

Lastly, there’s Premier, priced at $30 per month. This one comes with all of the above, and is available to an unlimited number of international locations, as well as offering advanced reporting.

Read our guide to the best Google Voice alternatives

Ooma vs Google Voice Customer Service: Winner – Ooma

Being unable to resolve a technical issue quickly is often worse than the issue itself, which is why strong customer support is so important.

If you're looking for software with a strong support team, you're better off going with Ooma. With an excellent support score of 4.5/5, compared to Google Voice's score of 3.1/5, Ooma offers 24/7 support alongside just about every support feature under the sun — from an active user forum to a knowledge-based packed with resources. Google Voice also offers round-the-clock help, but lacks crucial tools like live chat, making it less suitable for businesses that need fast responses.

Setup Options

Setting up with Ooma is a simple affair as could be. The company states that it will take around 20 minutes to set up your device and connect to the service. If you get stuck, there’s a customer support assistant on hand too. The video below demonstrates the steps required.

It’s a similar story with Google Voice you shouldn't have much trouble getting started. If you do get stuck, Google has a handy step by step guide to follow on its site, meaning you shouldn’t go too far wrong.

Support Options

As you’d expect, both Ooma and Google Voice offer good online support. However, it’s Ooma that offers more options, with 24/7 live chat and a setup assistant complementing the written resources as well as telephone support making it the clear winner when it comes to customer service.

Google, by contrast, is rather lacking. Yes, it does offer 24/7 support, but it’s based entirely around online forms and tools, with no phone support option.

Best for International Calling: Winner – Google Voice

Both Ooma and Google Voice offer competitive rates when it comes to international calls. As is fairly standard with such services, domestic calls to the U.S. & Canada are included in the package, and both providers offer free calls to Puerto Rico, too. Ooma goes a step further by also including calls to Mexico, free of charge.

For businesses that mainly place calls within North America, there’s a logic to sticking with Ooma and getting these calls for free. If you'll often be calling a range of countries further afield, however, in most cases we found that Google Voice offered cheaper international calling rates, as you can see in our table below.

Ooma vs Google Voice: Call Quality

VoIP has made such serious technological leaps and bounds in recent years, it's almost hard to distinguish between an internet-based call and a traditional analogue one.

This is of course exactly the scenario you want while you want the cheaper bills that using VoIP over a landline can provide, you definitely don’t want to skimp on the quality and risk alienating or frustrating your customers.

Call quality is 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 1 to 10. Less than three percent of users reported experiencing call quality issues regularly.

Google Voice doesn’t offer similar customer survey data, but a look at review sites shows that customers on the whole are happy with the sound quality. It’s not uncommon to read that its quality is frequently rated highly, with customers praising the HD quality sound.

Methodology: How Did We Pick a Winner?

Picking between two leading VoIP services is no easy feat. To make this decision a little easier, Tech.co works alongside a dedicated insights team that develops specific research processes for every piece of technology we review.

When researching VoIP systems, we focus on seven key metrics: value, external connections, features, customer support, security, customer satisfaction, and scalability. We break these categories below:

• Value for money – We work out the price of the provider's average plan to determine how cost-effective it is overall.
• Features – We take a look at a system's feature package and asses their amount and quality level.
• External connections – We check how many external integrations a product offers and consider how easy it will be for a solution to integrate seamlessly into a business.
• Support options – We survey a systems support options to determine how useful it will be at answering a customer's queries.
• Customer satisfaction – We form an aggregate average of reviews from customer review sites like TrustPilot and TrustRadius to work out how popular a solution is with its users.
• Scalability – We check how adaptable and customizable a system is to measure its level of scalability.

After data gathering is complete. we give each VoIP provider a five-star ranking for each of these categories as well as one for their overall quality offering. This makes it easy to see how solutions perform in different fields, and critically, how they stack up against each other.

A lot more goes into our decision-making process though, so check out our research page for the full picture.

Ooma & Google Voice Frequently Asked Questions