Ooma vs RingCentral: Which VoIP Provider Is Better?

During our latest round of research, our team found that RingCentral is better than Ooma, but neither of these providers would be our first pick of small business VoIP platforms.

RingCentral wins it due to its superior call management features, available hardware integrations, and range of alternative communication channels. Both providers scored very highly for security, but again, RingCentral edges it here.

In truth, there isn’t a single area in which Ooma betters RingCentral. But we understand that, for business owners, having options is important. That’s why we’ve put together a comprehensive guide on these two VoIP providers, including pricing, features, pros, cons, and more.

In this guide:

• Ooma vs RingCentral: At a Glance
• VoIP Provider International Call Rates
• Alternative VoIP Providers
• About Our Research
• Verdict: Ooma or RingCentral?

Ooma vs RingCentral: At a Glance

The fight between Ooma and RingCentral is a fairly close one, but it’s RingCentral that emerges victorious. That being said, Ooma is marginally cheaper than RingCentral. Ooma Office starts at $19.95 per user, per month, while RingCentral begins at $20 per user, per month when you pay annually, and Ooma has a variety of other plans that are a bit cheaper overall than RingCentral.

Check out the table below for a quick at-a-glance breakdown of these two VoIP providers, and I’ll go into more detail about specific plans and features later on.

Ooma also offers its integrations as part of its standard tier, whereas with RingCentral, some integrations are locked behind its pricier tiers – meaning you’ll need to spend more to access them. Ooma also has cheaper call rates than RingCentral for international calls and offers calls to Mexico and Puerto Rico as part of its package. With RingCentral, these calls cost extra.

RingCentral does have a wider range of phones available to customers than Ooma, which only offers one brand (Yealink). However, RingCentral does not offer its own phone hardware, whereas Ooma does offer its own phone hardware.

To find the right Ooma package for you, use our free tool now.

Which VoIP System Is Best for What?

Our independent research team investigated features, pricing, and everything in between to see how Ooma and RingCentral stack up side-by-side. This is how they performed:

• Best call management features – RingCentral
• Best for pricing – Ooma
• Best for hardware integrations – RingCentral
• Best for software integrations – RingCentral
• Best for communication channels – RingCentral
• Best for security options – RingCentral
• Best for help and support – RingCentral
• Best for training features – RingCentral

Best Call Management Features: RingCentral

As is the case with a few of the different areas that we investigated, neither of these providers particularly excels when it comes to call management, but there was one clear winner – RingCentral.

The provider offers all the core features you’d expect from your VoIP provider, including unlimited domestic calls, caller ID, queues, shared lines, call log reports, and more.

RingCentral’s call pop-up appears on your screen when you’re receiving an incoming call. Source: Tech.co testing

The RingCentral pop-up that appears during an incoming call is clearly laid out, with a series of options that are just a tap away, such as switching to video mode, recording the call, placing the other person on hold, and more.

Ooma offers a lot of the same features, including virtual receptionist, call park, forwarding, three-way calling, and more. Again, it’s nothing spectacular – at this price point, you’d expect this kind of functionality.

RingCentral wins this round because its pricier tiers offer more advanced functionality than Ooma’s. For instance, with RingCentral Ultra ($35/user/month), you’ll get your hands on advanced call handling and monitoring and 10,000 toll-free minutes. Ooma, by contrast, offers neither advanced handling nor monitoring, and only 500 toll-free minutes.

Best for Pricing: Ooma

Ooma wins this round, but it’s close. The first two Ooma and RingCentral plans are pretty much identical, with Ooma cheaper by 5¢ on both occasions. At the top end of the scale, though, the Ooma savings become more apparent, with its Pro Plus plan costing $29.95 per user, per month, compared with RingCentral Ultra costing $35 per user, per month.

In this section, you’ll find a more detailed breakdown of Ooma and RingCentral’s pricing plans.

Ooma pricing

Ooma’s first plan is the Essentials plan, which starts at $19.95 per user, per month. At this tier, you’ll unlock several call management basics, conference calling with up to 10 participants, virtual fax, and more.

The next plan up is the Pro plan. This starts at $24.95 per user, per month, and in addition to everything on its predecessor, also unlocks a desktop app, up to 250 SMS messages per month, video conferencing with up to 25 participants, call recording, and more.

The Pro Plus plan starts at $29.95 per user, per month. This tier ups the ante, with some great optional CRM integrations, team chat, hot desking, call queuing, and higher limits on SMS messages and videoconference participants.

Ooma also offers not one, not two, but three enterprise plans. You’ll find the details of them below:

• Standard plan – $19.99 per user, per month
• Enhanced plan – $27.99 per user, per month
• Call Center plan – $49.99 per user, per month

For a full breakdown of every Ooma plan, check out the table below.

RingCentral pricing

RingCentral is similarly priced to its compatriot, with its first two plans costing a mere 5¢ more than the Ooma equivalents. Here, I’ll go into more detail about each plan, and you could get for your money.

• The RingCentral starter plan, Core, starts at $20 per user, per month. It has all the key tenets of an intro VoIP plan, including unlimited domestic calls, basic queues, on-demand call recording, and videoconferencing.
• Level up to the Advanced plan ($25 per user, per month), and you’ll unlock unlimited internet fax, CRM integrations, adoption and usage analytics, and more advanced call management features such as whisper, barge, and monitor.
• Next up is the Ultra plan, which costs significantly more than its equivalent Ooma plan ($35 per user, per month compared to $29.95 per user, per month). This tier unlocks unlimited storage for files and recording, customizable analytics and reporting, and an AI assistant for team messaging and SMS.
• There’s also an enterprise-friendly plan, known as RingCX. This will cost you $780 per user, per year (which equates to $65 per month). With performance management tools, advanced speech analytics, and more, it’s perfect for growing sales teams that will onboard new hires.
• For more information on RingCentral’s various different plans, check out the table below.

Best for Hardware Integrations: RingCentral

The beauty of VoIP is the flexibility it affords its users. You can use your existing phones (with a VoIP converter), buy dedicated VoIP phones, or even eschew phones altogether and instead use the apps provided.

Both Ooma and RingCentral offer a range of equipment to complement their services. None of it is mandatory, but you may find it useful to have equipment supplied by your VoIP provider.

It has to be said, RingCentral is again the winner in this particular area. It offers a number of different brands, including Cisco, Poly, Mitel, Yealink, while Ooma only offers Yealink and its own-branded phones.

If you already have a number of preexisting Poly phones that you don’t want to go to waste, for instance, RingCentral should be your clear preference.

Ooma phones

Ooma has a range of VoIP phone hardware available for self-employed people working from home. In terms of pricing, Ooma phones currently start at $49.99 and go up to $279.99.

The company also has an array of first-party desktop phones for small businesses, including both IP and Wi-Fi models, which have the advantage of not having to be tethered to an ethernet cable. The Ooma 2602 IP Phone is currently the cheapest on the website, with prices from $59.99.

RingCentral phones

RingCentral, on the other hand, has no first-party phones available, but it does integrate with Poly, Cisco, Yealink, and Mitel. It also offers products on a monthly basis, meaning you won’t necessarily have to fork out for high upfront cost, depending on which model you go for. Ultimately, it’s this flexibility and variety that helps RingCentral to victory in this particular area.

To get an idea of what equipment you’ll need, and how much you’ll have to spend, use our free comparison tool for a quote.

Best for Software Integrations: RingCentral

Integrations are a key component of VoIP software. Being able to use a VoIP platform alongside other solutions that you use can be a huge time saver, and really speeds up your work processes.

RingCentral very highly for external connections, while Ooma didn’t fare as well, during our latest round of research. The reasons for this are pretty straightforward. Ooma doesn’t offer any integrations on its starter plan; RingCentral integrates with Google, Slack, and Microsoft on its intro plan.

Furthermore, Ooma doesn’t integrate with CRM unless you opt for the Pro Plus plan ($29.95 per user, per month); RingCentral integrates with Salesforce, Zendesk, Microsoft Dynamics, and HubSpot on the Advanced plan ($25 per user, per month).

In total, RingCentral offers over 400 possible integrations, while Ooma has far fewer.

Best for Communication Channels: RingCentral

The winner in this category is much more clearcut – RingCentral offers a range of alternative communication channels that Ooma simply cannot compete with.

To begin with, you can get video calling with up to 100 participants on the RingCentral starter plan, while the Ooma starter plan does not afford the same luxury. If you want videoconferencing with Ooma, you’ll have to go for the Office Pro plan ($24.95 per user, per month), and even then you’ll only get 25 participants.

Ooma can claim that it offers virtual fax on all plans, while RingCentral doesn’t have it on its first plan. Otherwise, however, it’s a pretty clean sweep for RingCentral. The provider offers 25 “Enhanced Business” text messages per month on its first plan, while Ooma doesn’t offer any until its middle tier.

With RingCentral, you’ll also get your hands on a great tool for whiteboarding and annotations – RingCentral Whiteboard. This is a great way to give your inter-team collaboration sessions a shot in the arm, and is equally handy for jumping onto a quick call with a potential client and mapping out a project before their eyes. This is available on all plans, while Ooma only offers its own version on the Pro Plus plan ($29.95 per user, per month).

Best for Security Options: RingCentral

Both of these providers excel in terms of security options, and it’s difficult to pick a winner of the two. However, RingCentral just edges it. Firstly, it offers single sign-on (SSO) on its first plan, while Ooma doesn’t.

To Ooma’s credit, it recently unveiled multi-factor authentication (MFA) and password rules on its plans, which have helped to shore things up security-wise.

Ultimately, it comes down to compliance. Ooma simply has fewer compliance certifications out of the box than its compatriot, meaning that companies that are handling sensitive customer data may be deterred. It’s only HIPAA compliant on its Pro and Pro Plus plans, while RingCentral is HIPAA compliant on each of its plans.

Best for Help and Support: RingCentral

Both providers have good customer support scores, especially when compared with the general business phone market – but RingCentral edges it.

RingCentral is great for customer support and scores 5/5, and you’ll have multiple ways to contact RingCentral staff if you choose one of the provider’s plans. On top of 24/7 live support, there’s a user forum, knowledge base, a live chat option, as well as email and phone support..

Ooma, on the other hand, doesn’t have email support and there’s no onboarding support on the Ooma Office or Ooma Office pro plans. While RingCentral has support options available on every single one of its plans, including implementation support on the Core, Advanced, and Ultra plans.

Best for Training Features: RingCentral

It’s safe to say that neither of these providers excels when it comes to training features, but again, it’s RingCentral that offers more than Ooma.

To get your hands on whisper, barge, and monitor – which are really useful features for upskilling new agents – you’ll have to opt for the RingCentral Advanced plan ($25 per user, per month). Ooma, on the other hand, simply doesn’t offer these features. You’ll get some handy analytics tools on the Ooma Office Pro plan ($24.95 per user, per month), which new hires might find helpful. In truth, though, Ooma’s training features are pretty meagre.

International Calling Rates

Here, we’ve compiled the international call rates provided by some of the top business phone systems. Remember, international call rates vary from country to country (as you can see from the table below) and often change.

Alternative VoIP Providers

Of course, Ooma and RingCentral aren’t the only VoIP providers worth paying attention to – far from it. If you’ve spent more than a minute researching the subject, you’ll be well aware that there are plenty of VoIP providers out there to compare –  so let’s take a look at a couple more competitors.

How We Decided Ooma vs RingCentral: About Our Research