11 Best VoIP Providers for Small Businesses in 2024

The best VoIP provider for small businesses is RingCentral, thanks to its unlimited audio conferencing, powerful AI-powered toolkit, and 200+ integration options. It also offers excellent value, with a scalable payment structure and an affordable entry price of $20 per user, per month. 

Given the benefits of VoIP technology over landline systems, like lower costs and more advanced features, it’s understandable that small businesses would flock to this technology for their communication needs. Still, there are a lot of different VoIP providers out there, and finding the right one for your particular business may take a bit of research.

That’s why we’ve done the heavy lifting for you and collected some of the best VoIP providers in the guide below. We’ve also developed a free VoIP quotes tool to help you compare custom VoIP prices from all the leading providers on the market. Read on to learn more about how all the leading VoIP providers compare.

In this guide:

• Best 11 VoIP Providers for 2024
• How to Choose the Best VoIP Provider
• Methodology: How We Rate VoIP Providers
• Top VoIP Providers: The Verdict

Best 11 VoIP Providers for 2024

Our in-house experts have conducted user-testing and extensive research into the VoIP industry — examining the top VoIP providers based on their service, value, customer support, and features offered. The reviews below are based on this independent analysis and testing.

1. RingCentral – Best Overall VoIP Provider

RingCentral serves more than 300,000 businesses for a reason. It’s a great fit for hospitality, retail, healthcare, and customer service teams, thanks to a range of features designed for fielding high volumes of inbound callers.

RingCentral features

All RingCentral plans include unlimited domestic calls, number porting, custom greetings, a virtual receptionist, spam prevention, voicemail-to-text, caller ID, call transcripts, and custom call routing. There’s also unlimited audio conferencing with 1,000 attendees and AI meeting transcription.

We used RingCentral’s audio transcription services in a video meeting, and it was nearly perfect. Source: Tech.co testing

RingCentral’s organizational and team management features make it highly scalable. Collaboration features like a task manager and an online whiteboard, are really helpful for brainstorming ideas, and all plans have management features including team messaging and document sharing.

Other features make RingCentral a great fit for growing businesses. RingCentral is considered secure thanks to, among other things, multi-factor authentication options for end-users and extensive compliance certifications.

Additionally, video conferencing is available for up to 100 participants on the Core and Advanced plans, and 200 on the Ultra plan (more on these plans later). RingCentral’s video conferencing features are naturally limited compared to Zoom Phone, but they’re worth it if they mean you can avoid investing in another software program.

Its business analytics platform, RingCentral MVP analytics,  can provide larger teams with the granular data needed to see where things are going right and wrong, something Zoom doesn’t have. You’ll also be able to inform your team about the latest changes with wallboard views and send data-driven alerts directly to their inboxes.

RingCentral integrations

Overall, RingCentral can connect to over 200 applications, including big-name CRM systems like HubSpot, Zendesk Freshdesk, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, and ServiceNow. There’s also a wide range of customer support, collaboration, and reporting integrations available.

For comparison, Zoom Phone only integrates with 71 apps (check out our Zoom vs RingCentral guide for more). 

RingCentral support

RingCentral offers 24/7 phone and live chat support, which means you can contact them at any time of day. That’s probably one of the main reasons the provider can keep their customer downtime average to just 6 minutes a year. Plus, it has an extensive FAQs section that can help you fix your own problems, and training videos galore.

RingCentral pricing

RingCentral offers three pricing plans: Core, Advanced, and Ultra. Here’s how they compare:

Overall, RingCentral’s first plan isn’t quite as cheap as Zoom Phone’s $10 per user, per month Metered package. However, RingCentral has better collaboration and advanced outbound comms features.

The Core plan costs $20 per user, per month (paid annually). The number of lines you can buy at this price is capped at 20, after which you’ll have to contact sales to discuss your plan – however, this is the case on all RingCentral plans. The Core plan offers an auto-attendant, call conferencing, integrations for Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, voicemail-to-email, and on-demand call recording. Video calls support up to 100 participants.

The $25 per user, per month Advanced plan adds automatic call-recording, a Salesforce integration, single sign-on functionality, call queuing, ring groups (which lets multiple phone numbers all ring when one extension is called), call monitoring, call barge, call whisper, and analytics. You’ll also get access to many more integrations for CRM, email, helpdesk, web conferencing, and both internal and external live chat services.

The Ultra plan ($35 per user, per month) includes unlimited storage for files, contacts, videos, and meeting recordings, as well as access to RingCentral’s business analytics platform. Video calls support up to 200 participants.

Check out our complete guide to RingCentral pricing for more information

Should you choose RingCentral?

RingCentral is our top VoIP system pick, across the board. Its wide range of inbound communication features, combined with top-rated customer service, make it a great fit for industries including hospitality, retail, and healthcare. It’s also a lot cheaper than 8×8, which was the only other provider that came close to RingCentral.

Of course, the best way to ensure you’re getting a good VoIP deal is by taking a look at our price comparison tool. We’ve developed the tool to match businesses to the providers most suited to their needs and priorities, so be sure to take a look if you want to save a bit of time!

Who should use RingCentral?

• Growing businesses – it’s very scalable
• Businesses that prioritize security
• Businesses looking to get set up quickly

Who shouldn’t use RingCentral?

• Businesses with advanced web conferencing requirements
• Businesses looking for an out-of-the-box solution with no add-ons or upgrades required

2. Zoom Phone – Best Value for Money

Zoom is more than just a video conferencing tool for facilitating personal calls. The company also offers a business VoIP solution – called Zoom Phone – which is quite competitive in the industry.

Zoom Phone features

Our research found Zoom Phone to be the second-best overall VoIP solution available. This is largely due to how affordable the plans are, and the fact that they still provide plenty of features at the low starting price of just $10 per user, per month.

With Zoom, you’ll get your hands on more features for less money with Zoom phone than any other major VoIP system – including Google Voice, which has a plan at the same price that isn’t nearly as useful. Here’s Tech.co’s Conor Cawley testing the platform out:

Zoom Phone’s interface on an iPhone. Source: Tech.co user testing

Zoom Phone offers loads of inbound communication features like voicemail-to-text, spam prevention, and customizable hold music, making it a great option for teams expecting to field high numbers of calls.

It’s also got great conversation-based features like call whisper, which can be used to listen in on calls and provide staff with valuable feedback. You’ll also find some more advanced features in all pricing plans, including a call recording function, unlimited auto-attendants, and holiday and business hours routing.

It’s not quite as good for outbound call features (there’s no power dialing or auto dialing function) which will slow sales teams down, rather than speed them up like RingCentral will. However, the training features still mean it is highly scalable and will suit growing teams in other sectors, such as customer service.

I found Zoom Phone easy to get started with, thanks to its simple, stripped-back software. Source: Tech.co user testing

Security used to be a downside to Zoom Phone, but that’s changed. Now, Zoom Phone includes end-user security features like multi-factor authentication and password rules. This makes it viable for teams working in sectors like healthcare, where there’s pressure on companies to store confidential client and customer information correctly.

However, Google Voice offers these features on all of its plans (as well as admin security features like user permissions). It achieved a higher score in this assessment area (5/5) than any provider on this list. Still, this consideration might not be a dealbreaker for small businesses fielding a rapidly growing number of calls and doesn’t work directly with hyper-sensitive data.

Zoom integrations

Zoom Phone integrates with Slack, Salesforce, Microsoft 365, and Google Workspace, as well as more than 60 other apps. While this is short of RingCentral’s 200+ add-on options, it should be enough for most teams.

The service also seamlessly integrates with the provider’s video platform: Zoom One. This gives the VoIP service an edge for businesses that are already familiar with the features and user experience of the video app.

Zoom Phone support

After testing out Zoom Phone, we weren’t hugely impressed by its customer support services. Yes, the provider offers a knowledge base and user forums to solve problems, but if you want 24/7 support, you’ll have to pay for a premier support package.

Users can still reach out to Zoom via phone or live chat, but no direct onboarding support is available on any plan. It’s not ideal, but the modern interface shouldn’t cause you enough problems to require customer support too often.

Zoom Phone pricing

Zoom Phone offers three different pricing plans: Metered, Unlimited, and Pro Global Select.

The Metered plan costs only $10 per user, per month, making it one of the more affordable starting plans on the list. It offers unlimited domestic minutes as well as a pay-as-you-go payment system, so you won’t have to pay more than you need.

The Unmetered plan costs $15 per user, per month, and as you can likely guess from the name, provides inclusive outbound calling, so you won’t have to pay too much to make a call. You can also purchase an add-on that will give you unlimited calls in a further 19 countries, making it a good option for businesses with global customer/client bases. You won’t be able to access this add-on on the Metered plan.

Finally, the Global Pro Select plan costs $20 per user, per month, and unlocks some solid international features, like unlimited minutes to over 49 countries, including the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. It also includes all of the features from the previous two plans. Aside from that, it’s pretty similar to the Unmetered plan.

You can also purchase Zoom Phone as part of Zoom One, which rolls the provider’s Meetings, Team Chat, Whiteboard, and Zoom Phone products into one single package. You will need to purchase the Business Plus tier ($25 per license, per month) or the Enterprise tier (no public pricing – contact sales for a quote) if you’d like Zoom Phone, however, and it’s significantly more expensive than just buying Zoom Phone as a standalone product.

Should you choose Zoom Phone?

If you’re in the market for a low-cost VoIP solution that still provides a lot of features, Zoom Phone may be your best bet. Starting at only $10 per user, per month is a steal, and its other plans are competitively priced as well, so you can really keep your monthly outgoings down. On top of that, it has a bevy of other communication tools to integrate with, which is always helpful for a growing business. Plus, hey, it’s Zoom, so you might be familiar with it already.

Grab a customized quote for your business by filling in this short 60-second form.

Who should use Zoom Phone?

• Smaller teams that can do without advanced calling features
• Businesses with smaller budgets
• Businesses already using Zoom Video
• Customer service and retail teams

Who shouldn’t use Zoom Phone?

• Sales teams that need advanced outbound call features like predictive and power dialing
• Larger teams that want features like a task manager
• Businesses looking for onboarding support (Zoom offers none)

3. 8×8 – Best VoIP Provider for Sales Teams

Unlike Zoom Phone, 8×8 is a perfect fit for sales teams thanks to excellent video conferencing features and a collection of useful tools for training staff, such as call monitoring and recording. 8×8 also has features, like custom call lists, that support the high volumes of outbound calls sales teams make.

8×8 features

8×8 offers unlimited calling to up to 48 countries on its X4, X6, X7, and X8 plans, including The UK, Ireland, Indonesia, France, Finland and many more. Vonage and RingCentral will charge you extra for this sort of thing.

This is in part why we recommend 8×8 to sales teams making lots of outbound calls, and Zoom and RingCentral to hospitality and healthcare teams that field high numbers of inbound calls and will benefit from features like spam prevention, which 8×8 doesn’t offer.

The 8×8 video call interface was easy to operate. Source: Tech.co testing

Not a sales team? You’re still in luck. 8×8’s call handling features such as caller ID and ring groups make it an equally viable option for companies in industries (such as retail or healthcare) dealing with high volumes of inbound calls too. There are also plenty of organizational and team management features like a team messaging function and file-sharing capabilities, which almost all businesses need.

Like RingCentral, 8×8 will let you add features like a power dialer and predictive dialing function, the latter of which will be ideal for sales teams looking to delegate calls out to free agents quickly and efficiently. It costs a little extra, granted, but VoIP systems like GoTo Connect don’t have a predictive dialing function at all, making them unsuitable for ambitious sales teams.

An active call commencing in 8×8. Image: Tech.co

Along with its outbound call features and integrations, 8×8’s security score meant it became the joint-most scalable provider we tested. You can ensure sensitive client information is only accessible to those who need it thanks to user permissions, while multi-factor authentication and password rules ensure that there are no weak links in your network. This was a much better security score than Ooma, which lacked these kinds of features.

As mentioned previously, 8×8 has a solid video conferencing system, too, which offers HD video and audio for up to 500 people with no time restrictions. Conferences can also be recorded and saved in the cloud. External video calling is available, which is handy for sales teams that will need to pitch to clients from outside of your company.

Find out more about this VoIP provider in our full 8×8 review.

8×8 integrations

All in all, 8×8 seamlessly connects to over 300 applications, including conversational AI tools and CRM platforms like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Freshdesk. In fact, 8×8’s wide range of CRM integrations will be appealing to companies that view syncing them up as a priority.

The collection of apps is a lot more than VoIP providers like Google Voice offer – it only really integrates with Google Workspace apps and a couple of additional core programs (although several popular CRMs are included).

8×8 support

8×8 offers 24/7 phone support, as well as live chat and email support.

8×8 also has 24/7 online training for new employees. It can be completed at their own pace and covers everything they’ll need to know. If that isn’t enough, you can also take part in virtual, trainer-led courses with blended learning modules for new systems administrators.

8×8 pricing

Since our last update, 8×8 has removed its pricing from its homepage, and you’ll now have to contact sales for a custom quote for your team. Here’s the provider’s pricing the last time it was public (end of 2023):

8×8 has five different pricing plans, with costs ranging from $24 to $140 per user, per month: the X2, X4, X6, X7, and X8.

The X2 plan costs $24 per user, per month. On this tier, you’ll be able to make voice and video calls, and there are features like call routing, an auto attendant, hold music, voicemail, a virtual receptionist, number porting, and unlimited calls to 14 countries total on offer (including US/CA). Video meetings can have up to 500 participants, and team messaging, voicemail-to-text, business SMS, and a 99.99% uptime guarantee have recently been added.

X4 costs $44 per user, per month. The big news here is that you can call 48 countries completely free, up from 14 on the X2 plan. You also get call monitoring, call barge-in (lets a user join another user’s call), call whisper (lets a user stay muted when joining another’s call), and supervisor analytics.

The next three plans are designed especially for contact centers. X6 costs $85 per user, per month. It has new reporting and analytics, skills-based routing, IVR, call recording, and CRM. X7 costs $110 per user, per month, and adds chat, email, SMS, social media, and co-browsing – a range of ways to connect with your customers that don’t get on the X2 and X4 plans.

Finally, the X8 plan costs $140 per user, per month, and includes quality management tools, speech analytics, and a screen recording feature. There’s also a Microsoft Teams integration for the contact center, which is also available on the X7 plan, but no other 8×8 packages.

You can get started with 8×8 for less than providers like GoTo Connect and Net2Phone. But if you need advanced features like predictive dialing and task management, you need to pay a premium for the provider’s X6 plan. This is why 8×8 isn’t very good value for money, especially when compared to Zoom.

Should you choose 8×8?

8×8 offers businesses the secure lines, helpful customer support, and piles of features they need to remain competitive. If you want to find out if it’s the best match for your business, fill in this short 60-second form and get a tailored quote based on your team’s size and priorities.

Alternatively, read our summary of the most reliable softphones and IP hardphones to discover other fail-safe solutions.

Who should use 8×8?

• International businesses (unlimited calling 14-48 countries)
• Sales teams, thanks to the outbound comms features
• Businesses with advanced telephony and lots of staff

Who shouldn’t use 8×8?

• Businesses on a tight budget. 8×8’s plans are very pricey.
• Businesses that want a hardware and software VoIP/desk phone bundle

4. Vonage – Best Training Features

Vonage is best suited to retail and customer service businesses since they benefit the most from easy onboarding, and Vonage’s training tools are also some of the best in the industry. The service works great through mobile devices and desktops as well as through third-party desk phones, making it a flexible option.

Vonage features

Vonage also offers unlimited calls to the US and Canada, and we gave it an overall score of 4.4/5 for VoIP features, the same score in this assessment area as our top-rated provider, RingCentral – which means it’s a viable option for a broad range of teams working in different industries.

Vonage packs in lots of features for managing incoming calls, including an admin portal, voice mail, spam prevention, voicemail to text, call queue, caller ID – and all on its cheapest plan.

There are also a fair few tools that will keep teams making a lot of outbound calls happy, including external video calling, SMS support, custom call lists, internet fax, and call conferencing.

The team messaging center in Vonage. Source: Vonage

Vonage will also let you forward calls, “flip” them to different devices to continue conversations, and has training features that will let you listen in on calls and join existing calls between users and customers/clients. For sales teams, ensuring your on-call manner is constantly improving is super important.

Additionally, Vonage offers powerful analytics tools that will let you compile historical call data and display contact center metrics, which you can use to improve your team’s on-phone manner and your business processes, as well as a team messaging feature for easy collaboration.

Check out our Vonage review for more information

Vonage integrations

Vonage integrates with a huge range of providers including (but far from limited to) Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Teams, Google Workspace, Office 365, and Slack. There are also CRM integrations such as Zoho CRM, HubSpot, and Zendesk, but they aren’t available on Vonage’s cheapest plan.

However, video conferencing and live chat integrations come at an additional cost, and this is one of the main reasons Vonage didn’t score as high as RingCentral for integrations.

Vonage support

Vonage has a smaller range of help and support options than RingCentral and 8×8 — phone and email support is available with Vonage, but live chat isn’t. What’s more, none of it is 24/7. Onboarding support is also available but for an additional cost.

The service does include a range of online training documents and videos to help your team become accustomed to the software.

Vonage pricing

Vonage offers three pricing plans: Mobile, Premium, Advanced. The plans start from $19.99, $29.99, and $39.99 per user, per month respectively. Vonage will give you some discounts depending on how many users you have. Right now, there’s a 12-month promotion running that makes the first plan just $13.99 per user, per month.

Like many VoIP providers, the price per user gets better value the more users you add. For example, if you only have one user, Vonage’s most popular Premium plan will cost $29.99 per user, per month. However, if you have 20 users, that price will drop to $24.99 per user, per month for a saving of almost $60 per user over a year. If you have more than 90 users, though, you’ll need to get a custom quote from Vonage.

The cheapest plan, Mobile, gives you unlimited calls and SMS messages, plus all the features listed above and access to the Vonage app center. The Premium plan offers more though, including unlimited video for up to 100 users, custom greetings, ring groups, a multi-level virtual receptionist, and CRM integration with Google Workspace, HubSpot, Office 365, and Salesforce.

Finally, along with everything in the Premium plan, the Advanced includes on-demand call recording, call grouping, visual voicemail, and full installation.

Should you choose Vonage?

If training employees quickly and effectively is a priority, Vonage is for you. The service is a great pick for retail as well, due to its inbound features and multiple ways to contact potential customers, including call conferencing, video calls, and (for an additional cost) SMS.

Check out how Vonage compares to the best VoIP providers on the market with our VoIP price comparison tool, which will show you relevant providers and plans based on your team’s size and needs.

Who should use Vonage?

• Customer service teams, who will appreciate the training features
• Businesses that onboard regularly, and want lots of help

Who shouldn’t use Vonage?

• Businesses that don’t want to rely on add-ons
• Businesses with advanced video conferencing needs
• Businesses on a budget with an existing CRM they need their VoIP system to integrate with

5. GoTo Connect – Great VoIP Provider for Scaling

If your company is looking for plenty of internal video call meetings, GoTo Connect might be the right fit for you. It’s also a great fit for a company that handles more inbound calls than outbound ones, due to the features on offer. What’s more, the more users you have, the bigger the plan discount you’ll get.

GoTo Connect features

We found GoTo Connect a particularly good telephone system option for scaling. This was helped majorly by its commendable security score (4/5). GoTo Connect includes user permissions, which will ensure that you have control over who can access what data as your team grows, as well as multi-factor authentication.

Key features for dealing with a high call volume such as ring groups and call queues, on the other hand – as well as collaborative features like a team messenger – make it an even more viable option for growing business.

GoTo Connect has strong call management features, including custom greeting, voicemail, spam prevention, voicemail to text, custom hold music, call queue and ring groups. This means it can field high volumes of incoming calls, which makes it a strong contender for healthcare and customer service teams.

However, there’s also a “find me/follow me” feature that means calls can be routed through several different devices, including mobiles. This is ideal for teams that need to be on hand to take calls from customers and clients while out and about.

You can also forward, hold, or queue, and even send calls to a virtual receptionist to keep customers on the line. As we mentioned, GoTo Connect has excellent video conferencing tools (though only for internal use). You can video conference with up to 250 people, with HD video for up to 25 people. You’ll also find that sharing documents and files is a piece of cake, as is screen sharing. It even supports breakout rooms.

An example of what GoTo Connect looks like on a phone. Source: GoTo

GoTo Connect integrations

GoTo Connect doesn’t have anywhere near as many integrations as RingCentral and 8×8, with just under 30 available. While Slack, Zapier and CRM systems like Zoho CRM, Zendesk, and Salesforce all sync up with GoTo, it doesn’t integrate with HubSpot, SugarCRM, or ServiceNow.

So, while GoTo Connect is highly scalable when it comes to its native features, if you’re wedded to a software platform like HubSpot and you can’t live without it, you might be better opting for a provider that connects to it more seamlessly.

GoTo Connect support

GoTo Connect has better customer support options than Vonage.  You can contact the provider by phone, email, and through a support ticket system. This is much better support than Google Voice, which doesn’t offer onboarding assistance, but some way off RingCentral, which scores 5/5 for customer support. This is mainly because it offers it 24 hours a day, seven days a week, which GoTo doesn’t.

GoTo does, however, maintain its own dedicated online customer center, where you can find videos, factsheets, forums, and even ebooks to help find the cure for your VoIP maladies.

GoTo Connect pricing

GoTo Connect used to have a confusing pricing system that charged a different amount per user based on how many users a business had. More recently, the company has moved to a different model with three separate plans: Phone System, Connect CX, and Contact Center.

GoTo Connect Phone System is the provider’s entry-level plan and comes packaged with secure calling, video, and chat features. Connect CX offers extra conversation tools, a multi-purpose, AI-powered customer experience platform with customer sentiment analysis, while its Contact Center is for larger businesses looking to upscale their operations and support omnichannel engagement.

Should you choose GoToConnect?

We’re big fans of GoToConnect’s pricing system and awarded it a 4.3/5 value-for-money score. Add a high average customer approval rating, great security options and powerful call management features and you have a great value option that can grow with you business.

To get a good look at each provider side-by-side, take a look at our VoIP comparison page, which will give you bespoke quotes from the leading suppliers.

Who should use GoTo Connect?

• Small budget-conscious businesses
• Businesses looking for a combined phone and video solution

Who shouldn’t use GoTo Connect?

• Businesses that require onboarding assistance
• Users looking for streamlined Mac compatibility

6. Ooma – Great for Customer Experience

Ooma offers a particularly good customer experience, and generally gains high customer satisfaction ratings from existing users. The provider offers 24/7 customer support over the phone or via live chat, although not over email. It also offers an online forum, where experienced users can help you diagnose and fix problems yourself.

Ooma offers integrations with CRM platforms like Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Zendesk, Microsoft 365, G-Suite, and ServiceNow. This, of course, will make managing sales and support calls significantly easier for your teams. However, VoIP providers like RingCentral offer a much wider selection (200+).

It also offers a mobile app for Android and iOS, which can be helpful if your teams are working from home without a full desk phone. Despite its selling points, the service does lack some features that other VoIP providers on this list offer, however. For example, no Ooma plans include custom call lists, auto or predictive dialing, call transcripts, call monitoring, or task management. In other words, it won’t be great for sales teams.

We could only score Ooma a 1/5 for security features in our testing, too, as the service offers no multifactor authentication and doesn’t display its compliance certificates. Google Voice, the most secure provider we tested, offers multi-factor authentication on all plans.

Should you choose Ooma?

If your business depends on high-quality customer experiences, Ooma is for you. Compared to other VoIP providers it offers excellent customer support, only missing out on top marks due to a lack of email support. All in all, only RingCentral and 8×8 scored higher for customer support.

We’d recommend Ooma to customer service and retail businesses fielding lots of inbound calls, but not to sales departments, healthcare teams, or any organization handling highly sensitive data about its customers and clients, largely due to Ooma’s lackluster security credentials.

Check out our in-depth Ooma review for more information

7. Nextiva – Great for Professional Services

Nextiva has a straightforward interface and enough inbound call tools to satisfy a small or medium-sized business. Nextiva is a great choice for small professional service businesses fielding low volumes of inbound comms. Consultants, accountants, contractors, or creative agency teams won’t be disappointed with Nextiva.

Nextiva’s desktop app supports voice and video calls, emails, messaging, and sales and service tools, as well as analytics. There’s also a suite of AI and automation tools that can help improve repetitive tasks such as data collection, and offer real-time predictions and suggestions of what to do based on how your team is performing.

Nextiva offers 24/7 unlimited customer support via phone or live chat. Email support is available, although it is not 24/7. The service also has a large help center to help you fix problems yourself.

However, the lack of training and management features is partly why the provider isn’t easy to scale up – a lot of them required the call center add-on. Nextiva is also held back by its lack of features to aid group calls. It doesn’t offer call monitoring or transcription and call recording features are limited to the plan you choose. It only scores 3.3/5 for features overall, far off RingCentral’s test-high 4.3/5 score.

Nextiva’s user interface. Source: Nexiva

Should you choose Nextiva?

Nextiva is a great fit for a business in a professional industry like consultancy or accounting since it offers great security and customer service, but limited features for the large amounts of calls that a contact center might need to field.

We’d recommend taking a look at our pricing comparison tool to find out whether Nextiva is the right service for your business.

8. Net2Phone – Great for International Businesses

Net2Phone is a great option for international businesses interested in low VoIP system starting costs and international calling. With plans starting at just $24.99 per user, per month, unlimited international calling to more than 40 countries (only 8×8 can match that), and the costs of installation, Net2Phone proved to be one of the best VoIP providers for value for money. 

Net2Phone’s cloud PBX solution offers apps for Windows, MacOS, Android, and iOS to help your staff communicate with customers and clients effectively.

It has SMS, MMS, and live chat messaging, as well as live chat to SMS hand-off. You can use it for internal comms, with user-to-user, department, or company-wide messaging. It also has extension-to-extension calling, hold music and messaging, time-based greetings, three-way conferencing calling, group conference calls, and easy call transfer.

The home dashboard in Net2Phone. Source: Net2Phone

Net2Phone will also allow for voicemail transcription and voicemail-to-email functions. Plus, it has “find me/follow me” call routing, call queuing, and call forwarding, and can support multiple virtual receptionists. Finally, Net2Phone has strong analytics, with sortable reports by time frame, department, office, and agents. Plus, it has dashboards that let you see all this information at a glance.

Net2Phone offers 24/7 support on all its plans, as well as an extensive online knowledge base. In this regard, it’s better than Vonage, but not quite as good as RingCentral, which has a user forum for community troubleshooting.

Should you choose Net2Phone?

Net2Phone will be a great fit for any business that needs to keep costs low, particularly if they want to easily contact anyone in the 40 countries within the service’s coverage, making it great for international businesses.

If that doesn’t describe your operation, you can check out our pricing comparison tool to get bespoke quotes for your business.

9. NUACOM – Great for Customer Satisfaction

NUACOM is best suited to businesses that are concerned about a new system causing friction for their team. The easy-to-use interface makes adopting a different process simple, even for beginners who aren’t well-versed in business technology like this.  This is clear from the high customer satisfaction score (4.6/5) from NUACOM, which is better than RingCentral’s (3.5/5), despite the latter provider’s superior features.

A few of the streamlining tools that make NUACOM so easy to use include customizable call routing functionality, as well as a call-flow designer, both of which are available across all plans.

The service has a range of essential inbound call features that you should expect from almost every top-tier VoIP service, such as number porting, custom greetings, voicemail, a virtual receptionist, voicemail to text, customizable hold music, call queues, ring groups, and the ability to set company hours.

However, NUACOM’s outbound calling features are a little more limited. In addition to not offering video calls, NUACOM doesn’t have an autodialer or predictive dialing, and SMS messages will cost extra. This makes it less of a viable option for sales teams, and teams calling rather than being called. Call conferencing is supported, however, as are custom call lists.

A sales dashboard in NUACOM. Source: NUACOM

NUACOM secures users data using end-to-end encryption and will let you implement different permissions within the software for different users. However, there are no password rules to nudge users towards safer types of passwords like RingCentral and Google Voice offer.

Support formats include email, phone, and live chat, although none are available 24/7. A knowledge base is available, but no community forum. Onboarding support is offered in the form of a 15-minute session to guide users through the process, which isn’t as thorough as Vonage or RingCentral’s.

Should you choose NUACOM?

NUACOM is a great pick for keeping all your employees happy, offering easy-to-use features and automation that can reduce a workload. However, it isn’t designed for collaborating with a team offering no tools for video conferencing, task management, document sharing, or team messaging.

There are also limited integrations compared to many of the other providers on this list, although it still integrates with Salesforce, Zoho CRM, HubSpot, and several other big-name CRM providers you’d expect.

If your business needs an easy service that keeps your team members happy while receiving customer or client calls, go for NUACOM. Our quick price comparison tool is another option to help guide you to the best option – whether it’s NUACOM or not.

10. Dialpad – Low Cost for Startups

The biggest advantage that Dialpad has over other VoIP solution is its pricing. In an industry where a good VoIP service averages about $35 per user per month, Dialpad’s plans start at a mere $15 per user, per month. Businesses on extra tight budgets might find Dialpad is the best solution, if you can live without some features.

Every Dialpad plan covers plenty of useful features for teams receiving frequent inbound calls, such as custom greetings, voicemail, a virtual receptionist, voicemail to text, customizable hold music, ring groups, and company hours. There are also some features for teams making calls, including custom call lists, and call conferencing. 

Users will get one localized, toll-free number each, with no options for adding more. Where it lets itself down is integrations – it just can’t keep up with 8×8 and RingCentral, which sync up with 100s of apps and many more CRM systems. However, Dialpad still integrates with Salesforce and Zoho CRM.

DialPad savings do mean you’ll miss a few features, though not as many as you might think. A lack of call queuing is a big downside of the cheapest Dialpad plan, and it also cuts out phone and email support. A lot of startups with small audiences/contact bases will benefit from the low prices without minding the feature limitations.

Dialpad’s interface with the provider’s new AI feature. Source: Dialpad

Customer support encompasses a user forum, an online knowledge base, and live chat for all plans, with 24/7 support hours and phone support available on all but the cheapest plan, which is great news again for those on a budget. There’s also onboarding assistance available on every plan, which Zoom Phone and Google Voice don’t offer.

Should you choose Dialpad?

In addition to being a money-saver, Dialpad is well-loved by its customers – its average customer score is 4.4/5, which puts it third only behind NUACOM and Zoom. If you’re looking for a cheap alternative to one of the powerful programs above and don’t mind it being a bit more basic, Dialpad is a great option.

Trying our price comparison tool can give you a clearer idea of what cost to expect for your specific needs, but on the whole, Dialpad offers a good selection of functions for its cost, which is why it’s made our list of the best VoIP providers.

11. Google Voice – Most Secure for Small Teams

Google’s VoIP service stands out for one big reason – great security. This is due to its myriad of compliance certifications, multi-factor authentication, single sign-on, password rules, best-in-class encryption, and user permissions on every plan. However, it’s not very impressive when it comes to anything else.

Google Voice came out at the bottom for features on our tests. However, all Google Voice plans to offer voicemail support, voicemail to text, spam prevention, video calling (via Google Meet), SMS for those in the US, analytics, and custom call lists (via Google Contacts).

However, it doesn’t have many management features at all, or features like call recording and call transcripts which are useful for training staff and are offered by Vonage, 8×8, RingCentral, and Zoom. There are also no call queues, custom hold music, caller ID, auto or predictive dialing, call conferencing, call forwarding, call flip, call barge-in, or call whisper. Calls can’t be monitored, and there’s no call-flow designer.

If those features sound useful, you’d be better off picking an alternative provider for your VoIP solution, such as one of the ones above, or if you’re a team that’s already using Google Workspace, perhaps one of these Google Voice alternatives will be a better fit.

Google Voice’s security tools are its real selling point. It goes the extra mile to ensure end users are securing their accounts, enforcing password rules, and recommending multi-factor authentication options. What’s more, all your data will be stored in Google’s data centers, which are among the most well-maintained and tightly protected data centers on the planet.

The Google Voice homepage is stripped back and modern, and includes the contact list and on-screen numbers. Source: Tech.co testing

All in all, Google Voice is the most secure VoIP service out of all of the top VoIP providers, and offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee, too. All plans have a user forum, knowledge base, and 24/7 phone support, but no email or live chat options.

Should you choose Google Voice?

Very small, security-conscious businesses are the best customers for Google Voice, as the price will be right, and the limited features and poor scalability are unlikely to be as large an issue as they would be for established operations.

Any companies worried about cyberattacks will be reassured by Google Voice’s 5-star security options. However, if you’re unconvinced by Google Voice’s lack of additional features, our quick price comparison tool can help guide your decisions about which VoIP provider is best for your budget and needs.

How to Choose the Best VoIP Provider

Choosing the right VoIP provider depends on several factors.

Overall costs

While many VoIP providers seem to offer similar pricing structures, each provider has little quirks in its pricing system which you might miss at first glance.

For example, most providers, including our top-rated picks RingCentral and 8×8, offer prices on a per user, per month basis. You also won’t get as many features on the cheapest plans as you do with the more expensive plans

It’s also worth pricing up the systems you’re looking at in full before choosing. There might be hidden costs with international call fees, for example. The easiest way to get a complete price is by using our comparison tool, which will give you bespoke quotes from the leading companies.

You can also check out our guide to the cheapest VoIP providers to discover the best cost-effective solutions available to your business.

Upgrade and growth costs

Your business isn’t standing still, and you’ll (hopefully) need to start adding new team members as it grows. Again, you need to think here about which platforms will scale the best with your existing business. What’s more, you’ll likely need to add more complex features.

RingCentral is a good fit for businesses that will need to expand their feature set as they grow, as its four pricing plans each offer many core features in comparison to similar competitor plans. Our researchers termed this “scalability,” and ranked RingCentral and 8×8 in joint first place for the most scalable, with Vonage close on their heels.

Customer support

If your business relies on its phones, any problem could be catastrophic to your bottom line.

Fortunately, most of the providers we’ve listed offer 24/7 support. RingCentral and 8×8 scored highest for support options overall (5/5) across all the VoIP providers we tested, while three more services tied for second place (4.5/5): Dialpad, Ooma, and Nextiva.

We would always recommend choosing a provider which offers 24/7 support where possible.

Devices

It is worth considering what sort of hardware your business currently uses for its phone calls. If you rely on desk phones, you might find that your service isn’t as flexible as it would be if you used software-only services.

Softphones, or even VoIP services that work through laptops or tablets, are a great way to help your staff remain mobile while working.

You might also have existing analog desk phones and might be worried about whether they’ll work with your new VoIP system. You can get adapters that will let them connect with your new system, but it’s unlikely to be perfect. Instead, you can take a look at some new VoIP phones, or your provider might even lease you some.

Check out our guide to the best VoIP desk phones for more.

Methodology: How We Rate VoIP Providers

At Tech.co, we conduct extensive research into VoIP platforms, which involves looking at over 60 criteria across multiple core assessment areas, which we then use to develop overall scores for the providers.

For our 2024 VOIP research series, we focused on seven different areas of investigation: external connections/integrations, scalability, security, customer support, features, value for money, and customer score.

Crucially, this research allows us to stay editorially independent. Our rankings, recommendations, and ratings are determined by our research and scoring system – and nothing else!

As a reminder, our top picks are shown below.

Frequently Asked Questions