Call smarter and
grow faster with a new business phone system

Grasshopper is often the go-to VoIP solution for smaller businesses looking for call center software to streamline their operations all around the world. But is their business model really so SMB-friendly? Let’s see.

Grasshopper’s Benefits

• Set up is simple and takes just a few clicks — no IT degree required. 
  
• The Solo pricing tier is very affordable, even for companies that are just starting out. Furthermore, there are no limits on extensions after you reach the Small Business tier of service. 
  
• There is no need to purchase pricey new equipment. You can run your business from your personal smartphone while keeping it separate from the rest of your life.

Key Features:

• Voicemail transcription
• Custom greetings
• Simultaneous call handling

What is Grasshopper missing?

What Type of Business is It Best For?

Grasshopper is best for SMBs who value their customers’ happiness above all else. 

Pricing

Phone.com is another virtual phone service you don’t often hear about. It’s slowly but surely making a name for itself, though, by providing reliable, affordable, and easy-to-use communication software to its customers. 

Phone.com’s Benefits:

Phone.com is a cost-effective phone solutions for small business that allows users to save money on phone bills. Additionally, the provider lets users easily manage their accounts and quickly add/remove phone numbers or users. Finally, Phone.com offers top-notch customer service and support, making it an ideal choice for those looking for a reliable virtual phone service.

Key Features:

• Auto-attendants
• Voicemail
• Call forwarding
• Conference calling
• Toll-free numbers
• Local Numbers
• Call Routing
• Unlimited Extension Dialing
• Call Analytics
• Call Blocking
• Notification
• Routing
• Click-to-call
• Caller ID

What is Phone.com Missing?

While Phone.com’s features certainly offer plenty to its customers, there’s a catch. Many of its best features are locked behind a paywall. Furthermore, the software has a limited number of possible integrations, making it perhaps not the first choice for those looking for a centralized call center solution.

To get additional tools, companies must upgrade to high-tier plans. Examples of such tools would be voicemail transcription, online voice transmissions, access controls, permissions, and even unlimited minutes.

Pricing:

Ooma is an ideal cloud phone system for small business with up to 500 employees or a home phone service. It is mostly used for call logging, alerts, and escalations.

Ooma Benefits:

• Simple set-up: you can install the phone system without any technical expertise, and it comes pre-configured.
  
• Feature-rich mobile app that is compatible with both iPhones and Android devices.
  
• Ooma’s Virtual Receptionist is a great option for managing calls for your company. You can program a personalized welcome, direct callers, to various extensions, or offer a menu of choices that can direct callers to the appropriate party.

Key Features:

• Voicemail-to-email forwarding
• Caller ID or video conferencing
• Desktop and mobile apps for Android and iPhone

What is Ooma Missing?

Although the setup is very simple, and you can seek assistance from guides or customer support, there is no in-person training involved. Ooma also doesn’t offer predictive dialers and telemarketing management these features speed up your workflow and make your sales efforts much smoother. Ooma lacks reporting and analytics capabilities.

What Type of Business Is It Best For?

Ooma is best for smaller businesses looking for a basic VoIP service. 

Pricing:

Verizon is a cloud-based solution that offers many of the insights needed to optimize business operations and, by extension, drive growth. It offers mobile phone, home phone, and internet services for a variety of devices.

Verizon Benefits:

Verizon uses analytics to determine users’ performance and assist with improving efficiency. Thanks to real-time reports and alerts, it helps businesses to better manage their services. 

Key Features:

• Activity Tracking
• Billing & Invoicing
• Contact Database
• Contract/License Management

What is Verizon Missing?

While Verizon offers a variety of helpful features, it’s missing some capabilities that other business phone solutions provide. For instance, it doesn’t offer inventory management, which can be important for businesses that need to track their stock levels.

Additionally, it doesn’t provide scheduling or dispatch tools, which can be useful for businesses with mobile workforces. Finally, Verizon lacks any marketing or CRM features that can help businesses nurture leads and maintain customer relationships.

Overall, Verizon is a great solution for managing mobile devices and services, but businesses looking for more advanced features may need to consider other cloud-based phone systems.

What Type of Business Is It Best For?

Verizon is an ideal solution for businesses of all sizes looking to optimize their operations, reduce costs, and improve customer service. It is also handy when businesses need to manage multiple locations, coordinate deliveries, and schedule appointments.

Pricing:

Price per Request

Net2phone is a modern VoIP phone service built to enhance business’s communication experience. Basic VoIP features come standard, including call forwarding, call transferring, and call recording.  

Net2Phone Benefits:

Net2phone’s customers cite a number of benefits the service provided their businesses with, including the ease of implementation, straightforward user interface, good call quality, and remote work capabilities. Not to mention several people boasting that they’ve been able to cut down their phone bills significantly since onboarding. 

Key Features:

• Auto attendant 
• Call recording 
• Voicemail to email transcription

What is Net2Phone Missing?

Net2Phone’s admin portal leaves much to be desired, according to reviewers on the G2 platform. It’s a basic setup and one that can hamper administrative efforts on the part of its user base. 

What Type of Business Is It Best For?

Net2Phone is best for businesses looking for an all-in-one VoIP and communications solution. 

Pricing:

Unless you’re new to the VoIP telephony market, you’ll surely have heard of Dialpad. It’s a reliable, unified telephony solution with simple built-in AI, and advanced analytics. A live chat, phone hotline, and knowledge base make it a great deal for customer support teams. 

Dialpad’s Benefits:

Dialpad’s main advantages are voice intelligence and uptime between 99% and 100%. You’ll get conference video calls, sentiment analysis, voicemail transcriptions, call tracking metrics, Speech-to-Text for an automatic call recording, and much more. 

With Dialpad, you can call the US and Canada for free and from anywhere in the world. Inbound and outbound calling within your country is also free of charge. The provider has a modern, well-organized UI, plenty of training videos, and a well-built mobile application.

Key Features:

• Call Recording
• Machine Learning
• Call Analysis
• Customer Scoring
• Call Routing

What is Dialpad Missing?

While Dialpad does offer a Power dialer, it lacks a Smart dialer and a Predictive dialer. The Power dialer feature is limited, as it only works in conjunction with Salesforce. Unlike the CloudTalk app, the Dialpad app only allows users to only dial phone numbers manually. 

The Preferred agent feature only works through API. 

Dialpad also lacks a visual flow editor for its Call flow designer. Furthermore, you can’t send SMS messages outside of the US and Canada, although this feature will soon become available to those in the UK.

The provider offers a pretty limited integration stack, and Voicemail drop comes only with Dialpad Sell.

What Type of Business Is It Best For?

Any size of sales organization looking to drive agent efficiency and speed up ramp times.

Pricing:

Nextiva is a big player in the VoIP market, providing services to more than 15,000 customers. Nextiva is widely regarded as user-friendly — users can start calling within minutes thanks to a simple and intuitive setup process. Furthermore, the system is hosted by Nextiva, which makes maintenance of the software Nextiva’s responsibility.

Nextiva Benefits:

Nextiva offers various advanced features, including conference calling, voicemail transcription, multi-level attendant, and much more. The provider also integrates with solutions like Zendesk, ConnectWise, or MS Teams.

Nextiva’s HIPAA-compliant virtual faxing makes it a great solution for healthcare workers. Medical employees can share information without having to worry about data breach. 

Furthermore, 24/7 support means agents are always on hand to assist you.

Key Features:

• Unlimited Calling
• Video Conference Recordings
• Mobile & Desktop Apps
• Workflow Optimization
• Omnichannel Communications

What is Nextiva Missing?

Although Nextiva is a well-known VoIP business phone system, there are some issues you should know about when considering this provider:

• Integrations: Nextiva is missing certain integrations, like Slack or Zapier. With Zapier, users are able to connect your VoIP telephony system with thousands of non-native systems. 
  
• Prices: Many consider Nextiva’s prices high, especially for small businesses.

What Type of Business Is It Best For?

Businesses that need a robust, secure, and reliable enterprise phone system that works across every device and comes with advanced features like video conferencing, mobile app, call recording, and more.

Pricing:

8×8 is an evergreen telephony solution with a strong focus on integrations and analytics. The provider is well-suited for enterprises, but lower-tier subscriptions also work for smaller organizations. There are a number of benefits 8×8 can offer its subscribers.

8×8’s Benefits:

First of all, the provider has done a great job building an Analytics system that can effectively track large-scale business processes. 8×8’s reporting system centralizes all data in a single place, so managers can make their teams more organized and speed up their workflow. You’ll also get real-time reports.

Then, we have the solution’s comprehensive integrations with software like Salesforce, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and many more. Furthermore, 8×8 users get unlimited calling to 40+ countries. 8×8 telephony software comes with a smart dialer, click-to-call, and call recording.

Key Features:

• Call Center Management
• IVR
• Contact Management
• Analytics & Reporting
• Call Monitoring

What is 8×8 Missing?

If you own a business that works globally, there are a few things about 8×8 you might want to consider:

A crucial restriction, mainly for big international companies, is that there are regional constraints on unlimited calling. Users with the basic Express plan can only use unlimited calling in the US and Canada.  

• Office is required: You need an office in the location where you want to call in order to get a number from there. 
  
• Geographical restrictions for SMS: You can only use the SMS feature within the US, and 8×8 does not cover costs for mobile numbers in Brazil.  
  
• Integrations: 8×8 doesn’t partner with telco companies, which means that users won’t have native integration with certain solutions — for example, Whatsapp. Non-native integrations must be set up by the tech team.
  
• Features: 8×8 is missing some features like call tagging for more efficient calling processes, call masking for protecting your personal information, and API for connecting with the tools you love. Automation tools like IVR, skill-based routing, or automated callback come only with high-tier plans. You have to pay extra in order to get a call recording.

What Type of Business Is It Best For?

Flexible for Any Business.

Pricing:

When you think about VoIP telephony solutions, RingCentral is probably among the first ones that come to your mind. It’s no wonder the company has been on the market for over 20 years and has built quite a reputation for itself. 

RingCentral’s Benefits:

RingCentral has a great variety of features and offers HD-quality voice and video. The provider is a good fit for enterprises since it offers an omnichannel experience and lead qualification tools, as well as management, collaboration, and performance features – all in a single software.

Key Features:

• SIP Trunking
• IVR
• Call Recording
• Call Routing
• Contact Management

What is RingCentral Missing?

Despite all the positives, RingCentral does lack quite a few essential tools that modern businesses require. Features like native sentiment analytics, Speech-to-Text transcription, smart dialers, or Skill-based routing are only included in Contact Centre Solution. The same goes for some agent management features, like monitoring.

The Call recording tool and Toll-free numbers are only available as add-ons for an additional cost. 

Furthermore, RingCentral’s implementation can take as much as 90 days and involves an implementation fee. 

RingCentral UI is also not always the friendliest to work with.

What Type of Business Is It Best For?

RingCentral MVP is a flexible cloud-based solution that is ideal for businesses of all sizes.

Pricing:

Cisco is one of the biggest and most well-established companies on the market. As a consequence, its Webex applications for meetings and VoIP come with big expectations. Is it worth the money, though? Let’s find out. 

Cisco’s Benefits

Cisco is a reliable solution designed to help companies maximize the performance of their employees. It helps businesses scale easily as they grow. Cisco also provides high-level security through encryption, authentication, and access control to protect against cyber attacks. Another advantage are management tools for easy monitoring, management, and configuration. Furthermore, the provider is a cost-effective solution that saves money on both software and hardware.

Key Features:

• Security (ASA firewall, ISE for identity and access management, cloud-based Cisco Umbrella security platform)
• Comprehensive network visibility and analytics capabilities (NAE, Cisco Tetration, Stealthwatch products)
• Wide range of cloud networking solutions
• Network Virtualization technology
• Interoperability
• Mobility
• Internet of Things (IoT)

What is Cisco missing?

What Type of Business is It Best For?

Cisco is a household name for a reason – its solution comes packaged with a variety of tools and features that you’ll be able to use to your advantage. However, as a consequence of its reputation, you’ll need to pay extra. As such, it wouldn’t be a great choice for smaller or even mid-sized businesses. 

Pricing:

Avaya is a cloud contact center built for remote teams. It has the potential to boost workplace efficiency by allowing agents and managers alike to easily engage in video conferencing and instant messaging. On top of that, it integrates with some of the most popular software tools on the market. 

Avaya’s Benefits:

Avaya offers an omnichannel experience with high-quality interactions across voice and digital channels — all in a single desktop view. It increases efficiency through automation, and provides advanced analytics for customer behavior insights.

The provider lets businesses improve customer experience via a wide range of features. Avaya also offers easy scalability that allows businesses to increase customer service capabilities. Furthermore, it reduces costs thanks to eliminating redundant manual tasks.

Key Features:

• Smart dialer
• automatic call recordings
• speech to text
• coaching and barging
• Bring your own carrier available or porting
• SMS available

What is Avaya Missing?

Many Avaya users have complained about the software’s old-fashioned and difficult-to-navigate UI. The platform is also lacking in the automations department – it doesn’t offer any smart dialers, which can be a real problem for sales teams looking to reach out to prospects in the most efficient way possible. 

Lastly, while Avaya does offer some international numbers, its offering is limited. Users are currently only able to acquire numbers from 40 countries.

What Type of Business is It Best For?

Avaya is best for businesses that require a robust communication platform, such as contact centers, large corporations, and organizations with multiple locations. It is also well-suited for small and medium-sized businesses that need a reliable and secure system to facilitate communication between employees, customers, and partners.

Pricing:

Mitel’s VoIP product, MiVoice Business, provides users with a comprehensive calling platform capable of meeting both their sales and customer support needs.

Mitel’s Benefits:

Mite’ls list of features offers a number of benefits to users, improving their efficiency and productivity, regardless of whether they work from the comfort of their home or the office. The phone system was designed with flexibility in mind, making it easy to scale your business without breaking the bank. What’s more, Mitel pays close attention to their customer experience, so you’ll always have someone to talk to should anything ever go wrong. 

Key Features:

• Call forwarding to mobile numbers 
• Video conferencing 
• Drag-and-drop call flow designer

What is Mitel Missing?

Reviewers on G2 have complained about connectivity issues with this service. The interface can also be difficult to navigate for new users, according to some. 

What Type of Business is It Best For?

Mitel is best suited to enterprise-level businesses looking to maximize the productivity of their call center agents.

Pricing:

Pricing per Request.

Windstream, which is now primarily known as Kinetic for Business, is a phone and internet company that provides coverage to small, midsize, and enterprise businesses, as well as to residences. They’re known for their reliability, a comprehensive set of routing and rerouting options, and flexibility of use across many types of devices. 

Windstream’s Benefits:

Windstream’s call center solution offers a range of benefits, including improved customer service, increased employee productivity, valuable data insights, and customizable features, making it an excellent choice for businesses looking to enhance their call center operations.

Key Features:

• Reliable, high-capacity connectivity 
• Twinning, i.e., simultaneous ringing of the desk and mobile phones 
• SIP Trunking

What is Windstream Missing?

A variety of types of businesses operate under the Windstream name, including an office suite software, an internet provider, and a VoIP service. Reviewers have complained that the company’s resources are spread rather thin, to the detriment of their overall product offering. 

What Type of Business Is It Best For?

Windstream is best for businesses interested in a single provider for both their phone and internet needs. 

Pricing:

Xfinity is an American telecommunications company and division of the Comcast Corporation. It provides consumers with cable television, internet, telephone, and wireless services. It provides a UCaaS platform called VoiceEdge under its Comcast monicker.

Xfinity’s Benefits:

VoiceEdge offers a variety of benefits, including advanced calling features like call forwarding, call waiting, and caller ID, a reliable network with nationwide coverage, integration with popular business software like Microsoft Outlook and Google Workspace, and 24/7 customer support.

Key Features:

• Call forwarding: Forward calls to any phone number or voicemail.
• Auto-attendant: Provide customers with an automated greeting and menu system.
• Voicemail transcription: Transcribe voicemails to text and send them via email.
• Text messaging: Send and receive text messages from your Xfinity number.

What is Xfinity Missing?

Xfinity’s software can be less intuitive than some of its competitors, and some customers have reported difficulty with customer support. Additionally, some users have reported occasional call quality issues.

What Type of Business Is It Best For?

Business phone solution that offers internet packages, voice mobility, SIP trunking, and more. 

Pricing:

GoTo Connect is a frequent go-to choice for scaling businesses. Let’s take a closer look at this VoIP provider’s offering, examine its strengths and weaknesses, and determine whether it delivers on its promises.

GoTo Connect’s Benefits:

• Seamless integration with other GoTo products for improved communication.
• Provides a unified communication solution for remote teams.
• Offers an easy-to-use interface for call management and administration.
• Provides scalable solutions for businesses of all sizes.
• Excellent customer support.

Key Features:

• Voice and video calling: Make and receive calls from anywhere.
• Screen sharing: Share screens with others to collaborate on documents and presentations.
• Virtual meetings: Host and join virtual meetings from any device.
• Call management: Manage calls and voicemails through an intuitive interface.
• Mobile app: Access GoTo Connect features from a mobile device.

What is GoTo Connect Missing?

GoTo Connect does not provide advanced call center features such as Automatic Call Distribution (ACD), skill-based routing, or smart dialers. It also does not provide local phone numbers for all countries, which may be a disadvantage for some businesses.

What Type of Business Is It Best For?

GoTo Connect is an ideal solution for small to medium-sized businesses looking for a unified communication solution that can support remote teams. It’s also suitable for businesses that need an easy-to-use interface for call management and administration, as well as excellent customer support.

Pricing: