Cloud private branch exchange systems provide business telephony and contact center services at a fraction of the cost of traditional PBX. Given the cost savings, quick setup process, and advanced features of these platforms, it’s easy to see why the hosted PBX market is expected to grow 15.5% by 2030.[*]
While hosted PBX pricing continues to climb as the technology improves and adoption rates skyrocket, free cloud PBX solutions are an excellent alternative for small businesses.
In this post, we outline the top free cloud PBX providers, exploring their pricing and plans, standout features, ideal user base, and more.
Overview of 7 Free Cloud PBX Options
| Provider | How Free | User limit | Standout Features | Best For |
| Freshdesk | Free forever plan | Up to 2 agents |
|
Businesses in the healthcare industry that need high security, reliability, and scalability |
| Bitrix24 | Free forever plan | Unlimited users |
|
B2B and B2C teams that need a CRM and collaboration tools |
| CallCentric | Two free forever plans with unlimited in network calling and per minute charges | Unlimited users |
|
Startups with low call volume |
| OnSIP | Free forever plan and unlimited extensions | Up to 100 users |
|
Tech savvy companies needing only inbound call capabilities |
| 3CX | Free forever plan | Up to 10 users |
|
Remote teams that need a voice calling platform plus with built-in video calling |
| Anveo | Free forever plan | 2 users |
|
Startups that want advanced features like call flows and call recording |
| FreePBX | Completely free open source PBX | Unlimited users |
|
Tech savvy SMBs that need calling center features |
1. Freshdesk Contact Center
Freshdesk’s Free Plan provides helpdesk ticketing with customizable routing, message threading, and task management in an intuitive shared team inbox. The free plan also includes historical call reporting, monitoring essential metrics like call abandonment rate, call duration, and call logs. Free users can also create internal and customer-facing knowledge base content for self-service and improved agent support.
Freshdesk is a standalone product, but it’s designed to work alongside the Freshcaller VoIP phone system. The Freshcaller Free Plan, which still requires users to pay for calling minutes, includes basic features like caller ID, custom call greetings, and desktop notifications.
Pricing
Freshdesk offers a free plan as well as three paid plans ranging from $15 to $79 per agent, per month. Paid plans include a customer portal, real-time analytics dashboards, and more. Pro and Enterprise plan users have the option to add on Freshdesk’s genAI assistant “Freddy”. Freshdesk also allows businesses to buy a “day pass” starting at $2 per pass.
See our Freshdesk pricing page for more details.
Top Features
- Shared inbox: Allows team members to view and collaborate on incoming emails
- Detailed calling reports: Out-of-the-box analytics and reporting helps businesses identify bottlenecks with curated or custom reports, filters, custom metrics, and scheduled reports
- Ticketing: Users can create a ticketing system with tracking, assignments, intelligent prioritization, etc.
What Users Say
- Highly secure with SSO, custom permissions, and HIPAA compliance
- Can track a plethora of KPIs including custom metrics
- Wide variety of integrations available
- Does not include VoIP services unless a FreshCaller subscription is purchased as an add on
- Real-time reporting only available in paid plans
- Requires lots of manual data input without many options for automation
Best for
Healthcare businesses will benefit the most from Freshdesk, as it is HIPAA and HITECH compliant and offers a higher level of security than similar platforms. As the medical facility grows, Freshdesk can easily be scaled to accommodate a large contact center.
2. Bitrix24
With Bitrix24’s free plan, users get base-level yet functional CRM VoIP integration, access to their online store, and 5GB of online storage.
Bitrix24 has a specialized “Kanban view” that provides custom stages and statuses in CRM records. Their platform also has a built-in SIP connector that allows your team to integrate an existing third-party telephony service.
Pricing
Bitrix24 offers a free forever plan and four paid plans ranging from $49 to $399 per organization, per month. Paid plans include more storage and advanced project management features such as time tracking, custom fields, and access permission.
Top Features
- Video conferencing: Video calls are encrypted with E2EE, have no duration limit and can have up to 48 participants
- Website widgets: Can be used to add contact forms, callback requests, live chat, etc.
- Task assignment: Unlimited tasks, create custom checklists and Gantt charts, attach files to tasks, collaborate within tasks to stay organized
- CRM: Includes unlimited contacts and can be connected to business social media accounts
What Users Say
- Unlimited video conferences with up to 48 participants
- Deleted files kept for up to 30 days
- Team chat with 30 days of history and CoPilot included in the free forever plan
- Telephony and access to Bitrix24 marketplace only available with paid plans
- User interface can be overwhelming with a steep learning curve
- Not all features are available on the mobile app
Best for
Bitrix24 is best for organizations that need a functional CRM and, eventually, telephony capabilities. Sales teams that need to nurture leads and stay organized will appreciate Bitrix24’s task management features, while remote teams may benefit from Bitrix24’s video conferencing and team collaboration tools.
3. Callcentric
Callcentric has two free virtual PBX plans - IP Freedom and Pay Per Call. With IP Freedom, your business makes calls to other Callcentric phone lines for free, globally. Calls outside the network are sent and received via a SIP URI or a SIP broker.
The Pay Per Call plan is useful for businesses without regular calling needs. You only make the calls you need and aren’t charged a monthly subscription fee when you’re not making outbound or inbound dials.
Pricing
CallCentric offers two free plans with either unlimited in-network calling or the ability to make out of network calls with per minute charges. CallCentric also offers 6 paid outbound plans ranging from $1.95 to $29.95 per month, 7 paid inbound plans ranging from $1 to $19.95 per month, and 2 SMS plans.
Top Features
- Auto attendant: Simple yet functional tool that automatically routes calls based on preset DTMF key prompts
- Call hunt: Incoming calls can be set to hunt up to 8 numbers
- Conference room: Host audio conferences with a moderater that has the ability to mute/unmute participants. Participants can “raise their hand” via key prompt that alerts the moderator
- Voicemail: Included for all users with email forwarding feature for up to three emails
What Users Say
- Affordable unlimited international calling plan available to 35+ countries
- Two point authentication account security
- Flexible pricing with affordable minute bundles
- Sending SMS messages incurs both monthly and per-message fees
- Customer service is difficult to reach and slow to respond
- Frequent service outages due to storms, etc.
Best for
Any business that doesn’t make many calls and needs a barebones solution that is easy to install and use will benefit from CallCentric. Their platform and pricing is straightforward and requires no commitment. They also have affordable unlimited calling plans available ideal for startups scaling their business phone system.
4. OnSIP
OnSIP’s free plan uses its Sayso technology to deliver web call links shared on your company website. The free plan includes unlimited web, voice, video calling, and webphones for up to 100 users with unlimited extensions.
OnSIP’s PBX software has dashboards that deliver call recording data and reports that highlight call patterns and trends.
Pricing
OnSIP offers a free plan and two paid plans. The Unlimited plan costs $18.95 per month, per user and comes with unlimited calling plus essential VoIP features like call recording, auto attendant, and voicemail. VoIP phones are also included. For low call volume companies that would prefer to pay by the minute, the Basic plan costs $49.95 per month, per account (unlimited users). OnSIP also offers many add-on features such as queue routing and dial-by-name.
See our OnSIP pricing page for more information.
Top Features
- Integration with Slack: Allows users to generate voice and video call links with a slash command and share in Slack channels
- Developer APIs: Developers can add real time communications such as voice and video directly onto the company website or app
- Business hour rules: Built-in feature enables companies to set schedules that dictate where incoming calls are forwarded
- Data Channel: Businesses can create a real-time data channel for file sharing, chat or gaming
What Users Say
- Generous 100-user cap included in the free plan
- Zendesk, Hubspot and Odoo integrations included with the free plan
- Users can create up to 100 SIP addresses with a free OnSIP account
- Outbound calls can only be placed with a paid plan
- Many important features such as E911, ring groups and IVR menus are only offered as add ons
- International calling is complicated to set up and more expensive than competitors
Best for
Businesses looking for secure web-based UC collaboration – OnSIP delivers presence and voice and video conferencing for free.
5. 3CX
3CX offers a free VoIP phone system services on its Standard Plan, known for its high uptime, unlimited extensions, Android and Apple iOS mobile apps, and integrated fax server.
3CX’s site mentions an IVR system, but when it comes to function, it has features that are more like an auto attendant.
Pricing
3CX offers a free plan as well as three paid plans starting at $195 per month for up to 20 users. In the Professional and Enterprise plans, the price increases depending on the number of simultaneous calls. Companies can have as many as 1,024 simultaneous calls.
Top Features
- Live Chat: Free plan includes 1 live chat account with WhatsApp integration, “3CX Talk” link, and reporting
- Call reporting: Includes historical call and chat logs along with metrics such as abandoned calls, call duration, etc.
- Video conferencing: Up to 25 participants with screen sharing, whiteboard, and Youtube integration
- Simultaneous ring: For desktop, softphones, and smartphones
What Users Say
- Customer support team is responsive and helpful
- Auto-provision feature that works with plug and play phones
- High call quality thanks to SIP redundancy and failover
- SMS/MMS only included in the Professional plan
- Confusing graphical user interface
- Not many ways to customize the platform
Best for
Businesses looking for WebRTC-based video and voice. 3CX’s video conferencing platform is feature rich and included in the free plan.
6. Anveo
Anveo has a surprising number of features for those looking for free cloud PBX, such as call recording, IVRs, visual voicemail with voicemail-to-email, fully customizable on-hold music, and call queuing.
Anveo even offers international virtual numbers in 48 countries so customers reach your business without calling outside of their local calling area.
Pricing
Besides its free plan, Anveo offers three paid plans ranging from $6.55 to $40.55 per month. The number of users ranges from 2 to 6. Some features are available to free plan users as add-ons, like Google Contacts and attended transfers.
Top Features
- Call recording: Incoming and outgoing calls are recorded and users can purchase the recordings they want at $0.1 per recording
- SMS/texting: Users can send SMS messages from the Anveo portal for free, incoming messages are $0.01 per text
- Visual call flow customization: Users build IVR call trees with up to 10 items
- Click to call: Includes unlimited click to call/ContactMe buttons for the company website
What Users Say
- One of the few providers to include call recording, outgoing SMS service, and IVR with the free plan
- Low rates for international calls
- Free plan limited to only 2 users
- Lack of transparency in security features is worrisome
- Charges for voicemail-to-text, even in the paid plans
Best for
Organizations without hardware – Anveo uses web browsers to complete calls. Due to the low user limits, Anveo is best for entrepreneurs, partnerships, and small startups.
FreePBX
FreePBX is a flexible and secure open-source platform with voice calling plus advanced UCaaS and CCaaS features. FreePBX does not offer any paid plans, but does offer premium support plans.
FreePBX allows for unlimited users, calling queues, extensions and IVRs. Users select the language support they would like for every endpoint.
FreePBX also includes a video conferencing platform with screen sharing, personalized backgrounds, hand raising, and AI-powered transcription.
Pricing
FreePBX is a completely free platform, but users can purchase add-ons such as queue reports, appointment reminders, and endpoint manager a la carte or as part of a bundle. Premium support is also available for $399-$900 per year.
Top Features
- Text to speech: Users can type in text that they want to use for voicemail or IVR greetings
- Ring groups: Users can create ring groups with any phone numbers and set the ring strategy such as ring all, round robin, etc.
- Calling queues: Users can limit the number of callers in the queue and queue agents can be static or dynamic
- Interactive voice response: Users set up key presses to route calls to ring groups, queues, outside numbers or other IVRs
What Users Say
- Completely free platform with telephony included
- Customizable with integrations
- FreePBX has been around for a long time and there is a wealth of programming tips on the forms
- Relies on crowdsourcing for tutorials and has a steep learning curve
- Requires a self-owned server which can be excessive for entrepreneurs and startups
- Can be expensive if add on modules are needed such as call recording and real time dashboards
Best For
Tech savvy SMBs that require some call center features such as IVR and calling queues.
Free Cloud PBX: Inexpensive Business Communications
Before you try one of the phone services that we’ve featured above, you must understand that you’ll never have extensive enterprise-grade features on an entirely free plan. The providers we’ve listed work as entry points into the world of VoIP and unified communications and are well-suited for an organization that’s trying to keep costs in check.
SMBs are projected to grow by more than 15% in the VoIP market by the year 2025, so finding a service that meets your needs is a required step towards adopting this important technology. Free plans without contracts also grant you the ability to easily measure different free cloud PBX providers against each other so that you better understand the strengths and weaknesses of each.
We’ve included information about the top business VoIP services so that you find the right cloud and hosted PBX solution that helps your organization move forward.
