Want to go straight to the answer? According to our research, the best phone services for small businesses are Nextiva and Zoom.
Small businesses are adopting VoIP phone services to optimize internal and external communications.
The right business phone providers offer high-quality voice, video calling, and messaging to improve the overall customer experience and productivity for team members.
In this guide, we'll explore in detail some of the best business phone services, their pricing, and plans, along with essential features that would best serve your company.
Top 10 Small Business Phone Services for 2024
Here is the list of the best business phone services:
- Nextiva -- Best overall for small businesses
- Zoom -- Best for integrated video and voice conferencing
- Grasshopper -- Best for solopreneurs and small teams
- RingCentral -- Best all-in-one team collaboration solution
- 8x8 -- Best for international calling
- Avaya -- Best customizable business phone
- Ooma -- Best for low budget setup for small teams
- Vonage -- Best for customizations with APIs
- Dialpad -- Best for AI-driven communication
- GoTo Connect -- Best for high volume international calls
1. Nextiva
Nextiva is one of the leading providers of business phone services and unified communications with an affordable price and a great set of features for ensuring the best for your business and clients. Their outspoken customer loyalty and best-in-class customer service have earned multiple awards as the #1 rated provider by U.S. News and G2 three years in a row.
Best pricing plan for small businesses --
Nextiva pricing ranges from $18.95 to $32.95 per user per month. Though they typically offer 10-15% savings with annual commitments. Here’s a look at Nextiva’s full pricing options.
Best features for small businesses --
Nextiva's most basic plan offers premium features that allow you to communicate with clients and customers easily from any device. These include unlimited calling, video conferencing, online faxing, toll-free numbers, mobile and desktop app, auto attendant, and unlimited texting. Nextiva allows number porting, so you can stick with your existing business phone number. Perhaps Nextiva's most notable feature is its built-in team collaboration functionality within your calling platform.
Getting started with Nextiva--
Nextiva offers a thorough page on the website dedicated to helping small businesses get started with their virtual business phone service. You can read about individual features and see how they come together in Nextiva's bundled services.
Additionally, custom user training and onboarding, as well as a completely customizable phone solution, are also available.
Phone customer service and live chat assistance is available 24/7.
2. Zoom
Zoom Phone is a cloud-based business phone service primarily designed for any workforce. It’s not designed to work as a standalone phone service but alongside a Zoom Meetings video account.
Best pricing plan for small businesses --
Small businesses will benefit most from Zoom Phone’s US and Canada Unlimited Plan, which costs $12.00/user per month for existing Zoom Video users and offers unlimited calling within the United States and Canada, phone extensions, call recording, and one free US or Canada phone numbers. Additional phone numbers can be purchased for $5.00/month per number. A Metered plan is also available but lacks unlimited outbound calling and SMS texting, among other features the average small business needs. Here's a breakdown of Zoom Phone pricing and plans.
Best features for small businesses --
Great for small businesses, Zoom Phone’s Pro plan offers unlimited internal calling in the US and Canada, visual voicemail accessible via email, desktop interface, and mobile apps, as well as chat messaging with existing Zoom users. Free number porting, advanced integrations with tools like GSuite, Salesforce, Slack, and Microsoft 365, and the ability to transition any chat or video call to an audio-only phone call are also helpful tools for SMBs.
Getting started --
In addition to detailed video tutorials and how-to guides on the Zoom knowledge base, Zoom also offers live training webinars to assist with learning how to setup and use Zoom Phone and other products. Users will receive a link to set up their Zoom phones on their own, or they can opt to purchase a more expensive plan with a Customer Success Manager to ease the setup process. Zoom offers 24/7 support through its Bolt chatbot and support plans that offer priority phone, web ticket, social media, and live chat support.
3. Grasshopper
Grasshopper offers the communication tools your business needs to grow. With its wide pool of toll-free numbers available, this business phone service ensures your small business will look and sound professional. It is an excellent choice for small businesses that don’t require advanced features and want to avoid being tied to a contract.
Best pricing plan for small businesses --
Grasshopper's cheapest plan starts at $14/month, billed annually. But as it only comes with one phone number and one extension, it's not the best fit for a small business with employees. The best bet is Grasshopper's Partner plan, which starts at $46/month, billed annually. This plan comes with three phone numbers and six extensions. Learn more about Grasshopper pricing and plans.
Best features for small businesses --
Grasshopper was designed with small businesses in mind as they often have to work longer hours to get their businesses off the ground. One feature that helps with that is Grasshopper’s instant response.
If you miss a call from a prospect, Grasshopper will automatically send out an SMS message to let them know you’re unavailable. Reaching out with this automated message will eliminate the risk of losing prospects.
Getting started with Grasshopper --
Users can easily get started with Grasshopper in just a few simple steps and signup right on their website. First, you pick your number. Second, you pick your plan, then download the app on your mobile phone and desktop. You then need to configure your settings, and you're good to start making and receiving calls.
4. RingCentral
RingCentral's business phone service is built for organizations of all sizes and offers a range of plans and APIs. RingCentral prides itself on assisting collaborative teams regardless of location, making it another excellent option for remote teams across multiple countries.
Best pricing plan for small businesses --
The Core is a sufficient starter plan and includes automatic call recording and an auto attendant, which ensures users never miss inbound calls and provides virtual receptionist capabilities. You might not get these features in a basic plan from another business phone service provider. This option starts at $20/user/month. Here’s a complete breakdown of RingCentral’s pricing and plans.
Best features for small businesses --
The Core plan supports unlimited users — this is a lot more lines than many of RingCentral's competitors provide at a lower rate, allowing you to scale up without jumping to a more expensive plan. Purchasing this plan gives you the freedom to grow your small business significantly while keeping your costs lower. RingCentral users can also take advantage of toll-free numbers, free phone calls, powerful video capabilities, international calling, and unlimited business texting.
Getting started with RingCentral --
RingCentral is easy to deploy and scale in minutes. You can set up new teams and departments within the centralized admin portal. It's fairly simple to add and remove users, set business hours, and build rules for call routing and call forwarding. Any user can perform these actions remotely.
5. 8x8 X Series
8x8's phone service empowers businesses across 60 countries to connect teams and customers to collaborate faster and seamlessly. The business phone service provider offers real-time analytics and intelligence, so you have unique and actionable insights across all interactions and channels to make data-driven decisions.
Best pricing plan for small businesses --
8x8 doesn't offer an open pricing, so you will need to contact their sales team for a quote. Thanks to many features, the 8x8 X2 plan is ideal for smaller and larger businesses that need the simplicity of voice calling, video conferencing, and messaging in one single app. No hardware is required with this plan.
Best features for small businesses --
8x8 X2 plan was specifically designed with small businesses and startups in mind. This plan gives users access to business text messaging, unlimited dialing to 14 countries, HD video and audio conferencing for up to 500 participants, and multitude of integrations. It is perfect for streamlined unified communications.
Getting started --
The 8x8 X2 plan is ideal for quickly setting up meetings as there is no software requirement – guests can call meetings using a browser-based UI.
It offers a 99.999% uptime and 24/7 live system monitoring with geographic redundancy. Plus 8x8’s onboarding options include complete implementation services, rapid deployment, custom solutions, employee training, and more.
6. Avaya Cloud Office
Avaya Cloud Office is an all-in-one cloud communications solution offering unlimited business calling in the United States and Canada, Unlimited Business SMS, audio conferencing, and video meetings for up to 200 participants.
It’s more of a unified communications solution than a standalone business phone service and is designed mainly to connect fully remote teams or blended, geographically diverse workforces. RingCentral powers Avaya's business phone service, therefore, you'll see a lot of overlap in pricing and features.
Best Pricing Plan for Small Businesses --
Avaya’s Standard Plan, which starts at $20/user per month, is a great option for small businesses. It includes 1000 toll-free minutes per month, allows for unlimited number of users, and offers unlimited audio conferencing calls. The Premium Plan, which costs $25/user per month, includes 2,500 monthly toll-free minutes, video calling for up to 200 simultaneous attendees, multi-level auto attendants, and real-time analytics. Additional local, toll-free, and vanity numbers can be purchased at $4.99/number per month.
Best features for small businesses --
Avaya offers many competitive features for small businesses, but what sets it apart is its advanced team collaboration suite, included with all Avaya Spaces plans. Users will enjoy team chat, task assignment and management, file sharing, multiple integrations, and more. Additional features include AI noise removal, meeting recording, and ability to dial-in from 45+ Countries.
Getting started --
In addition to an easy-to-follow onboarding guide, Avaya offers phone and device rentals to ensure that your team has everything it needs for a successful transition. Users can take courses in the Avaya Learning Center to ease onboarding or purchase pre-paid annual training packages. Avaya Professional Services help managers to choose the right plans, design and implement customized solutions, assist with data migration to the cloud, and more. All Avaya plans offer 24/7 phone and chat support, which gives Avaya a major competitive edge.
7. Ooma Office
Ooma Office is a basic phone service provider for small businesses and startups with up to ten employees. For many small businesses that want to experiment with a no-frills option, Ooma is a cost-effective business phone solution to cover basic needs by supporting a team’s existing analog phones.
Best pricing plan for small businesses --
Ooma offers simple plans for new and existing small businesses to access a robust phone service at a flat monthly rate without committing to a contract. Their Essentials plan starts at $19.95/user/month. If you’re still exploring the market and plan to test out more than one business phone service, Ooma is worth considering.
To improve the shopping process, their site conveniently features a rate calculator tool that estimates your taxes and fees based on location. You’ll quickly know whether or not a plan like this can handle your business as it grows or if you need to consider an Ooma Office plan with more comprehensive features.
Best features for small businesses --
Ooma Office’s bare-bones plan offers SIP phone customer support, toll-free number options, a group calling features, emergency (911) services, and voicemail-to-email conversions. Users can leverage more advanced features such as virtual fax and extensions.
Getting started with Ooma --
Ooma offers a page on its website that helps small businesses get started. It specifically states that setting up your Ooma platform is quick and easy. You don't need any technical knowledge and should be up and running within 15 minutes. However, number porting and hardware delivery may take up to an additional one to two weeks.
8. Vonage Business Communications
Vonage’s small business phone service plans include the major features you’d expect from a household name. Designed with a wide range of features, Vonage Business Communications (VBC) features Mobile, Premium, and Advanced options to best cater to organizations of varying sizes and structures.
Best pricing plan for small businesses --
Vonage's basic offering is their Mobile plan, which starts at $13.99/user/month and is a great option for small businesses. It provides users with unlimited calling and SMS messaging via their softphone only, seamless integration for desktop and mobile apps, and unlimited team messaging. This plan is perfect for supporting remote teams and those that don’t rely on desk phones.
For teams that operate in a more traditional office setting and those who tend to rely on cross-platform collaboration, Vonage’s Premium plan is ideal. Under this plan, business phone service users pay $20.99 per month to communicate or collaborate across all device types, including desk phones with more advanced call handling features. Premium users also gain access to Amazon Chime-supported video conferencing, chat, and file sharing for up to 100 people.
Best features for small businesses --
Vonage offers more than 50 features across its plans. Its Mobile Plan offers unlimited outgoing and incoming calls, SMS, and team messaging. The Mobile Plan also includes the Vonage App Center. This allows users to integrate whichever business applications they need to make sure that the platform is tailored to their exact business needs.
Getting started --
Vonage Business Communications offers a great introduction and setup guide to get users started with the service. If you subscribe to the setup guide service, a sales representative will work with your team to get your account set up the way you need. It's fairly easy to set up your account on your own.
9. Dialpad Talk
Dialpad is a moderately-priced business phone provider for startups to mid-sized businesses. Dialpad plans come equipped with most, if not all, VoIP and unified communication capabilities any business would be looking for.
Best pricing plan for small businesses --
The basic plan starts at $15/user/month, billed annually. Users also have the option to pay $20/user/month (billed monthly), in turn, receive software with an emphasis on convenience, seamless third-party app integration, and support for both iOS and Android cell phones.
It’s one of the less-expensive service providers for its advanced business phone line offering, including video conferencing and SMS/MMS messaging services. By forgoing a focus on hardware options and installation/training, teams are left with more time to customize default settings. That way, they can quickly enjoy the benefits of contact management, encryption, and IVR (interactive voice response).
Best features for small businesses --
Many find it an ideal virtual business phone service because, in addition to features like voicemail transcription, SIP phone support, and video conferencing, Dialpad focuses on integrations and AI. For example, Dialpad's basic plan offers G Suite and Office 365 integrations to offer users a well-rounded unified communications experience.
Getting started --
Dialpad lets users quickly get started by offering a 14-day free trial for any of their plans. Once you've signed up, you can quickly add users and numbers.
10. GoTo Connect
GoTo Connect is a cloud-based business phone service that replaces your older equipment with a virtual PBX to improve interactions. GoTo Connect’s impressive portfolio contains over 80 enterprise-class hosted PBX features to give clients an edge over the competition.
Best pricing plan for small businesses --
GoTo Connect offers two pricing plans: Basic starting at $27/user/month and Standard starting at $32/user/month. While the Basic plan supports all communication channels, it has a 20-user maximum and only supports 4 participants in video meetings which makes it a good choice for small businesses. The Standard plan offers a wider breadth of features, including a 250 meeting participants, unlimited auto attendants, and 1,000 toll-free minutes. Apart from this, multiple add-ons are available for additional price.
Best features for small businesses --
The business phone provider's Basic plan provides the core features for unified communications. Users can leverage advanced calling features like find me/follow me, auto attendants, ring groups, and call queues. This is a step up from basic calling features offered by traditional landline phone networks. Certain plans also offer real-time analytics, which is vital in making data-driven decisions.
Getting started --
GoTo Connect's platform can be deployed in a matter of minutes. The VoIP provider offers a user guide within its support section. Their help center provides step-by-step guides for creating your account, setting up apps and your phone, signing into your account, and more. It also provides guides for setting up ten various preferences within your account.
Business Phone Service Essential Features
Small business phone services should have robust and reliable features that are easy to use. Most reputable business VoIP providers understand that business owners want to try phone features before upgrading or committing to a multi-year full package.
You’re bound to find commonalities between small business phone services promoting advanced add-on features as you shop around. These can usually be purchased individually without a plan and provide unique insights valuable to businesses across all industries. Here are some of the most important features to be to look out for:
- Custom Greetings & Premium Hold Music – No one enjoys being left on hold for long stretches. Still, many callers also appreciate not suffering call waiting times in silence or being forced to listen to sterile elevator music. Hearing a custom greeting and royalty-free hold music before a call transfer can give callers a better impression of the interaction. It also makes your company seem far more professional.
- HD Video Conferencing – Many business phone service providers offer HD video conferencing capabilities, enabling high-quality web conferencing straight from the platform. This eliminates the need for third-party video platforms like Skype or GoTo Meeting. Having reliable HD visuals and sound promises clear communication to simplify internal operations for remote teams.
- Integrations – Integrations are valuable for keeping connected to your other tools and existing customer base and helping the customer service team streamline processes with crucial data. Many business phone providers offer an array of commonly used apps that sync seamlessly with your phone system. These pair productivity tools like call tracking, CRM, live chat, and other features to the phone system.
- Call Analytics – Like web analytics and social media reports, call center analytics can provide a wealth of knowledge and help you optimize performance on anything from conference calls to call logs. This is a worthwhile investment for any company looking to optimize call management impact, track leads, and evaluate the success of call center reps.
- Vanity & Local Business Phone numbers – be on the lookout for business phone service providers that offer free local numbers, virtual numbers, and extensions, as well as access to toll-free vanity numbers. Any VoIP number should come with a caller ID.
- Voicemail Transcription and Voicemail-to-text – Listening to lengthy voicemail messages wastes a lot of time, and it’s especially hard to determine which calls to prioritize if you can’t figure out what the caller needs without listening to them. Voicemail-to-text changes all that by providing you with a written transcription of all voicemail messages. Voicemail-to-email automatically sends either text voicemail transcriptions or attached MP3 voicemail recordings to your email address.
- Call Recording – Call recording allows you to record inbound/outbound calls automatically or on-demand, offering stronger call monitoring and individual agent evaluation. Sometimes, you can pause and restart recordings when sensitive information is discussed.
- Mobile Application/Softphone – No business phone service is worth considering unless it has a corresponding mobile application for both Apple and Android devices (which means your VoIP system can function on both smartphones and tablets.) Want to take calls on your desktop computer as opposed to your mobile device? That’s where VoIP softphones come in.
Business Phone Service: Look Beyond Price
Reliable and affordable business phone plans are necessary for any company, regardless of size. Traditional phone service providers might be household names, but their small business phone plans are typically lackluster compared to business VoIP. They come with hidden fees and a general disconnect regarding managing entrepreneurial needs and modern business communication methods such as team messaging.
With higher plan base prices and extra charges, cloud-based business phone companies present excellent alternative solutions. They deliver cutting-edge business phone services with powerful mobile apps that brands need to survive in a landscape dictated by convenience and accessibility.
