Provider Overview
OpenPhone is a cloud communications provider offering a virtual business phone system with business VoIP calling, SMS texting, and internal team chat. OpenPhone provides toll-free and local virtual phone numbers throughout the US and Canada, with unlimited calling inside this area.
In the OpenPhone app–accessible via desktop, browser, and mobile–agents can share phone numbers and inboxes for internal and external multichannel communications. A left-hand menu displays contacts, phone number inboxes, and activity tabs with pings that keep agents organized. OpenPhone simplifies agent workflows with messaging automations and one-click options like scheduled messages, auto-replies, and collaborative threads.
The phone system features basic call routing tools, call recording, monitoring and analytics, and integrations with popular third-party apps like HubSpot and Slack.
OpenPhone offers three phone system plans, ranging from $10 to over $20 monthly per user. Read below to learn more about OpenPhone’s features, pricing, pros and cons.
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OpenPhone Key Features
Here are OpenPhone’s key features:
- Phone System
- SMS Texting
- Team Messaging
- Reporting and Analytics
- Contact Management and Customer Profiles
Phone System
OpenPhone’s cloud-based phone system uses VoIP to call any phone number worldwide–with unlimited calling inside the US and Canada. Purchase local and toll-free numbers throughout continental North America from OpenPhone, or port in your pre-existing business phone numbers in roughly 10 business days.
OpenPhone’s app supports softphone calling on all devices–browser, desktop, and mobile. Agents can use a personal device to make and receive business calls, distinguished from personal calls.
OpenPhone Phone System Features:
- Multi-level auto attendant: Create a self-service menu that routes customers to a voicemail, phone number, announcement, or submenu within your phone system. Use audio recording or type-to-talk to create announcements.
- Business hours: Customize business hours for each phone number, choosing the response to after-hours calls––mute, send to voicemail, or forward to another user
- Call transfers: Instantly transfer a call to any user, group, or phone number in your phone system
- User groups: Organize teammates into groups or departments that share call and messaging responsibilities. Choose a simultaneous ring or set a round-robin order, with custom ring duration.
- Voicemail transcription: All voicemails are transcribed and stored in the corresponding phone number’s conversation history, where any assigned user can access and respond
- Call recording: Record any call individually, or enable auto-recording
- Multichannel inbox: An ongoing conversation log with each customer phone number, stored in the scrollable OpenPhone app inbox. This multichannel conversation history logs text messages, calls and recordings, and voicemails with transcription, so agents stay up-to-date across all communication channels.
- Data forwarding: Send data and notifications–about calls, messages, and voicemails–to your Slack or email
Shared Phone Numbers
Every user within your company’s phone system requires a phone number to access OpenPhone’s app. Share phone numbers among unlimited team members, who can simultaneously make calls using the same number.
A user can hold multiple phone numbers–occupying multiple departments or groups–and jump between them within the app dashboard.
SMS Texting
OpenPhone’s app makes it easy for agents to send customers SMS and MMS messages, plus videos, files, emojis, and GIFs–on any device, from any local or toll-free number. Send unlimited SMS within the US and Canada, or set up international texting options to send SMS anywhere in the world.
Each phone number’s inbox stores each customer’s conversation history, allowing any assigned agent to gain full context and respond.
All of an agent’s assigned phone number inboxes are organized in the Inboxes tab, with conversations sorted by Open, Done, and Unread. Agents can create customer group-messaging SMS threads with up to nine users, access customer CRM info, and utilize a variety of automations and one-click workflow tools.
OpenPhone Texting Features:
- Auto-replies: Set up automatic SMS replies in response to various inbound customer contact conditions–reply to contacts received during or after business hours, to a text or missed call, and to customers who did or didn’t leave a voicemail.
- Snippets: Create reusable text templates for common messaging scenarios, such as phone call follow-up next steps or thank-you messages. Agents can access snippets right within the texting box and share snippets with teammates.
- Scheduled messages: After typing a message, schedule a future send time instead of sending the message immediately. View scheduled messages in the conversation inbox, where users can edit the message or send it immediately.
- Shared inbox messaging: Multiple teammates can simultaneously message a large number of customers from the same business number. Teammates can also work together within a single conversation, viewing when another teammate is actively typing a response.
Team Messaging
The OpenPhone app supports 1:1 internal direct messaging, with emoji and file-sharing capabilities. To send a direct message, simply click on a teammate’s name and select Write a message. New inbound messages trigger ping notifications within the app’s left-hand contacts list.
Shared Inbox Threads
Within a shared multichannel inbox, team-messaging threads allow behind-the-scenes collaboration where teammates can message and tag each other underneath a particular customer voicemail, call recording, or SMS. To initiate a thread, an agent simply highlights a customer message or call activity, clicks the “message” icon, and types an internal comment visible to the team (or tagged members).
Reporting and Analytics
The OpenPhone app’s Analytics dashboard, available with the Premium plan, displays agent and customer multichannel usage activity, including graph and chart displays. View metrics and KPIs for specific users, sorted over custom historical timeframes: by the day, week, or month.
Analytics Dashboard Reports, Metrics, and KPIs:
- Activity log: See how active specific team members are on certain dates, weekdays, and hours of the day–with heatmaps displaying the most active times
- Calls: Total number of calls, outgoing, received, missed calls, and time on the phone
- Messages: Total number of messages, inbound and outbound messages, and unique conversations
Contact Management and Customer Profiles
The OpenPhone app utilizes built-in customer profiles, contact syncing, third-party integrations, and collaboration tools to offer dynamic contact management that mimics a lightweight CRM system.
Import batches of phone numbers via CSV, sync with Google Contacts, or use Zapier to connect OpenPhone triggers with a CRM system you already use. Share contacts among the whole organization, or upload contacts for individual business phone numbers–where every assigned user can view them.
When an agent clicks on a customer’s name or conversation history, the customer’s built-in profile immediately appears on the right of the screen–providing information like their company, role, contact preferences, and notes previously left by teammates.
OpenPhone Integrations
OpenPhone integrates with email and 6 popular third-party software apps.
- Email: Sync OpenPhone with your email provider to receive notifications when an assigned number receives a call, message, or voicemail
- Slack: Share and forward OpenPhone activity–calls, messages, and voicemails–with any Slack user or channel
- Google Contacts: Sync all OpenPhone contacts with Google Contacts
- HubSpot: Sync customer profiles, conversation history, and customer journey information with HubSpot. This integration automatically creates and updates. HubSpot tickets upon OpenPhone customer contact, enabling agents to resolve tickets and leave notes within the OpenPhone dashboard.
- Salesforce: Log all of a contact’s OpenPhone activity into Salesforce, sync Salesforce contacts, or make OpenPhone calls directly from Salesforce
- Gong: Sync OpenPhone call recordings with Gong for automatic transcription. Use Gong for conversation analysis including common questions and objections, competitor names, call statistics, and more.
- Zapier: Trigger workflows and create automatic action events–like sending a message or updating contact info–by connecting over 5000 tools to OpenPhone via Zapier. For example, trigger text messages upon customer checkout, appointment booking, payment due date, or cart abandonment.
OpenPhone Plans and Pricing
OpenPhone offers 3 pricing plans: Standard, Premium, and Enterprise.
- The Standard plan includes one business phone number per user, SMS texting, phone number sharing with up to 10 users, unlimited calling within the US and Canada, unlimited teams with 1:1 messaging, and all automation tools
- The Premium plan adds unlimited users on a shared number, analytics and reports, advanced integrations, and an upgrade to multi-level IVR
- The Enterprise plan–with custom pricing–adds priority support and a dedicated account manager
OpenPhone User Experience
OpenPhone offers an intuitive, smooth user experience across all devices, with a slightly different display on desktop and browser, compared to mobile.
Desktop and Browser Apps
The OpenPhone dashboard organizes an agent’s contacts and phone number inboxes in a lefthand menu, where agents can easily jump between numbers, inboxes, and customer conversations.
Within an inbox, agents can access multiple capabilities:
- Monitor multichannel conversation histories with each customer
- Tag teammates and initiate threads under any message or call, within any conversation
- Share communication responsibilities, viewing when a teammate is typing a message to a customer
- View a customer’s profile side-by-side with the conversation
- Contact a customer with one click via phone or SMS
Mobile App
The OpenPhone mobile app, available on iOS or Android, provides the same collaboration and customer-contact capabilities as the desktop app. Agents can still quickly jump between phone numbers, scroll through each customer’s multichannel conversation history, schedule messages, participate in internal threads, and view when a teammate is actively typing a customer response.
The only difference on the app’s mobile version is that the user can no longer monitor dozens of inboxes and conversations within one screen. Instead, each menu item–assigned phone number inboxes, customer conversation histories, team chat, settings, and the dial pad–takes up the full mobile screen, requiring a few extra clicks to jump between conversations.
OpenPhone Pros and Cons
While OpenPhone offers strong collaboration features–like flexible numbers and shared multichannel inboxes–the solution lacks video conferencing and does not offer hold queues, which are a valuable call center feature.
| OpenPhone Pros |
OpenPhone Cons |
| Shared team inboxes enhance customer-support collaboration |
No video conferencing |
| App is easy to use |
Does not offer internal group chats or channels |
| Phone numbers offer flexible usage and sharing |
Cannot create hold queues |
OpenPhone Customer Support
OpenPhone offers a knowledge base and 24/7 email support on the Standard plan, plus a dedicated account manager with the Enterprise plan.
- Knowledge base: A searchable article database covering OpenPhone topics, including setup, how-to guides, and troubleshooting steps.
- 24/7 email support: Email OpenPhone directly or reach out via the website chat widget, for email support at any hour.
- Dedicated account manager: A dedicated, personal point of contact from the OpenPhone team.
Is OpenPhone Right For You?
OpenPhone’s cloud-based phone system works best for small companies and startups based in North America that don’t frequently face overflowing call volumes. The solution’s phone number flexibility is useful for companies whose customer-facing agents handle multiple services–like sales, customer service, and complaints–by allowing them to monitor multiple departments’ phone numbers in one interface.
On the other hand, companies looking to collaborate via video and group-chat messaging should look elsewhere, as OpenPhone does not support these capabilities. Those with many customers outside of the US will quickly rack up international fees using OpenPhone and should consider alternatives with wider calling networks. Finally, companies with large inbound call volumes might prefer an OpenPhone alternative that supports hold queues–a valuable tool for managing customers when agents are busy.
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