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Best VoIP Business Phone Systems 2024 | U.S. News
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Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) business phone systems can help companies improve collaboration and productivity by allowing communication to no longer be tethered to a physical in-office phone. The options are vast, ranging from basic VoIP phone service to all-in-one platforms that provide phone, messaging, video conferencing, and even contact center solutions that integrate with your office software and CRM applications. We’ve researched and rated the best companies and Intermedia, Nextiva, and Dialpad top our list.
Modern cloud-based phone services give businesses big and small the flexibility to operate anywhere and scale for growth, whether your workforce is local, distributed, or entirely remote. Continuing advances in VoIP technology mean that communication can happen anywhere, at any time.
Choosing the best VoIP service for your business requires careful consideration, and our guide aims to help. If you’re seeking to improve your business’ collaboration and productivity potential, we’ve got you covered. We’ve researched plans, features, pricing, and more to help you determine which VoIP business phone system is the best fit for you and your business.
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Cloud-based phone services offer plans with unlimited calling, text messaging, and video conferencing. However, the features vary by provider and plan. Some platforms provide advanced tools like AI-driven insights and real-time meeting transcriptions, while others seamlessly connect with your analog devices. Pricing for the top VoIP business phone systems starts at $15 per user per month.
Intermedia is our Best Business Phone System of 2024 and our No. 1 rated VoIP Business Phone System. Its Unite packages, Pro and Enterprise, offer a unified communications phone system that include features such as cloud storage, voicemail transcription, call recording, video conferencing capabilities, and analytics capabilities.
The Pro plan begins at $27.99 and the Enterprise level plan begins at $32.99. At the Enterprise level, users will have access to 200 GB of storage, an exchange mailbox, HD video conferencing for up to 200 users, supervisor functions. The Enterprise level has additional integrations with Salesforce, Service Now, NetSuite, MS Dynamics plus the integrations that come with the Pro plan: Google and Microsoft applications, Slack, Sugar CRM, Zoho CRM, and Zendesk.
Nextiva provides a single user interface for communication and collaboration. It puts multi-channel interactions into threaded conversations, allowing you to see a client’s entire history, including phone calls, notes, emails, and text messages. There are three Nextiva plans: Essential, Professional, and Enterprise. All include 45-minute video meetings with up to 250 participants and a toll-free number with minutes.
The base plan doesn’t have call recording or SMS/MMS, but does come with team messaging and video conference recording. Mid- and upper-tier versions provide free professionally recorded greetings for your auto-attendant system and voice mailboxes. In addition, Professional and Enterprise plans have integrations with CRMs, such as HubSpot, Salesforce, and SugarCRM.
When paid annually, Dialpad’s entry-level plan is less expensive than others in our rating. Yet, it’s packed with features, including live speech coaching, automated post-call summaries, and real-time call transcriptions. The three subscriptions (Standard, Pro, and Enterprise) offer unlimited calling to the U.S. and Canada, file sharing, and five-hour video meetings with 10 participants.
If your staff lives or works outside of the U.S., Dialpad Pro and Enterprise provide local number support in more than 70 countries and allow international text messaging. These plans also integrate with HubSpot, Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Salesforce.
RingCentral provides three unified communications plans: Core, Advanced, and Ultra. All versions include unlimited calling to the U.S. and Canada, allotted toll-free minutes (if you opt for a free 1-800 number), allotted SMS, team messaging, and voicemail-to-text. However, you’ll need a mid- or upper-tier subscription for virtual fax, hot desking, automatic call recording, and adoption and business analytics.
There are hundreds of integrations available, depending on your plan. For instance, Advanced and Ultra plans connect to CRMs, like Salesforce and HubSpot. RingCentral provides an array of collaboration and meeting tools, making it perfect for remote and hybrid teams. It features Team Huddle, an always-on video and chat meeting room where co-workers can drop in for spontaneous conversations. The whiteboard, breakout rooms, and presentation modes mimic in-person activities.
Solopreneurs and small teams with five or fewer phone users can sign up for 8x8 Express. The $15 per user monthly price tag doesn’t require a contract or annual billing. It’s also one of the most robust entry-level subscriptions, offering audio and video conferencing for up to 100 attendees, team messaging, and an auto-attendant.
Larger teams can mix and match X-Series plans for knowledge workers, supervisors, and contact center employees. For companies with international staff and clients, 8x8 has the edge over RingCentral. X2 offers unmetered calls to 14 countries, whereas X4, X6, X7, and X8 allow unlimited calls to 48 countries. Also, 8x8 has international phone numbers for branches outside of the U.S. or virtual numbers for U.S.-based organizations.
8x8 X-Series increases meeting capacity to 500 users, one of the highest limits on our Best VoIP Business Phone Systems of 2024 rating. Also, X2 and X4 allow users to livestream meetings via YouTube.
Like 8x8, GoTo Connect offers two subscriptions with unlimited calling to more than 50 countries, making it a good choice for businesses with overseas clients. However, GoTo Connect doesn’t offer international phone numbers. Instead, you can choose a local or toll-free number. Standard and Premium subscriptions come with 1,000 and 5,000 toll-free minutes, whereas Basic users pay $0.03 per minute.
GoTo Connect integrates with Zoho CRM, Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, and more. All plans include the instant response feature, allowing users to send an automatic text message to first-time callers when they’re unable to answer the phone.
Vonage is a smart choice for remote or mobile-only users, as the starter plan has mobile and desktop apps. It also includes over 20 third-party integrations. Companies that need IP desk phone compatibility need the Premium or Advanced package. These versions add CRM integrations with HubSpot, SugarCRM, Salesforce, and Zoho CRM.
In addition, all subscriptions provide call continuity services that automatically route calls during a power outage or emergency. Vonage provides local direct inbound dialing (DID) numbers in more than 96 countries and supports U.S. and international locations.
Aircall is designed for call centers, as all subscriptions include flexible call distribution rules, email reporting, and conference calling. It requires a minimum of three users, so it’s not a great fit for solopreneurs. Although the entry-level Essentials plan costs more than other solutions on our Best VoIP Business Phone Systems of 2024 rating, it offers features typically locked behind mid- and upper-tier packages.
For instance, Aircall Essentials integrates with over 100 applications and provides application programming interface (API) access. Users can connect to HubSpot, Pipedrive, and Zendesk. However, you need the Professional or Custom package to connect to Salesforce.
Ooma has three business plans – Essentials, Pro, and Pro Plus – and three enterprise Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) solutions – Standard, Enhanced, and Call Center.
Ooma supports analog devices in its basic plans, while other companies in our rating put desk phone compatibility in higher-tier plans only. Ooma’s analog device support includes overhead paging systems and fax machines. Ooma is also the only company in our ratings to offer unlimited calling to Puerto Rico.
All accounts with Ooma will include a toll-free number with 500 inbound calling minutes every month.
If you have a hybrid or remote team, your employees can access video conference tools, voicemail transcriptions, and call analytics with Ooma’s Pro plan. If you want Pro Plus, you get Salesforce integration and call queuing. All Enterprise plans come with white glove onboarding, but the highest Enterprise plan provides advanced features like:
Avaya has four service plans: Essentials, Standard, Premium, and Ultimate. Avaya limits the base plan to 20 or fewer users. All subscriptions include document sharing, team messaging, voicemail transcription, toll-free minutes, and unlimited calling in the U.S. and Canada.
Avaya also provides business phone numbers in more than 100 countries on all plans except Essentials. Mid and upper-tier packages offer audio and video conferencing capabilities. Avaya has a large ecosystem of integrations apps, but the number and type vary by tier. Standard users can connect to Google Workspace, Slack, and Microsoft 365, whereas Premium offers CRM integrations.
The business phone systems in our rating can range from $15 to $100 per user per month. Lower-priced packages typically have limits on the number of users and offer fewer advanced features. The lower-priced plans are best for small businesses and solopreneurs.
With some VoIP services, it is possible to earn discounts for paying the annual free upfront, entering into a multi-year contract, or signing up more users. However, you may have additional fees for toll-free and international calls, premium support, hardware, and federal and state taxes and fees.
A business VoIP phone system advertises a variety of features, including call recording, call forwarding, and video conferencing. Think about what your business needs to decide which basic and advanced features are important to you and ask yourself:
Do I have employees working remotely?
Would I like the ability to forward calls to people’s home phones?
Am I interested in an auto-attendant that lets callers be routed to the correct person?
Would my business benefit from internal messaging tools?
Am I on the go a lot and would often utilize a voicemail-to-email feature that lets me see quickly what people are calling about?
Do I need a mobile app that would allow me to access phone service features from mobile devices?
Before making a decision, make sure the companies you’re considering offer other key telephone features you may desire, such as:
Caller ID
Call recording
Three-way calling
Video conferencing
Internet faxing
CRM integration
Analytics
Finally, consider a provider's customer service options, including whether the company offers 24/7 support and help with IP phone installation and configuration. Many providers also offer rich resource centers with lots of tools, content, and advice related to all aspects of business.
Start by clearly defining your business phone needs, says Sam Sansome, principal and VP of Operations, Sales, and Marketing at Aligned Technologies. He suggests asking some key questions:
1. How else might a VoIP system help my business?
Today’s VoIP services do more than send and receive calls over the internet. They offer advanced call management features; all-in-one platforms for voice, messaging, and video; and even may use AI to automate tasks, coach employees, and track issues and opportunities.
So instead of just replacing your existing phone system with a similar one, explore how modern VoIP features can improve the customer experience and make your company more accessible and responsive. “This is an opportunity for people to have some meaningful impact on the productivity of their workforce,” says Sansome.
2. What office and CRM software do I use?
Some VoIP phone services integrate with the software and CRM applications used by your business. Integrations are “huge” for boosting productivity, so you’ll want a system that works with your applications, says Sansome. An integrated app, for example, may let you pull up a customer profile, click to make a call, log call details into the CRM program, and attach a call recording or transcript, all without entering data manually. Some VoIP services enable custom integrations via APIs and webhooks.
3. How do employees and customers want to communicate?
It’s important to choose a VoIP solution that accommodates the needs of both, says Sansome. Do employees want desk phones? Would they prefer to use smartphones and computer apps? Do they want to team message and video meet with coworkers?
Customers increasingly prefer text and instant messaging. “Are you going to make it easy for them to do business the way they want to do business with you or are you just going to provide them with a phone number,” asks Sansome.
4. What are my basic phone system requirements?
How many employees, departments, and office locations do you need to support? Do you require toll-free phone numbers or specific call management features? What are your technical and customer service expectations?
“The great thing about these cloud systems is they are, by nature, extremely scalable,” says Sansome. Typically, it’s easy to add users, upgrade to next-tier plans, or switch providers by porting numbers.
5. Is my infrastructure adequate?
All cloud-hosted VoIP phone services require a high-speed internet connection. To ensure call quality and reliability, Sansome recommends you have two separate connections, plus run software-defined wide area networking, or SD-WAN, software. SD-WAN acts as a traffic director. It monitors the two connections and routes calls to the one performing best.
You also may need to buy IP desk phones for an on-premises phone system. Some VoIP services can adapt the analog phones you currently own.
VoIP stands for voice over internet protocol. As the Federal Communications Commission explains, VoIP-based business phone systems route phone calls through your business's wired or Wi-Fi internet connection, instead of through traditional phone lines. While some users may experience a spotty connection, modern VoIP solutions generally offer pretty good call quality and reliability when a business has high-speed internet. You can usually make calls from VoIP phones or softphones to traditional phone lines and cell phones. Plus, you can forward calls to your landline or mobile phone if you’re away from the office.
It's possible to have on-premises servers for VoIP phone software, similar to a system called a PBX that handles traditional business landline calls. However, many VoIP systems are cloud-hosted, meaning that the VoIP provider's servers process your calls. That often makes it easier to connect to them from multiple locations, including through a cloud-based mobile app. This can be good for businesses with people who are frequently on the road or working from home.
VoIP phone systems often also include other services, such as video conferencing and internal company messaging. With cloud-based systems reliant on your phone company's servers and software, it can be important to pick a provider with the level of customer service that you want.
You don't necessarily need any hardware for a VoIP-based phone system, because many provide support for mobile phone and desktop apps to make and receive calls. If you prefer to use more traditional office devices, many VoIP companies offer desk phones and conference room phones that you can use with their services, often preconfigured to quickly connect to their networks. You may be able to use third-party phones as well. If you have existing desk phones, you may need an adaptor to connect them to the VoIP network, particularly if they're traditional landline devices rather than digital phones.
Many business VoIP providers offer plug-and-play desk phones that are designed to operate with the provider's network as soon as you receive them. Such companies also often offer smartphones and desktop apps that can connect to their networks when you download them from the provider or your phone's app marketplace. If you're setting up an entire office worth of phones or adjusting existing devices to work with your new VoIP provider, you may want to see if the company can provide assistance over the phone or in person in setting up your new equipment.
VoIP service can be handy for remote employees. Often, business VoIP service will let you use the same devices at home and at work with minimal configuration, so you can use your business phone number to receive and make calls wherever you are. In addition, you frequently can use mobile devices or software-based desktop tools to connect to your VoIP system from any smartphone or computer. Many VoIP services also come with messaging and videoconferencing tools.
Securing VoIP phones can be more challenging than traditional landline phones, according to the Department of Homeland Security, but modern VoIP systems generally use encryption to keep your calls safe from eavesdroppers. VoIP companies, like other online companies, also use encrypted communications when you connect to their websites to prevent someone from accessing your account to steal phone time or access your payment credentials like credit card numbers.
Many VoIP providers also advertise compliance with particular privacy and security standards, including the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) standards for safeguarding healthcare information, and Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Many also undergo audits according to protocols like SOC 2 and SOC 3, designed to ensure that companies have adequate safeguards to prevent data breaches. If you're required by regulators or corporate policy to do business with companies with particular security certifications, you can shop around for VoIP providers that have the necessary credentials.
It's also important to use the same safety measures you would with other internet technologies, like picking secure passwords and making sure your phones, computers, and other devices have the latest security updates and security software installed. That can help keep your VoIP accounts secure and reduce the risk of eavesdropping or unauthorized use.
Get tips on comparing business phone systems and find the best phone service for you with our ratings and guides:
The following describes our 360 approach to researching and analyzing business phone services to guide prospective consumers.
1. We researched the companies and products people care most about.
U.S. News analyzed and compared a variety of publicly available data, including internet search data, to determine which business phone services Americans are most interested in. We found 41 companies that stand out in terms of volume of searches and research among businesses, as well as across the different rating sources.
We then compared our top business phone services across several criteria, including monthly cost, installation fee, calling features, video calling features such as screen sharing, Cloud VoIP availability, and HIPAA compliance, among many other unique features. Research shows that these are the most important criteria for businesses shopping for a business phone service. With careful consideration, we highlighted the most comprehensive plan offered by each company based on the above mentioned features.
2. We created objective 360 Overall Ratings based on an analysis of third-party reviews.
Our scoring methodology is based on a composite analysis of the ratings and reviews published by credible third-party professional and consumer review sources. The ratings are not based on the personal opinions, tests or experiences of U.S. News. To calculate the ratings:
(a) We compiled two types of third-party ratings and reviews:
Professional Ratings and Reviews: Many independent identity theft protection evaluating sources have published their assessments of identity theft protection companies and products online. We consider several of these third-party reviews to be reputable and well-researched. However, professional reviewers often make recommendations that contradict one another. Rather than relying on a single source, U.S. News believes consumers benefit most when these opinions and recommendations are considered and analyzed collectively with an objective, consensus-based methodology.
Consumer Ratings and Reviews: U.S. News also reviewed published consumer ratings and reviews of identity theft protection providers. Sources with a sufficient number of quality consumer ratings and reviews were included in our scoring model.
Please note that not all professional and consumer rating sources met our criteria for objectivity. Therefore, some sources were excluded from our model.
(b) We standardized the inputs to create a common scale.
The third-party review source data were collected in a variety of forms, including ratings, recommendations and accolades. Before including each third-party data point into our scoring equation, we had to standardize it so that it could be compared accurately with data points from other review sources. We used the scoring methodology described below to convert these systems to a comparable scale.
The 360 scoring process first converted each third-party rating into a common 0 to 5 scale. To balance the distribution of scores within each source’s scale, we used a standard deviation (or Z-Score) calculation to determine how each company’s score compared to the source’s mean score. We then used the Z-Score to create a standardized U.S. News score using the method outlined below:
Calculating the Z-Score: The Z-Score represents a data point's relation to the mean measurement of the data set. The Z-Score is negative when the data point is below the mean and positive when it's above the mean; a Z-Score of 0 means it's equal to the mean. To determine the Z-Score for each third-party rating of a company, we calculated the mean of the ratings across all companies evaluated by that third-party source. We then subtracted the mean from the company’s rating and divided it by the standard deviation to produce the Z-Score.
Calculating the T-Score: We used a T-Score calculation to convert the Z-Score to a 0-100 scale by multiplying the Z-Score by 10. To ensure that the mean was equal across all data points, we added our desired scoring mean (between 0 and 10) to the T-Score to create an adjusted T-Score.
Calculating the common-scale rating: We divided the adjusted T-Score, which is on a 100-point scale, by 20 to convert the third-party rating to a common 0-5 point system.
(c) We calculated the 360 Overall Score based on a weighted-average model.
We assigned “source weights” to each source used in the consensus scoring model based on our assessment of how much the source is trusted and recognized by consumers and how much its published review process indicates that it is both comprehensive and editorially independent. The source weights are assigned on a 1-5 scale. Any source with an assigned weight less than 2 was excluded from the consensus scoring model.
Finally, we combined the converted third-party data points using a weighted average formula based on source weight. This formula calculated the consensus score for each product, which we call the 360 Overall Rating.
A small business is a company that has a maximum of 50 employees. Products that qualify for our Best Business Phone Services for Small Businesses rating must meet a few criteria. First, the company must be on our overall Best Business Phone Services rating list. Next, we sort the remaining companies’ prices based on their plans per user. Finally, all businesses must have the option to come with a physical phone.
U.S. News 360 Reviews takes an unbiased approach to our recommendations. When you use our links to buy products, we may earn a commission but that in no way affects our editorial independence.
