How much does a business phone system cost per user each month?
Summary
Entry plans from the big US cloud phone providers cost $15 to $21 per user per month on annual billing and roughly $18 to $30 if you pay month to month. Quo and Dialpad start at $15, Zoom Phone at $16, RingCentral RingEX Core at $20, and Microsoft Teams Phone reaches $21 once you add the cheapest Teams license it requires. Expect the invoice to land above those numbers, because minimum seat counts, required base licenses, extra numbers, and taxes are all billed on top.
The annual price and the monthly price, side by side
The gap between billing terms is larger than the gap between providers. Here is each provider's entry plan, per user, and what ten users pay per month under each term.
| Plan | Annual billing | Monthly billing | 10 users, annual | 10 users, monthly |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quo Starter | $15 | $19 | $150 | $190 |
| Dialpad Connect Standard | $15 | $27 | $150 | $270 |
| Zoom Phone US & CA Unlimited | $16 | $18 | $160 | $180 |
| RingCentral RingEX Core | $20 | $30 | $200 | $300 |
| Ooma Office Essentials | none | $19.95 | none | $199.50 |
| Teams Phone with Calling Plan + Teams Essentials | $21 | not published | $210 | not published |
Dialpad and Quo tie on the annual price, yet a ten-person team paying monthly spends $80 more a month with Dialpad. RingCentral shows the same prices for 1 to 5 users and for 6 to 100. Ooma has no annual option and no contract.
Teams Phone with Calling Plan is $17, and every Teams Phone plan needs a separate Teams license; Teams Essentials at $4 is the cheapest one. Microsoft states that the $17 includes communication taxes and fees, which almost nobody else does.
Why a few familiar names are missing
Aircall lists a minimum of three users on its Essentials and Professional plans, so a one-person business pays for three. Its pricing page shows the prices without saying which billing term they belong to, so they are not in the table.
Google Voice sells a Starter plan on its own for a single user in the US, and team plans that you add to a Google Workspace subscription. Those prices also appear without a billing term.
Grasshopper sells flat company plans, from $14 a month billed annually, that step up by the number of phone numbers and extensions, not by user. It has no per-user price to put in this table; the flat-rate versus per-user guide works out where the two cross.
Where the bill grows
Extra phone numbers are usually extra. At Quo, each additional number is $5 a month. Business texting in the US needs carrier registration, and Quo passes that on as a one-time $19.50 plus $1.50 to $3 a month.
Taxes and regulatory fees are the hardest part to price. Of the 37 providers we track, none publishes what they come to. Two say the price already includes them on at least one plan, 14 say they are extra without giving an amount, and 21 say nothing. Our guide to what is not in the published seat price goes through each cost.
Running your own headcount
Put your real seat count into the Seat cost calculator. Minimum seat counts decide which provider is cheapest below about five seats, so small teams see the order change the most. The calculator runs in your browser, sends nothing anywhere, and gives you a link that carries the seat count with it. All providers lists every published seat price along with the monthly-billing price where one exists.
About the figures here
We track 37 business phone providers in the US and UK and use only the prices they publish on their own sites. Twenty-eight publish a price; six ask you to contact sales, and they appear as Contact sales, not as $0. Tables are sorted by computed cost, which is not a quality ranking. Method shows the formula, and What changed logs price changes and plan renames.
Guides by topic
How the pieces fit together
- What does a business phone system actually do for a small company?
- What is VoIP, and how is it different from a regular phone line?
- What happens behind the scenes when someone calls a cloud phone number?
- Is a cloud PBX any different from hosted VoIP or a cloud phone system?
- What does a virtual phone system actually do for a small business?
- Is a VoIP number or a virtual number any different from a regular phone number?
- Should you own your phone system's PBX or let a cloud provider run it?
- Is SIP just another word for VoIP?
- What does a business need in place to run an IP phone system?
Prices and costs
- How far apart are business VoIP prices, from entry plans to the top tiers?
- What does a phone system cost a business with ten or fewer people?
- Do business phone providers charge by the user, the line, or the company?
- How many users does it take for a company-wide phone price to beat per-user pricing?
- What does a year of business phone service cost for a 10-person team?
- How much do desk phones and headsets add to a business phone setup?
- How much do call recording, texting, and AI features add to a business phone plan?
- Is Teams Phone or Google Voice still cheap once you count the license underneath?
- How have business phone prices been changing, besides going up?
- Which business phone providers actually publish their setup fees?
- If only a few people are on the phone at once, is it cheaper to pay by the line?
Comparing options and services
- When does a business outgrow using a regular cell phone for calls?
- Is it OK to run a business line on a home VoIP plan?
- What do you give up when you swap a landline for a cloud phone system?
- Which phone service should a small business actually pick?
- How do the big cloud phone services differ on price and features?
- Why does the cheapest VoIP plan so often cost more than it looks?
- Is there such a thing as a free business phone number?
Setting up and running it
- How does a business phone system decide who answers a call?
- Do you still need desk phones if your business phone system has an app?
- When does a business need call center software instead of a regular phone plan?
- How much internet speed do VoIP calls actually need?
- Will 911 know where you are if you call from a VoIP phone?
- Do you need to register before texting customers from a business number?
- Can you keep your business phone number when you switch providers?
- Do you need the caller's consent to record business calls?
- Can employees use the company phone number while they're abroad?
Provider by provider
- Which Zoom Phone plan do you need if all three include the same calling?
- What does Quo (formerly OpenPhone) cost beyond the per-user price?
- Is the $10 Microsoft Teams Phone license enough to call regular phone numbers?
- Is monthly Dialpad Standard more expensive than annual Pro?
- Can a small business use Google Voice without paying for Google Workspace?
- Which RingEX plan fits a small team now that RingCentral posts prices for only two?
- What does Nextiva cost if you won't sign a 12-month contract?
- Which Ooma Office plan do you need for call recording and texting?
- Does Grasshopper really charge the same $55 a month whether you have 3 users or 30?
- How do you compare an 8x8 quote when 8x8 won't publish a price?
- Is Vonage's 30% discount still available, or is the offer already over?
- Where does Comcast Business actually publish its phone prices?
- Is Cox Business phone service now just Spectrum?
- Is Verizon Business Digital Voice really $20 a line?
- What does Spectrum Business Voice cost after the $20 first year?
- Is 3CX actually cheaper than paying for a phone service per user?
- What happens to Avaya Cloud Office customers now that the service redirects to RingCentral?
- How much does Cisco Webex Calling cost per user, and what comes with it?
- Why does Genesys Cloud CX cost so much more per user than a regular cloud phone plan?
Outside the US
- Can a Canadian business go by U.S. cloud phone prices?
- What does a cloud phone line cost an Australian business?
Sources
- quo.com/pricing
- dialpad.com/llm-info
- zoom.us/pricing/zoom-phone
- ooma.com/small-business-phone-systems/plans
- microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/microsoft-teams-phone
- microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/essentials
- ringcentral.com/office/plansandpricing.html
- grasshopper.com/blog/phone-system-pricing
- aircall.io/pricing
- workspace.google.com/products/voice
Related on this site
- Seat cost calculator
- All providers
- What a business phone system costs
- Monthly vs annual billing: 1.28x more on 10 phone plans
- What is not in the published seat price
- Method
- What changed
Written by Kaz (pen name). Figures are copied from providers' published pricing pages on the dates shown. We have not used these products. Corrections: contact form.