Which phone service should a small business actually pick?
Summary
Two questions narrow the field faster than headcount: which software your team already pays for, and whether your main number needs an auto attendant. Google Workspace teams usually start with Google Voice, Microsoft 365 teams with Teams Phone, and Zoom-heavy teams with Zoom Phone. Zoom Phone, Nextiva, and Ooma Office include an auto attendant in their cheapest plan, while Google Voice and Quo hold it back for a higher tier, so the cheapest entry price is often not the cheapest system you can use.
The auto attendant sets the price bracket
Here is what five users pay on the first plan at each provider that includes an auto attendant. Taxes and fees are extra except on Teams Phone.
- Nextiva Core: $15 a user on annual pricing, $75 for five. Annual pricing is for new customers with 1 to 100 employees on a 12-month term; month to month it is $23. Call recording and CRM integrations are add-ons.
- Zoom Phone US & CA Unlimited: $16 a user billed annually ($18 monthly), $80 for five.
- Ooma Office Essentials: $19.95 a user, $99.75 for five, plus a one-time $29.95 activation fee. No contract. Texting and recording start on Pro at $24.95.
- Google Voice Standard: $20 a user, $100 for five, on top of your Google Workspace subscription.
- Teams Phone with Calling Plan plus Teams Essentials: $17 plus $4, billed annually, $105 for five. The $17 includes US communication taxes and fees.
- Quo Business: $23 a user billed annually ($33 monthly), $115 for five.
Google Voice Starter looks cheapest at $10, but it has no auto attendant or ring groups. Add "press 1 for sales" to the main number and the real comparison point becomes Standard at $20. The site's seat-count pages rank every plan a 5-to-9-person business could buy by three-year cost.
If you already pay for Google, Microsoft, or Zoom
Google Voice is an add-on to Workspace: Starter at $10, Standard at $20, and Premier at $30 per user per month. Starter tops out at 10 users. It already includes call recording, voicemail transcripts, and AI note-taking, and texting only reaches US numbers.
Teams Phone is licensed separately from Teams. The Calling Plan version gives each user a Microsoft number and 3,000 outbound domestic minutes in the US. To run an auto attendant, you need at least one Teams Phone license in the organization and a free Teams Phone Resource Account license on the account that answers the calls.
Zoom Phone packs the most into its entry plan: auto attendants and call queues, call recording, US and Canada texting, AI post-call summaries, 50 fax pages a month, and a Salesforce integration. Its two higher tiers mainly add Zoom's paid meeting plans.
Sharing one number, texting customers, or logging calls
Grasshopper charges one flat price per company with no cap on users, starting at $14 a month on annual billing. It serves only the US and Canada, and porting an existing number costs nothing extra. Quo Starter lets up to 10 paid users share one number; Business removes the cap.
For heavy texting, Quo includes unlimited US and Canada messages on every plan, though carrier registration costs $19.50 once plus $1.50 to $3 a month. Nextiva Core allows 100 texts per user per month, RingCentral RingEX Core 25, and Ooma Office Pro 250 a month.
Sales teams that want calls in the CRM will find Dialpad's transcripts and call summaries on Standard ($15 annual, $27 monthly), with CRM integrations on Pro ($25 / $35). RingCentral RingEX also keeps CRM integrations off Core ($20 / $30) and puts them on Advanced ($25 / $35). Quo adds AI summaries for every call and HubSpot and Salesforce on Business. Dialpad offers a 14-day trial; Quo and Grasshopper offer seven days.
Sources
- knowledge.workspace.google.com/admin/voice/compare-voice-subscriptions
- workspace.google.com/products/voice
- microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/microsoft-teams-phone
- microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/essentials
- learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/aa-cq-reference-prerequisites-licensing
- zoom.us/pricing/zoom-phone
- nextiva.com/nextiva-pricing
- ooma.com/small-business-phone-systems/plans
- quo.com/pricing
- grasshopper.com/pricing
- grasshopper.com/blog/phone-system-pricing
- dialpad.com/llm-info
- dialpad.com/pricing
- ringcentral.com/office/plansandpricing.html
Related on this site
- What does a phone system cost a business with ten or fewer people?
- How do the big cloud phone services differ on price and features?
- 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?
- best/us-ucaas-5-9
- Seat cost calculator
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.