Seat-priced phone system · United States

Grasshopper vs RingCentral Pricing (2026): $5.50 vs $20 per Seat

At ten seats over three years, Grasshopper costs $5.50 per seat per month and the other costs $20.00 — a difference of $5,220 across the term for a ten-seat business.

The published prices are $55.00 a month flat and $20.00, which is not always the same ranking.

Grasshopper: check current plansRingCentral: check current plans

Verify the current terms on Grasshopper official site and RingCentral (RingEX) official site before signing.

Side by side

The cheapest plan on each side that covers ten seats, United States pricing. Where a plan's user cap is passed at a larger size, the row names the plan the provider moves you to and prices that instead. Sources: Grasshopper checked 2026-09-05 and RingCentral (RingEX) checked 2026-09-05.
	Grasshopper	RingCentral (RingEX)
Cheapest plan that covers 10 seats	Small Business	Core
Published price	$55.00 a month flat	$20.00
On	flat monthly	annual billing
Monthly billing	not published	$30.00
Minimum seats	1	none stated
Requires first	nothing stated	nothing stated
Effective / seat at 1 seat	$14.00 True Solo	$20.00
Effective / seat at 3 seats	$8.33 Solo Plus	$20.00
Effective / seat at 5 seats	$11.00	$20.00
Effective / seat at 10 seats	$5.50	$20.00
Effective / seat at 25 seats	$2.20	$20.00
Effective / seat at 50 seats	$1.10	$20.00
Three-year cost at 10 seats	$1,980	$7,200
Taxes and fees	says nothing about taxes or regulatory fees on its pricing page	says taxes and fees are added separately, without saying how much
Owner	not confirmed	not confirmed

How that is worked out

seats billed = max(seats you have, minimum seats the plan requires) plan per month = published seat price x seats billed three-year cost = plan per month x 36 + setup fee effective per seat = three-year cost / (36 x seats you have) monthly-billing gap = monthly-billing price / annual-billing price flat package = flat monthly price + (seats billed - users included) x additional-user price add-on plans = shown on the provider's page, never ranked (they are not a phone system on their own) calls not included = shown on the provider's page, never ranked (calls are billed per minute, or sold as separate call packages, on top of the seat price) plan at each size = the cheapest plan that covers that seat count; a plan with a user cap hands over to the next one

Nothing else is added. Taxes, regulatory recovery fees, USF and e911 charges are not added to any figure on this site. On taxes and regulatory fees, 2 of the 37 providers state that the price already carries them on at least one plan, 0 publish what they come to, 14 say they are extra without an amount, and 21 say nothing. Where a provider says the price is all-inclusive or includes them, the page says so beside the figure; everywhere else the invoice will be higher than the figure. Where a plan needs another subscription first (a Google Workspace or Microsoft Teams license), that subscription is not in the figure and the page says so. Handset purchases, number porting, international calling and overage are excluded. Every figure here is a floor. The full method is at Method.

Where the answer changes

Size does not change the ranking here. Grasshopper is cheaper per seat at every size where both have a plan.
The plan changes as the team grows. Grasshopper moves to True Solo at 1 seat, then Solo Plus at 3 seats. The figures above already price the plan you would actually be on at each size, not the entry plan stretched past its cap.
Only one of these publishes a monthly-billing rate. RingCentral (RingEX) does; Grasshopper does not, so what monthly billing costs there is not knowable from its page.
Neither figure is the invoice — taxes and regulatory fees are added on top of both, and neither provider publishes what they come to.

What is not confirmed on either side

Figures on this page come from each provider's published pages only. These points were not stated there, so the comparison does not include them:

Grasshopper (6 open items)

Amount of taxes and regulatory fees: not stated in the provider's published documentation (checked 2026-09-05).

Ownership: not stated in the provider's published documentation (checked 2026-09-05).

Not confirmed: monthly-billing prices (only "billed annually" and "annual savings over 20%" are published in text).

Not confirmed: whether the $25 and $55 figures are annual-billing or monthly-billing prices (blog table does not say).

RingCentral (RingEX) (5 open items)

Amount of taxes and regulatory fees: Compliance and Administrative Cost Recovery Fee page explains what the fee funds but discloses no rate/amount.

Ownership: not stated in the provider's published documentation (checked 2026-09-05).

Not confirmed: Core / Advanced prices above 100 users ("Contact us for pricing").

Contract length: not stated for any current RingEX tier.

The full list for each provider is on its own page: Grasshopper, RingCentral (RingEX).

What changed on either side

8 recorded changes across the two providers: 2 on a provider's own page, 6 correcting a figure this site held. The most recent six:

2026-09-28 — RingCentral (RingEX): plan rename plan line-up Core, Advanced, Ultra, Customer Engagement Bundle → Core, Advanced, AI Customer Engagement Bundle (2 versions). Ultra ($35 annual / $45 monthly) no longer appears as a plan card on the US and Canadian pricing pages (read 2026-09-28). Above Advanced the page now shows two quote-only AI Customer Engagement Bundles. Core $20/$30 and Advanced $25/$35 are unchanged.
2026-09-05 — RingCentral (RingEX): plan rename Essentials, Standard, Premium, Ultimate: plan status current → legacy. The current RingEX pricing page (read 2026-09-05 with the annual toggle on) sells Core $20, Advanced $25 and Ultra $35 per user per month paid annually. The Essentials / Standard / Premium / Ultimate names and prices came from an older component of the same page; they are kept for the record and no longer ranked.
2026-09-05 — RingCentral (RingEX): correction to our data plan line-up not held → Core, Advanced, Ultra. Added the current RingEX plans read from the pricing page on 2026-09-05: Core $20, Advanced $25, Ultra $35 per user per month paid annually.
2026-09-05 — RingCentral (RingEX): correction to our data Core, Advanced, Ultra: seat price, billed monthly not held → 30 / 35 / 45. Read with the pricing page's billing toggle set to monthly: Core $30, Advanced $35, Ultra $45 per user per month "paid monthly" (the page also prints "Annually: $20 | Monthly: $30"). Prices are the same for the 1-5 and 6-100 user selectors; at 100+ the page says "Contact us for pricing", so the published price is capped at 100 users.
2026-09-05 — Grasshopper: correction to our data plan line-up unknown → True Solo, Solo Plus, Small Business. Three plans read from the vendor's own 2026 blog graphic; the pricing page is geo-blocked outside the US and its table did not render in earlier fetches.
2026-09-05 — Grasshopper: correction to our data True Solo: flat monthly price not held → 14. Read from the blog graphic "Price Per Month (2026)".

Every entry, by month, with an RSS feed: What changed.

Who this is not for

This compares published prices and nothing else. It is not a judgment about call quality, support or reliability, and neither product has been used by us. If the two prices are close, this page will not decide it for you and should not.

Sources

Grasshopper pricing page. checked 2026-09-05
RingCentral (RingEX) pricing page. checked 2026-09-05

Figures are copied from providers' published pricing pages on the dates shown. We have not used these products. Corrections: contact form.