By Henry Williams on Small Business UK - Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs
The prevalence of remote working looks set to be the pandemic’s most enduring legacy. And with that comes the need for crystal clear communication between teams and with customers, whether in the office or not.
VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is the perfect solution for scattered teams. Not only does it allow you to make voice and video calls through your broadband connection, but it also offers a plethora of features that can streamline operations and boost productivity.
What is VoIP? VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol, a technology that allows you to transmit voice and video calls through your internet connection. This means you don’t have to rely on a traditional phone network or physical copper wires, which makes it much more cost-effective to set up and operate than a landline phone. VoIP also has other advantages over landlines, including improved audio quality, advanced features like auto attendant and call recording, and much lower rates on international calls.
But with dozens of providers to choose from, how do you decide which one is best for you? We’ve compared the competition to bring you our pick of the 6 best VoIP providers for small businesses.
RingCentral
8×8
Vonage
bOnline
Nextiva
Dialpad
RingCentral
Pricing
Essentials: £12.99 per month
Standard: £19.99 per month
Premium: £24.99 per month
Ultimate: £29.99 per month
If you’re looking for a great all-rounder, look no further than RingCentral. More than 400,000 businesses make use of its simple and affordable VoIP service to manage their daily communications.
Leveraging the cloud PBX system (which means you don’t need any expensive on-premise hardware), as well as high quality voice calls, RingCentral offers unlimited instant messaging, video calling and video conferencing, and SMS.
It also offers its customers 24/7 support through live chat and over the phone, and hundreds of integrations with essential business apps.
Key features
24/7 customer support
Team messaging
100 – 4,000 inclusive minutes per user depending on plan
On-demand call recording
Video call and conferencing
Integrations
Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Slack, and more.
Visit website Get quote
8×8
Pricing
All packages – X2, X4, X6, X7, X8 – are all bespoke. Contact the sales team.
Built for businesses of all sizes, 8×8 offers its two million users everything they need to stay in touch and on track.
You get unlimited UK calls with every plan, and depending on your plan, you can make unlimited voice calls to up to 48 countries. 8×8 also offers unlimited chat, HD video and audio conferencing for up to 500 participants, and meeting recording and transcription.
And with a dedicated business number and advanced call management and routing, you can ensure a professional service and handle customer calls with confidence.
Key features
Unlimited 1:1 and team chat
Unlimited UK voice calls
HD video and audio conferencing
Auto attendant
Intelligent call routing
Integrations
Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, Google Workspace, and more.
Visit website Get quote
Vonage
Pricing
Select: £9 per user per month
Professional: from £12.50 per user per month
Ultimate: from £16.50 per user per month
Supported in more than 40 countries and with over 96 world numbers for local and inbound calling, Vonage unified communications service is a great solution for global businesses.
Vonage offers customers more than 50 business phone features, including voice call, virtual receptionist, and call monitoring, and video call and collaboration on desktop and mobile, with the ability to record and share meetings.
And if you need hardware such as a desk phone, Vonage also offers competitive prices on compatible business phone providers.
Key features
Call forwarding, transfer, and monitoring
Virtual receptionist
Desktop and mobile app
Video meetings and collaboration
96 world numbers
Integrations
Salesforce, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Dynamics, and more
Visit website Get quote
bOnline
Pricing
Starter: £7 per user per month
Unlimited calling: £13.95 per user per month
Unlimited calling (with desk phone): £15.50 per user per month
Targeted at startups and growing businesses, bOnline is the VoIP system that claims to give small businesses enterprise-level communication services at an affordable cost. Starting from £7 per user per month, it’s certainly one of the cheapest UK VoIP providers.
bOnline helps you enhance your professional image, with business hours settings, personalised voicemail greetings, and call flows so that calls go to the right place every time. You can also make and receive calls from any device and turn any call into a video meeting. You’ve also got a minimum of 100 outbound landline minutes.
And, of course, it has all the features you’d expect from a sophisticated VoIP, including voice and video conferencing, messaging and document sharing, and international calls from 1p per minute.
Key features
Set business hours
Personalised voicemail greetings
Voice and video conferencing
Call flows
Turn any call into a video meeting
Integrations
Salesforce, HubSpot, Google, and more
Visit website Get quote
Nextiva
Pricing
Essential: £14.88 per user per month
Professional: £15.02 per user per month
Enterprise: £21.56 per user per month
Nextiva gives you everything you need to manage team and customer conversations all in one place, as well as a variety of helpful customer experience and productivity tools.
Nextiva’s fully-cloud-based VoIP phone service gives you unlimited calling, faxing, and SMS, as well as virtual voicemail and auto attendant. You can also hold unlimited video and audio meetings with teams and guests, and present, screen share and file share within the app or browser, which makes it easy to collaborate.
Finally, Nextiva also offers a sales CRM integration to manage leads and opportunities, and a helpdesk to manage customer service requests.
Key features
Unlimited voice and video calls
Video conferencing
Screen Sharing
Auto attendant
Mobile and desktop SMS/MMS
Integrations
HubSpot, Salesforce, Microsoft, and more
Visit website Get quote
Dialpad
Pricing
Standard: £12 per user per month
Pro: £20 per user per month
Enterprise: Contact sales
Dialpad is a unified business communications platform, offering a range of features to support both local and global businesses.
Even on its most basic plan, it offers unlimited calling, SMS, and MMS, as well as AI meetings for up to 10 participants. You also get auto attendant, visual voicemail, and custom call routing and call forwarding, as well as 5 hours of HD video and audio meeting time for up to 10 participants.
On more advanced plans you get local number support in more than 70 countries, multiple phone numbers per account, and global SMS.
Key features
Unlimited calling
Web and chat support
Auto attendant
Custom call routing
HD video and audio meetings
Integrations
Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Zendesk, and more.
Visit website Get quote
Next steps
Now that we’ve summarised the best VoIP providers currently in the market, you should have a good idea of the different features and pricing available.
If you’re ready to find a VoIP system now, simply answer a few questions using the form below to receive free, tailored quotes for your business.
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