Cheapest VoIP Phone Service for Business 2023

One of the biggest perks of VoIP (voice over internet protocol)? It can be cheaper to make phone calls through your internet connection than to have a traditional landline business phone system―at least, if you choose the right VoIP provider. 

But with so many business VoIP providers, many of which use different pricing systems, how are you supposed to find the right affordable VoIP service for your company?

We’re here to help. We’ve rounded up our favorite cheap VoIP providers, and we’ll tell you what kinds of businesses they work best for. Our pick for best overall option is RingCentral for its wide feature range, affordable pricing, and scalability for growing businesses. 

The other providers on this list are great. But what if you have a big team with big needs? That’s where RingCentral comes in.

RingCentral, as you’ll quickly notice, is not the cheapest VoIP phone provider on this list. Not by a long shot. But when you’ve got a bigger team, many of the cheaper VoIP providers won’t have everything you want. RingCentral will―and it offers competitive pricing, plus discounts for more users.

With its cheapest plan, RingCentral gives you unlimited calling along with team messaging. But by the time you upgrade to the Ultra plan, you have loads of features ― analytics, integrations, hot desking, big video meetings, and call center tools like whisper and barge, to name a few. In other words, pretty much everything your team could need. This is also why we list RingCentral as one of our top VoIP providers for call centers. 

For many large teams, those are features worth paying for. Otherwise, you just might find yourself struggling to make a cheaper VoIP service work ― costing you lots of time and frustration.

So though it’s not quite as cheap as other VoIP service providers, bigger teams may want to pay a little more to get all RingCentral has to offer.

Do you run a small business? Enter Ooma. Ooma claims to gear the services it offers around small businesses. And it has a lot going for it. 

Ooma makes it easier for small businesses to scale by allowing users to pay only for the features they want (in addition to the main features that come with the plan). Ooma also offers a 24/7 live chat as well as a knowledge base—so it's easy to find the answers you're looking for quickly. In addition, their well designed interface makes it even easier to find the information you need. 

Now, a standard Ooma plan won’t get you all the fancy features you’d get with a true business phone service. Don’t expect an auto attendant, hold music, the ability to customize call handling rules, or anything like that. If those kinds of features matter, we suggest sticking with one of our other picks.

But you should expect free calling―you know, the most important VoIP feature―within the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. (Texting too.) And you do get voicemail-to-text transcription, if you’re the kind of person who prefers reading to listening. For businesses with fewer than 5 people, those features might be enough.

While it may not be the most advanced service out there, Ooma's VoIP plans can be a steal for small businesses. Partner Ooma with other awesome small business administration software and you will have the most advanced package out there (if this is something you are looking for, check out this list of best administration software).  

Nextiva doesn’t offer the cheapest plans out there―but once you do the math, it offers the best balance between pricing and features. 

See, Nextiva makes it really easy to connect with employees all over the country without having to purchase clunky equipment. It also makes it incredibly easy to scale as you add more and more employees to your roster. 

Another perk is getting a number of toll-free minutes each month (1,500 with the cheapest plan) in addition to a free toll-free number with your plan. And that’s also including unlimited voice and video calling. So if you need toll-free minutes, Nextiva might be surprisingly affordable.

Nextiva's pricing is a little confusing in that the payment plans are based on different agreement terms spanning between monthly all the way to 36-months terms. Each term has a different price point depending on how many people are on your team. 

Considering all of that, none of Nextiva's costs more than $45.95/mo. Even at these low price points, remote workers have access to unlimited video conferencing, screen sharing and team messaging. 

The only annoyance is that international calls are expensive with Nextiva, if you are making calls internationally there are other great VoIP providers tailored to this need, check out our list of best VoIP providers for international calls. 

It’s no surprise that 8x8 takes a place in our rankings of the best cheap VoIP service. After all, it’s been our pick for “Best Budget VoIP” for a while now (on our list of the best business VoIP providers).

That’s because 8x8 offers one of the cheapest plans out there (not quite the cheapest―that’s Phone.com) without forcing you to compromise on your VoIP service.

In fact, 8x8’s cheap Express plan gives you most of the features you could want. You’ll get unlimited calling in the United States and Canada (unlike the cheaper Phone.com, which limits your minutes). You get not just voice, but also video calling and text messaging. You even get features like an auto attendant and smart call routing―features other providers often restrict to higher-tier plans.

And unlike other VoIP service providers that offer deeper discounts for more users, 8x8’s Express plan keeps things simple with the same per-user rate for everyone. That means you can start saving right away―not after you’ve expanded your team. 

Oh, and we should mention that 8x8 offers a generous one-month trial of its business phone service. If you’re not quite sure about 8x8, you can try it out for free.

To sum up, 8x8 isn’t quite the cheapest VoIP phone service out there, but it comes close―and it gives you way more than similarly priced competitors. And that’s why 8x8 is our best budget pick.

If your business only needs the occasional VoIP call, Phone.com is probably your most affordable option.

Phone.com offers the cheapest starting plan we’ve found for business VoIP―$11.99 per month with annual billing. And note that that’s not per-user or per-line pricing. You can have all the users and extensions you want with Phone.com’s delightfully affordable Base Account plan.

The catch? You get a limited number of minutes and a limited number of text messages with your plan (300 and 1,000 on the base plan, respectively). And yes, that’s split across however many users or lines you have with your plan. So if you have a dozen employees making phone calls every day, Phone.com probably won’t work for you.

But for limited use, Phone.com actually gives you a surprising amount of bang for not very much buck. The base plan gives you a free local or toll-free number for your business, and it comes with all sorts of features like an auto attendant, call handling rules, call groups (called call queues), and more. 

In other words, if you hate skimping on features but you’re fine skimping on calling minutes, you can get dirt-cheap business VoIP from Phone.com.

1-VoIP has pretty low starting plan costs (around $15 per extension), but it also uses a pay-per-minute model that can quickly add up. With a cost of $0.02 per minute, we’d suggest you just go with Phone.com’s cheaper plan with included minutes instead.

That said, 1-VoIP does come with solid features, from an auto attendant to hours of operation. In other words, it’s not a bad option for businesses that won’t use lots of minutes―we’re just not sure it’s the very best either.

You can get Vonage’s starting plan for less than $20 per month, but only if you have at least 20 lines. Otherwise, you’ll pay closer to $30 per month. Either way, you do get unlimited calls, texts, and team messaging.

With its discounts for more users, Vonage can be a good choice for larger teams. Overall, we think RingCentral offers better features for similar prices. But Vonage does have plenty of integrations and helpful features. It’s not our favorite, but we think it’s still a good choice.

Dialpad’s Standard plan comes in at $15 per user―a very competitive price. It includes unlimited calling and texts, along with handy features like an auto-attendant and custom call routing rules.

As with other honorable mentions, Dialpad has a lot going for it. But given that 8x8 offers just as much for a slightly lower price, Dialpad remains an honorable mention rather than a top pick.

Do you run a one-person business? Then let us introduce you to free Google Voice. And yes, we said free. Google Voice does offer paid business plans (and frankly, they’re not the best value we’ve seen). But it also offers a free personal plan that gives you one number and one phone line for one user. Of course, if you’re the only one taking calls, that’s all you need. And did we mention the free thing?

Now, a free Google Voice plan won’t get you all the fancy features you’d get with a true business phone service. But if you only need the basics, (plus voicemail transcription) then it's great for solopreneurs. 

If you’re tired of spending money on a traditional phone service, then switch to one of the VoIP providers above. They can save you money, make it easier to stay connected wherever you are, and offer lots of other features for your business.

All the providers above can work for your business, but we recommend 8x8 for most businesses in search of budget VoIP. Its phone service offers the best balance of price and features.

But no matter which VoIP provider you go with, we hope you enjoy your new, lower phone bill.

Need a new phone system to go with your new VoIP plan? Check out our rankings of the best business phone systems.

We analyzed each VoIP service's affordability, overall value, suitability for growing businesses, ease-of-use, international calling features, and toll-free minutes, among other factors.

Disclaimer

At Business.org, our research is meant to offer general product and service recommendations. We don't guarantee that our suggestions will work best for each individual or business, so consider your unique needs when choosing products and services.