9 Vonage alternatives for small businesses and startups in 2023

Vonage Business is a popular VoIP service for businesses of all sizes. They’ve been serving businesses for over 20 years. Like most business VoIP systems, Vonage provides a lot of standard features — like phone calls, messages, auto-attendant, CRM integrations, and more. However, it does have some limitations that Vonage alternatives easily overcome.

As a company that serves both consumers and small businesses, Vonage’s focus is often split between these two groups. This makes it hard to deliver a phenomenal product for businesses. Also, Vonage pricing has lots of hidden fees that make the service far more expensive than expected.

There are plenty of Vonage alternatives that have the functionality your business needs. In this post, we’ll explore nine for you to consider.

9 best Vonage alternatives

The best alternatives to Vonage in 2022 include:

1. OpenPhone
2. RingCentral
3. magicJack
4. Google Voice
5. JustCall
6. Telzio
7. Nextiva
8. Ooma
9. 8×8

If you run a business, small or large, then you will need to decide on a VoIP provider that is best for your company. But where do you turn to first?

The answer could be one of these nine modern Vonage alternatives that are built for business use.

1. OpenPhone: The modern business alternative to Vonage

OpenPhone is a VoIP provider that’s built for businesses (big and small) as well as solopreneurs. It’s incredibly easy to use, as it’s designed with productivity and speed in mind. No matter where you are in the world, you can use OpenPhone to answer calls, send messages, and seamlessly collaborate with your team. Whether you need to make long-distance or local calls, all you need is an internet connection to make it happen.

OpenPhone and Vonage have many similar features, but there are some key differences that set OpenPhone apart. See the table below to learn how they compare.

	OpenPhone	Vonage Business
Pricing (monthly, per user)	$15 per user	$19.99 per line
Minutes included	Unlimited	$0.03/min outbound
Text messaging (SMS)	✓	✓
Group messaging	✓	X
Picture messaging (MMS)	✓	✓
Voicemail to text	✓	$4.99/mo per extension
Call recording	✓	✓
Auto-replies	✓	X
Business address book	✓	✓
Auto-attendant	✓	✓
Extensions	✓	$14.99/mo per extension
CRM integrations	✓	✓

Beyond the features and affordable (and upfront) pricing listed in the comparison, OpenPhone also includes:

• Toll-free numbers
• US, Canada, and international calling
• Crystal-clear call quality
• Business hour settings
• Automatic responses to texts, missed calls, and voicemails
• iOS and Android mobile apps 
• Browser-based and desktop apps
• Shared phone numbers for customer support
• Multiple phone numbers tied to one account
• Call forwarding and call routing
• Integrations with tools like Slack and Zapier

More importantly, we have a service customers rave about. We’re constantly implementing customer feedback into the product. (Check out our changelog to see what we’re up to!) Here’s what one business has to say about switching to OpenPhone:

“Vonage packed a lot of unnecessary features that most of the time didn’t work. I missed a lot of calls that didn’t come through to my phone. For all the aggravation, Vonage was not worth its hefty price tag — not to mention finding hidden fees on every billing cycle.

OpenPhone is so easy to use! Call quality and receiving calls and voicemails have been fantastic. I love that I can set business hours so my phone isn’t ringing after hours (something I couldn’t do easily with Vonage). I like how straightforward the app is. Lastly, the price and customer support of the OpenPhone team is unmatched. I haven’t looked back since.“ — Melissa Hughes, Principal/Owner at Halogen Design Lab

You can try out OpenPhone at any time by signing up for a free seven-day trial.

How To Switch and Port Your Number from Vonage

Want to port your number from Vonage to OpenPhone? Here’s how easy it is to keep an existing number:

1. Create an OpenPhone account.
2. Submit a request to port your number inside the OpenPhone app.

That’s it! We’ll take care of the rest for you.

2. RingCentral

RingCentral offers only the most basic features in its base plan ($19.99 per user per month), just like Vonage. Overall, RingCentral offers a much wider range of features than Vonage, but most of them are available only on RingCentral’s higher-tier plans. Similarly, Vonage has lots of hidden add-ons, which means access to advanced features costs extra, just like on RingCentral. Here are features that cost extra or are missing from Vonage:

• SMS with Canadian phone numbers
• Voicemail transcriptions (requires upgrade)
• Call recording (add-on costing $49.99 per month)

Find out more about how these two platforms compare with our Vonage vs RingCentral guide.

3. magicJack

magicJack prices its VoIP phone system per line rather than per user. It costs more than Vonage at $15.99 per line per month (plus the unavoidable cost of the phone), but the features don’t fully justify the higher price. Looking at magicJack vs Vonage, both lack MMS support and text automation, and come with hidden add-on costs. Vonage, even with its confusing pricing and add-on costs, offers more value than magicJack. With magicJack you’re also missing out on:

• MMS support
• Voicemail transcriptions
• Integrations for Slack, Gmail, Zapier, and CRM
• Desktop app

4. Google Voice

Google Voice is a popular VoIP service among startups since it offers a free plan. However, businesses quickly see they don’t have the option to have shared access to their number with Google’s free version. You must also have a US number to access Google Voice. 
Google also has paid plans starting at $10 per user per month (plus $6 per month for Google Workspace). It might make sense to keep your costs lean by using Google Voice if you’re a startup, but the low price aside, Google Voice is fairly restrictive. You also won’t find integrations for Slack, Zapier, and CRM on Google Voice. Additionally, Google Voice doesn’t provide toll-free numbers.
Learn more about how Google Voice and Vonage stack up by checking out our Google Voice vs Vonage guide. 

5. JustCall

JustCall is a modern Vonage alternative that’s specifically for businesses that want to build a call center. It supports international calls in up to 70 countries, and members of your team can share each of your phone numbers. JustCall’s lowest-tier plan starts at $20 per user per month. But it doesn’t support unlimited calling — so you’ll also have to pay per minute— even in the US JustCall includes features that Vonage lacks or locks behind their most expensive plan, such as:

• MMS messaging
• Call tracking, recording, and monitoring
• CRM, Salesforce, and help desk integrations
• SMS automation

6. Telzio

Telzio is a cloud phone system that’s built for small business use. With this Vonage alternative, you can bring on board as many users as you want. Its plans start at $50 per month and are based on the number of minutes and text messages you need rather than the number of users. This might not be an ideal pay structure for companies with large or inconsistent volumes — unlimited call and text plans are worry-free and easier to budget for. Telzio’s features do not include MMS but do include:

• Conference calls
• Call recording
• 911 emergency service and 411 directory service

7. Nextiva

 

Nextiva is a Vonage alternative that many enterprises use, but small businesses can also use it to access voice (and video) calls without excessive fees. Unfortunately, its most affordable rates are only available with one-year contracts and for teams of 20 or more. Compared to other Nextiva competitors, they also require you to upgrade from their base plan to be able to text. However, Nextiva does offer features like:

• Unlimited video conferencing
• Salesforce, HubSpot, and Zendesk integrations
• Outlook and Google Contacts integrations

See how Nextiva and Vonage compare further side by side with our Nextiva vs Vonage guide.

8. Ooma

Ooma is a legacy VoIP service provider like Vonage, which means its interface isn’t ultra-modern either. But it does offer a number of key business calling features without requiring an upgrade to its pro plan. Unfortunately, comparing Ooma vs Vonage, Ooma lacks any integrations or analytics, but it does offer features like:

• Voicemail transcriptions
• Conference calls
• An overhead paging system

9. 8×8

8×8 is a small business phone system that might appeal to a growing team. The base plan costs $24 per user per month and offers unlimited domestic calling, auto-attendant, and audio/video conferencing for up to 100 participants. While 8×8 is priced considerably lower than Vonage, there’s a major drawback: poor customer support. A review on Gartner says, “For Service and Support they usually will tell me I will get a callback same day and 9/10 times I do not.” If you choose to overlook poor customer support, 8×8 can offer the following benefits over Vonage:

• Auto-attendant available on its base plan
• Meeting recording and transcription
• Up to 500 participants in meetings compared to 100 on Vonage

How We Ranked Vonage Alternatives

Looking at Vonage competitors, we factored in these key criteria:

• Reliability: Abrupt call drops can give you a bad reputation and can lead to time wasted troubleshooting on your end. Is your VoIP phone system reliable enough to protect your reputation?
• Value for money: You’ll want to see a positive ROI for every dollar you spend for the business. How will the VoIP phone system impact your profitability?
• Budget: While you shouldn’t look for a system with the lowest price, pricing is certainly an important consideration for most businesses.
• Third-party integrations: Integrations can eliminate the need to manually migrate business data. Does your VoIP system have integrations for the apps your business uses?
• Ease of use: Can your employees quickly become comfortable with the VoIP system? If not, you’ll need to invest resources in training them. Selecting an easy-to-use system eliminates these costs and makes employees more likely to accept the new system.
• Customer support: Is customer support available when you need it, or do they keep you waiting long? Businesses need quick solutions when they run into an issue with their VoIP phone system.

The drawbacks of Vonage Business

Vonage may be a well-known cloud communications service, but there are four major drawbacks that can make it difficult for small business owners to get the most out of their phone communications.

No built-in support for picture messaging (MMS)

If you use your business phone to text clients, you’ll quickly run into a major limitation with Vonage. There’s no support out of the box for picture messaging. If you want to be able to send or receive images on your business phone number, you would need to use their communication API.

Fees, fees, and more fees compared to Vonage alternatives

Vonage pricing starts at $19.99 per line per month for its standard plan plus 3 cents per minute for outbound calls. Its lowest rate ($14.99 per line per month) is only available if you have 20 or more team members, but even then, you also have to pay an additional fee for user extensions for each phone number. Want voicemail transcriptions? It’ll cost $4.99 per month per extension. 

Many popular features require add-on costs with most Vonage plans, and even with a costly Advanced plan, call recording is still an on-demand feature.

Compare this to other softphones and Vonage alternatives that offer the same features and have a starting price of $15 and no hidden fees.

Vonage’s per-line pricing can seem great, but it has drawbacks. For example, if you sign up for the Premium plan starting at $29.99 per month, it may seem affordable, but you still need to pay $14.99 per extension if you want your team members to use it. So for a team of five, the cost will be:

• $29.99 base price
• $74.95 for five extensions ($14.99 times 5)
• Total cost of $104.94 per month for a team of five ($29.99 plus $74.95) 
• And add an extra 3 cents per minute for any outbound calls made by your team

Clunky user experience

Like other legacy VoIP services, Vonage was founded over 20 years ago and has kept the user interface and aesthetic of early 2000s web products. A recent study showed that 55% of employees would rather use their own phone than a desk phone. Those employees use products like WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram for their personal communications. 📱 They’ll want to use a simple and slick service on their mobile devices and computers.

This is where Vonage alternatives like OpenPhone shine. When you switch, you and your team can access a simple and beautiful application from your mobile phone, tablet, or computer.

Poor customer support

Many long-term Vonage customers share a common complaint. The customer service isn’t all that good. Vonage Business users reported on multiple forums that the support team is slow to resolve critical problems, costing them time and money. These aren’t the sort of issues that you’d want to face long-term, especially if your phone service is critical to your business operations.

OpenPhone: The best Vonage alternative

If you’re thinking of making a switch from Vonage Business, then OpenPhone is your best bet. OpenPhone is a feature-rich platform without hidden fees that offers a sleek user interface and affordable pricing — more so than any other option on this list.

Ready to make the switch? Sign up for a free trial of OpenPhone. It takes less than a minute to get started!