If you’re on the hunt for an affordable business phone system, one of Grasshopper’s plans might’ve caught your eye. However, you should know this is one of the oldest and most confusing phone systems on the market — and it’s much more expensive than you’d think at first glance.
This guide explains each of Grasshopper’s pricing plans, features, and hidden fees so you can decide if it’s the right fit for your business. After highlighting its limitations, we offer a Grasshopper alternative that can help you better serve your customers.
What is Grasshopper?
Grasshopper is a virtual phone system for small businesses that offers features like call forwarding, voicemail, and business texting. It allows users to create multiple extensions for different departments or team members, all managed from a mobile app or desktop.
Breaking down Grasshopper’s pricing and plans
Grasshopper’s pricing is different from most VoIP providers, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you get more value for the cost.
For one thing, Grasshopper charges per phone number, not per user. In comparison, most VoIP providers charge an exact amount per user per month.
| True Solo | Solo Plus | Small Business | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing | $14 per month | $25 per month | $55 per month |
| Amount of phone numbers | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| Extensions | 1 | 3 | Unlimited |
| Number of users | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
You can have unlimited users on the higher-tier plans with Grasshopper. However, you still need to pay for additional phone numbers, which cost an extra $9 per number per month.
Now, let’s see how each of these pricing plans break down:
True Solo plan
The True Solo plan costs $14 per month billed annually ($18 per paid monthly). Each plan comes with one user, one Grasshopper phone number, and one extension per account.
| Key features | What’s missing |
|---|---|
| Mobile app and desktop app | Additional users (you can only have one user per plan at this tier) |
| VoIP and WiFi calling | Additional extensions for purchase |
| Voicemail transcription | Call transfers |
| Custom greetings | Simultaneous call handling |
| Instant response | |
| Virtual fax | |
| VoIP texting ($19 one-time and $1.50 per month*) | |
| Incoming call control |
* This is a standard fee that occurs with all virtual number providers, and 100% of the amount goes to The Campaign Registry and other third-party entities.
Keep in mind you can’t purchase additional extensions on this plan, which could be frustrating if you want to push incoming calls to different numbers.
Want to set up texting? You’ll pay extra — and MMS messaging only works for local numbers.
And no matter how much you upgrade, you won’t have access to critical business features like call transcriptions, shared phone numbers, or app integrations.
Solo Plus plan
Grasshopper’s Solo Plus plan costs $25 per month billed annually ($32 paid monthly). You’ll have access to the same features as the True Solo plan, plus unlimited users and three extensions per account.
| Key features | What’s missing |
|---|---|
| Everything in the True Solo plan | Unlimited extensions and additional extensions |
| Call transfers | |
| Simultaneous call handling (you can set up call forwarding across up to 15 numbers until a rep answers or it reaches their voicemail) |
Keep in mind you only get three extensions on this plan. If you have more than three team members and want each of them to receive forwarded calls, you’ll need to purchase additional extensions starting at $5 per month per extension.
Plus, these features are the most you can get on any plan. Grasshopper doesn’t offer any additional features on its most expensive tier.
Small Business plan
Grasshopper’s Small Business plan costs $55 per month when billed annually ($70 per month if billed monthly). You’ll have all the same features as the previous plans, plus unlimited extensions and four business numbers.
| Key features | What’s missing |
|---|---|
| Everything in the True Solo and Solo Plus plans | Add-ons like call blasting and international calling |
Grasshopper’s per-month plans are just the tip of the pricing iceberg — you also need to consider its hidden fees, costs, and add-ons.
You should know there are additional costs for:
- Call blasting: With the call blasting add-on, up to 15 forwarded numbers will ring simultaneously until a rep answers, reducing customer wait times and the need to leave a voicemail out of frustration. This costs $10 per month in addition to your monthly plan. Keep in mind it’s not the same as a shared number. It only forwards incoming calls to another number and doesn’t give you shared visibility into phone communication if you need to collaborate with colleagues on responses or have managerial oversight.
- Additional extensions: You can only purchase additional extensions once you upgrade to the Solo Plus plan. Additional extensions cost $3 per extension per month billed annually or $5 per extension per month billed monthly.
- International calling: First, you have to make a $500 deposit to use international calling. Then you can add calling credits to your account, with certain countries costing as much as 95¢ per minute. Additionally, you won’t be able to make international calls until your account is at least 60 days old, which could be frustrating if you have overseas customers.
7 key things to keep in mind before choosing Grasshopper
Steep prices and hidden fees aren’t Grasshopper’s only limitations.
Here are seven drawbacks when using Grasshopper as a virtual phone system:
1. Plans only offer minimal features
A business phone plan with bare-bones features isn’t always a bad thing for solopreneurs and startups. But as your business grows, you’ll need new features. And a phone system like Grasshopper doesn’t have many of these to offer.
If you’re relying on Grasshopper to make and receive calls, its lack of automations means you won’t have much headroom when your business starts to scale. For example, you can’t send snippets, which are templated text messages of questions your customers commonly ask.
If you wait to migrate until after your team gets gridlocked, you might spend more time, money, and effort than you saved by choosing Grasshopper in the first place.
2. Outdated user interface that can make it hard to use
Grasshopper’s interface hasn’t changed much in two decades — and it shows. Many past users complain about its complex, outdated UI, while others say the learning curve took weeks or even months to master.
Without an easy-to-use interface available for your team, finding your way around the platform could take you much longer. Even after you figure it out, be prepared for glitchy features that make it hard to offer a superior customer experience. Recent reviews cite poor call quality, missing notifications, and unexplained software crashes.
3. No integrations to save your team time
The average small business has 162 apps in its tech stack, including its business phone system. Unfortunately, Grasshopper’s phone solution integrates with very few apps — unless you count Google Voice and Skype, which independently help you make business calls anyway.
This lack of integrations could slow your communications pipeline and prevent you from getting work done effectively. For example, if your CRM is your source of truth, you can’t automatically log call and text data to apps like HubSpot or Salesforce. You also can’t push any voicemails to a Slack channel, which means your team may need to switch between tabs to get work done.
4. You can’t easily coach team members
Grasshopper give you the option to automatically record calls, if you need to upgrade. However, call recordings only remain stored for up to 30 days. Plus, if you want to easily reference a specific part of a call for coaching, Grasshopper doesn’t provide any automatic call transcription options.
5. You can’t split responsibility for incoming texts
There’s no way to evenly distribute incoming messages in Grasshopper, which means all SMS conversations go to a single team member. You can only split the workload for incoming calls, and even then, it’s with call forwarding rather than a shared phone number.
Not having a way to delegate incoming texts can bottleneck your team and create slower response times. Since slow response times increase churn, not responding to texts promptly could push potential customers to a competitor.
Speaking of shared numbers. . .
6. You can’t collaborate easily with team members to solve problems
Grasshopper doesn’t provide shared inboxes at all. This means every touchpoint with your customers gets distributed among everyone on your team — including any forwarded phone numbers.
It also means team members can’t tag each other in context, which means they can’t work together to come up with the right responses for customers.
Plus, there’s no built-in way to assign tasks to your colleagues. You’ll have to manually delegate work through a different channel, like email.
7. Texting limitations may cause work for you
Your business phone system should make work easier, not harder. But if you’re using Grasshopper to send text messages, the reverse might be true.
For example:
- You can’t text international customers with Grasshopper. If you port in a number, you might lose international customers who prefer to text and not talk on the phone.
- You can’t send MMS messages through toll-free numbers to Canadian numbers. This means you can’t send pictures, videos, or files about your business to customers in the Great White North, potentially giving more work to your team.
- Group texting is only available for local numbers. If you need to message multiple customers from a toll-free or vanity number, you’ll have to find a suitable Grasshopper alternative.
Why Grasshopper users move to OpenPhone
Fast-growing businesses need a scalable business phone system offering feature-rich plans at straightforward prices.
Unfortunately, that’s not what you get when using Grasshopper as a business phone service. It’s expensive, outdated, and slow to innovate new features.
That’s why thousands of entrepreneurs from all over the world migrate from Grasshopper to OpenPhone to build better relationships with their customers.
Here’s why thousands of brands rate us the #1 small business phone solution on G2:
Transparent pricing means no surprises as your business scales
OpenPhone offers transparent pricing you can view at any time. It’s easy to decide which plan makes sense for you and then scale up or down depending on the features you need as your business evolves.
Not a fan of hidden fees? These aren’t a problem with OpenPhone. Our pricing page is crystal clear about add-ons, additional numbers, and more.
Teams can split responsibility to solve customer queries faster
Grasshopper’s call forwarding services might make sense for solopreneurs, but as your team grows, you’ll need features for collaboration more than just convenience. That’s where OpenPhone’s shared numbers really shine — they’re the easiest way to split responsibility for incoming calls.
With shared phone numbers, multiple team members can share the same phone number and access all customer communications in one unified inbox. Everyone can see the same contacts, recordings, voicemails, texts, and call history and then pick up the phone to resolve customer issues as a team.
You don’t even have to pay extra to access shared phone numbers. With OpenPhone, it’s an out-of-the-box feature included in every plan.
Easily get up to speed on any conversation
Unlike Grasshopper, all calls, texts, and call recordings in OpenPhone live in a single contact thread. This allows you to follow up directly with customers, coach your team, and delegate tasks.
Don’t have time to listen to a call? Tap into our AI-generated call transcriptions and read them instead. No more worrying about taking notes during your calls or losing key context to share with your team.
You can also use our AI features to reduce your reps post-call workload. For example, you can generate a transcript of a recent call broken down by speaker and timestamps, then use our call summaries tool to get an instant list of action items to help your reps figure out what steps to take next.
Set up call forwarding to miss fewer calls
Call forwarding in Grasshopper does at least one thing well: it pushes incoming calls to other business phone numbers. However, it doesn’t account for your business hours or availability, making it all too easy for customers to fall through the cracks.
OpenPhone specializes in conditional call forwarding, which means calls get forwarded to a different number or team member if there’s no one available to pick up the phone. If you’re busy, unreachable, or out of the office, OpenPhone sends your call to the next available rep, or you have the option to forward calls to an external number, such as an answering service or emergency number.
Don’t want to get calls once you’ve clocked out for the day? You can also forward calls to voicemail outside of working hours. This is a great way to set expectations for callers and let them know when you’ll be back without cutting into personal time.
Automations that let you connect with your customer at the right time
Grasshopper was designed to help you make and receive phone calls — not necessarily to automate your workflow. OpenPhone, however, has automations baked into every plan. You only need to upgrade whenever you need more.
We make it easy to:
- Schedule unlimited SMS messages. No need to wait for the perfect moment to press send. With scheduled messages, you can queue up a draft in the recipient’s time zone so it goes out at the perfect moment. If your customer responds before your text goes out, the message reverts to draft form so you don’t have to worry about awkward exchanges.
- Create message templates to respond to frequently asked questions. Also called snippets, message templates prevent reps from wasting time by typing the same message to different customers. You also ensure everyone stays on the same page by using the same verbiage and sharing accurate information.
- Auto-replies for missed calls, texts, and voicemails. Grasshopper only sends automated text messages to brand-new customers who don’t get their first call answered. With OpenPhone auto-replies, you can instantly respond to missed calls, texts, and voicemail messages to let customers know they’ve reached the right number and will quickly receive a reply.
Unlike Grasshopper, OpenPhone integrates with more than 7,000 third-party apps. It takes minutes to connect the tools you’re already using, including HubSpot, Slack, Salesforce, and more.
OpenPhone: The best Grasshopper alternative
If you’re a solopreneur or a budding business owner, Grasshopper’s VoIP system could help you find your feet. But if your business is growing, it won’t have the bandwidth to help you scale.
That’s why hundreds of Grasshopper users port their business phone numbers to OpenPhone.
Compared to Grasshopper, OpenPhone offers more transparency, features, and functionality to any growing team. From unlimited minutes in the US and Canada to shared phone numbers that were custom-built for collaboration, we make it easier to get work done as a team and build better relationships with your customers.
No need to take our word for it, though. See for yourself by signing up for a seven-day free trial.
FAQs
Grasshopper starts at $14 per month for one user, one phone number, and one extension. You have to upgrade to the Solo Plus plan to unlock unlimited members and three extensions, which costs $25 per user per month. If you want unlimited extensions, you’ll pay $55 per user per month for the Small Business plan. Additional phone numbers on Grasshopper cost $9 per month each.
Texting with Grasshopper costs $1.50 per number per month (for less than 6,000 texts per day). You also have to pay for two one-time fees: one for The Campaign Registry ($4) and one for carrier review ($15). These fees are standard across most virtual number providers due to regulations large US cell carriers pushed for. A2P 10DLC registration fees go to The Campaign Registry (which reviews your registration) and other third-party entities that keep your registration active.
You can try Grasshopper free for seven days. However, the trial ends early if you exceed its calling and texting limits (which include 50 minutes of call time and 100 text messages).
By enabling WiFi calling on Grasshopper, you can forward calls and texts through your internet connection. However, it’s not strictly a Voice Over Internet Protocol — you’re required to have a service provider so Grasshopper can forward incoming messages to your personal phone number.
You can automatically record calls with Grasshopper if you’re on their Solo Plus or Small Business plan. You can use a Grasshopper alternative like OpenPhone to get manual and automatic call recording for your number(s) along with AI-generated call transcriptions and summaries.
