When Nextiva launched in 2006, it was a VoIP system for small business owners. That’s far from what it does today — Nextiva is now a customer experience platform for enterprise brands.
A few smaller contact centers and customer service teams still use Nextiva to manage calls and texts. However, Nextiva puts a much lower emphasis on VoIP these days, and for many small business owners, it’s too little for the price tag.
If you’re wondering how much it costs to use this VoIP phone provider, you can use this guide to get the full scoop. We explore Nextiva’s prices and plans, list its add-ons and fees, and present an alternative that offers better features at half the price.
Nextiva pricing and plans at a glance
Nextiva has two different types of phone systems: small business and enterprise. Small business plans were built for anywhere from 2 to 20 users, while enterprise plans can accommodate hundreds of team members.
Let’s break down each of these business phone systems, including the prices and features you get on each one.
Small business plans
Digital
The Digital plan costs $20 per user per month paid annually ($25 per user per month paid monthly). It unlocks the basic features you might expect from call center software, like a shared email inbox, as well as additional features for live chat, social media, and review management.
However, the Digital plan doesn’t unlock VoIP features such as inbound and outbound voice calls or SMS. As you’ll see below, most of the key features you’ll need will require an upgrade to the Core plan ($30 per user per month).
Digital plan features include:
- Live chat
- Messaging applications
- Shared email inboxes (two accounts only)
- One reporting dashboard
- Unified channels inbox
Features requiring upgrade:
- Voice calls
- SMS and MMS
- Voicemail transcriptions
- Microsoft Teams integration
- Call routing
- Mobile app
- Team chat
- Digital fax
Core
The Core plan starts at $30 per user per month paid annually ($35 per user per month paid monthly). Core gets you access to VoIP features and other business communication tools, such as internal team chat, inbound and outbound calling, and the ability to send up to 100 text messages per user per month.
What you won’t see on this plan are basic features like call recording, which requires a paid add-on unless you upgrade again. If you want call transcriptions, advanced IVR, or automated tools such as skills-based routing, be prepared to upgrade your plan.
Core plan features include:
- Basic IVR
- Digital fax (requires paid add-on)
- Inbound and outbound voice
- SMS (100 messages per user per month)
- CRM integrations such as Salesforce and HubSpot (requires paid add-on)
- Microsoft Teams (requires paid add-on)
Features requiring upgrade:
- Toll-free number and minutes
- Customer-to-team SMS messaging
- 250 text messages per user per month
- HITRUST certifications
- Video meeting recording
- Unlimited dashboards
- Microsoft Teams
Engage
The Engage plan starts at $40 per user per month paid yearly ($50 per user per month if you pay month-to-month). It expands your capabilities for customer service by adding chatbot support, unlimited digital fax, customer-to-team SMS messaging, and an inbound sales and service call center (which unlocks voice prompts and AI so you can route callers to the right agent).
You can see this plan offers plenty of enterprise features, but for growing small businesses, it may be cost prohibitive. It’s hard to justify Nextiva’s steep monthly cost in exchange for voice analytics and toll-free numbers.
Engage plan features include:
- Voice analytics
- Toll-free numbers and minutes (limited to 2,000 minutes per month)
- Chatbot support
- 250 SMS messages per user per month
- Digital fax
- Customer-to-team SMS messages
- Inbound sales and service call center
- Voice call recording
- Video meeting recording
- Microsoft Teams (included free)
Features requiring upgrade:
- API integrations
- Unlimited reports
- Agent voice and digital platform (Web-based)
- Advanced IVR (usage charges may apply)
- Intelligent and skills-based routing (requires add-on)
- Call transcriptions and summaries (requires add-on)
- Unlimited SMS messages per user per month
Power Suite
The Power Suite plan is Nextiva’s ultimate small business phone service, which starts at $60 per user per month paid annually ($75 per user per month paid monthly). You’ll max out your features for customer communications on this plan, including the ability to send unlimited SMS messages.
Just keep in mind $75 per user per month isn’t the most you’ll pay for the Power Suite plan. You’re limited to just 10,000 toll-free minutes, for example, so you’ll have to pay extra for every minute past that. If you want advanced IVR, you’ll need to pay for usage fees. And even features like call transcriptions require undisclosed upgrades.
Power Suite features include:
- API integrations
- Unlimited reports
- 10,000 toll-free minutes
- Agent voice and digital platform (web-based)
- Advanced IVR (usage charges may apply)
- Intelligent and skills-based routing (requires add-on)
- Call transcriptions and summaries (requires add-on)
- Unlimited SMS messages per user per month
Enterprise plans
There are three different ways to pay for Nextiva’s Enterprise plans:
- Per agent per month: A flat monthly rate for every user on your plan.
- Usage-based pricing: This is charged per minute per agent.
- Concurrent pricing: Two or more agents can use the same license at the same time.
We’re only focusing on ‘per agent per month’ pricing here, although you can compare these options on Nextiva’s pricing page.
Essential
The Essential plan starts at $129 per user per month for basic VoIP features. With it, you gain access to voice or digital channels, auto-attendants, skills-based routing, and a few other basic features.
Unfortunately, you’ll notice the Essential plan is missing key features that most small business owners need. You won’t have access to voice and SMS channels at the same time, and you can’t tap into advanced analytics without upgrading your plan to Professional.
Enterprise Essential plan features include:
- One channel (voice or digital)
- Inbound and outbound calling
- Call transcriptions and summaries (usage based)
- Predictive dialing
- Auto-attendant
- API access
- Workflow engine
- Contact management
Features requiring upgrade
- Voice and SMS access
- Secure over-the-phone payments
- Supervisor view
Professional
The Professional plan is $159 per user per month for omnichannel messaging, AI bots, and real-time supervisor support. It’s also the most efficient tier for business owners needing to call and text customers on their business phone system.
This plan offers almost everything required for high-volume help desks and call centers, although you can’t access workforce management tools or analyze historical data unless you upgrade to the Premium plan. Plus, if you manage a large number of users, be prepared for five-digit phone bills.
Enterprise Professional plan features include:
- Omnichannel support (voice, SMS, chat, email, social, messaging, webform)
- Single screen recording
- Advanced bots
- Geographic disaster recovery
- Secure payments
- Agent screenshare
Features requiring upgrade
- Advanced workforce management
- Multiscreen recording
- Advanced CX analytics
- Iterating and optimizing AI workflows
Premium
Nextiva’s Premium plan comes with added functionality for enterprise brands (such as advanced analytics) at $199 per user per month. Your monthly price unlocks advanced workforce management tools, historical data, and the option to call back callers to reduce wait times and call queues.
Unfortunately, $199 isn’t the most you will pay per agent with Nextiva. For example, AI transcription tools rely on usage-based pricing, which means no matter how much you upgrade, you’ll still have to pay extra to use the feature.
Enterprise Premium plan features include:
- Advanced workforce management
- Multiscreen recording
- Advanced CX analytics
- Iterating and optimizing AI workflows
Already reeling from Nextiva’s high prices? You might want to sit down.
Nextiva’s taxes and fees are roughly 30% of the line rate you’ll pay at the end of each month — a pricey $45 in fees and taxes for just five employees on the Core plan ($150 per month).
Here’s a breakdown of those fees below:
- Regulatory Recovery Fee (RRF): You’ll have to pay $3.50 per line of service for regular phone numbers and $0.88 per line of service for virtual numbers
- E911 fee: You’ll have to pay an extra $1.50 per number (for physical lines) and $0.38 per line of service for virtual numbers since Nextiva provides 911 services.
- Location-based service charges (government taxes and fees): Nextiva collects fees and taxes on behalf of federal, state, and local governments, so depending on where you live, the rate varies. In California, for example, you’ll have to pay Telecommunications Surcharges ($1.11 per line). If you live in a state like Colorado or Ohio, you might not have to pay extra taxes or fees at all.
- Reinstatement fee: If a service gets deactivated due to non-payment of fees, you may have to pay a reinstatement fee of up to $25.
- Universal Service Fee (USF): Nextiva enforces a quarterly USF fee from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). This rate changes quarterly, so you’ll need to check often to determine how much you owe.
- Texting limits: There’s no access to SMS on the Digital plan, so you have to upgrade to the Core plan to send texts. Even then, be prepared for limitations. You get just 100 messages per user per month on the Core plan and 250 messages per user per month on the Engage plan. There’s also no way to get unlimited SMS unless you upgrade to the Power Suite plan ($60 per user per month). Compared to providers like OpenPhone — which includes unlimited SMS on the base plan — this isn’t a great deal if your company texts customers frequently.
- Toll-free calling: Toll-free numbers require upgrading to Nextiva’s second-tier plan, where they’re available as an undisclosed add-on. If you want it included with your plan without paying extra, you need to upgrade to the third-tier plan, Engage. But even then, toll-free minutes aren’t unlimited on any plan — you’re capped at 2,000 minutes on the Engage plan and 10,000 on the Power Suite plan (plus 2.5 cents per minute for inbound calls). This is a pretty hard sell compared to providers like OpenPhone, where you don’t have to pay extra for toll-free numbers or minutes.
- AI call transcription and summarization: Don’t have time to listen to every call recording and voicemail? There’s no way to avoid this without upgrading to Nextiva’s Power Suite plan, which is three times the cost of the Digital plan. Then, to set it up, you have to pay an implementation fee, ranging from $200 to $1,000.
5 things to keep in mind before committing to Nextiva
Worried that Nextiva may not be right for you?
Here are five more reasons to consider Nextiva alternatives:
1. Key features locked behind costly upgrades and add-ons
Nextiva doesn’t offer key VoIP features on its base plan. You have to upgrade to the Core plan to unlock calls and texts — and most of their best collaboration tools are trapped behind add-ons and higher tiers.
For example:
- Shared numbers and inbox: Splitting incoming calls and texts with your team requires an upgrade to the Engage plan ($40 per user per month). Alternatively, you can purchase a $10 per user per month add-on with the Core plan — which brings you right back to $40 per user per month.
- Call recording: You need to upgrade to the Engage or Power Suite plan before unlocking call recording for your team. In contrast, most VoIP systems offer call recording on the base plan.
- Integrations (Salesforce, HubSpot, Zendesk): It costs $5 per user per month across plans to unlock CRM integrations with popular apps. However, this doesn’t include text logging (only calls), which means you’ll have to find a workaround with other available apps.
- Automations: You might save time creating automations with Nextiva, but you certainly won’t save any money. Automated workflows are only available as a custom add-on, though the pricing isn’t available online.
- Voice analytics: Want to track peak call times or average text messages per day? There’s no way to do this unless you upgrade to Engage or Power Suite. You could also purchase an add-on to stack with the Core plan, but again, you’ll have to contact Nextiva’s sales team for a quote.
2. Communicating with international clients is complicated
Most VoIPs offer transparent prices when calling and texting overseas. That’s not what you get with Nextiva, — you’ll need to go through a multi-step process to make international calls.
- First, you need to enable international calling, which requires contacting Nextiva support.
- Then, you need to find the country you intend to call. With Nextiva, rates vary by country, and there are more than 7,500 entries to sift through.
- Finally, keep in mind you can’t send texts to international numbers, which can be frustrating as your business starts to grow overseas.
Related: See how Nextiva stacks up to RingCentral in our RingCentral vs. Nextiva guide
3. No free trial, and may be hard to cancel
Nextiva recently removed its public free trial, which makes it harder to test its software with your team. If you want to try before you buy, you’ll have to go through their sales team and request a demo first.
After your demo, you can pay for a full plan in advance and cancel within seven days to receive a full refund. If you miss the seven-day limit, you might get locked into a plan.
And trying to cancel a Nextiva plan might be more than you bargained for:
- You can opt for month-to-month agreements with no cancellation penalties, but keep in mind it will cost you extra per user per month.
- If you sign up for an annual plan, you have to choose from 12, 24, or 36-month agreements. However, plan subscriptions auto-renew — and you’ll need to submit a 90-day notice to cancel.
- You have to call or email Nextiva to cancel your plan — there’s no option to do this via live chat. Plus, users say support can be hard to reach, which isn’t ideal for busy business owners.
Unless you have time to babysit your subscriptions, or have the space in your budget to sign up for a month-to-month plan, signing up for a Nextiva ‘trial’ could be risky at best.
4. Expensive to scale
To get all the features you want with Nextiva, you may have to upgrade plans multiple times. This can get expensive fast, especially compared to similar VoIPs.
You get the bare minimum on the Digital plan, which is not cheap at $20 per month. If you upgrade to the Core plan, you still have to pay for add-ons for basic features, plus implementation and usage fees, and you’ll only know how much after talking with sales.
What if you want to add features later? Your only choice may be to upgrade.. This doesn’t leave you much flexibility, especially as you grow and your business needs change.
Related: See which VoIP comes out on top in our Nextiva vs. Grasshopper guide
5. Setup can be complicated
According to past users, setting up your Nextiva account can be far from intuitive. Some users complain of a confusing implementation process, while others feel frustrated waiting for their account managers to make adjustments to their system.
These customer reviews speak for themselves:
- “Nextiva uses an antiquated account manager process. You can’t adjust anything without going through your account manager. It’s like stuck in the early 2000s. Like any service, it might work for some, but I find it excruciating to have delays waiting days for something I can have my staff setup in minutes through an online workflow.” — Reddit
- “The Windows and Android softphone apps are sub-par and make no effort to make the customer’s life easier. Online fax interface is clunky and out-of-date. Video conferencing is complicated. Software is cluttered with team features I don’t need that I can’t hide. Configuration is complex and easy to break… Expensive for what you get.” — GetApp
- “I often run into WiFi dongles not registering, phones not following call group routing rules, and soft keys that go nowhere. I have a feeling there’s a button or two I forget to press or some conflict with a user and a call group, but it might just be a janky system.” — Reddit
OpenPhone: A more effective alternative to Nextiva
If you already manage a large enterprise team, Nextiva might offer the features you need within your budget. But if you’re growing a small business and need cost-effective VoIP features, Nextiva’s add-ons, upgrades, and fees can be a little much.
This isn’t unique to Nextiva, though. There are many other VoIPs that fall in a similar category. If you compare Nextiva vs. Ooma and Nextiva vs. Vonage, you might be disappointed by the common trend of steep prices and lackluster features.
You shouldn’t have to pay extra to unlock VoIP features on a communications platform — which is why so many business owners choose to migrate to OpenPhone. With OpenPhone, it costs $15 per user per month for all the basic VoIP features you need, including unlimited calls, texts, and file sharing to customers in the US and Canada.
Here are a few other ways we stack up to Nextiva:
| Features | OpenPhone | Nextiva |
|---|---|---|
| Price per month | $15 per user per month | $20 per user per month |
| Unlimited calling | ✓ | X |
| Unlimited SMS, MMS to US & Canada | ✓ | X |
| Voicemail to text | ✓ | Requires upgrade |
| Toll-free numbers | ✓ | Requires upgrade |
| Additional phone numbers | $5 per number | Undisclosed fee |
| Number porting | ✓ | ✓ |
| Call recording | ✓ | Requires two upgrades |
| Shared phone numbers | ✓ | Shared call appearance only |
| Group text messaging | ✓ | ✓ |
| Shared contacts | ✓ | ✓ |
| Block numbers | ✓ | ✓ |
| Auto-replies | ✓ | Email only |
| Text message templates | ✓ | Only on contact center plans |
| Slack integration | ✓ | Only using Zapier |
| AI features | ✓ | Requires upgrade |
| Gmail integration | ✓ | ✓ |
| Zapier integration | ✓ | Requires upgrade and add-on |
| iOS and Android apps | ✓ | ✓ |
| Web-based apps | ✓ | ✓ |
1. Small business-friendly pricing
OpenPhone pricing starts at $15 per user per month — half the cost of the Core plan. We don’t hide surprise add-ons or hidden fees behind our sales team since all our prices are transparently listed online.
You’re also never locked into a plan with OpenPhone: you can scale up (or down) whenever your business is ready. Plus, every new member of your team comes with a free number.
2. Easy setup with a free trial
Nextiva doesn’t make it easy to test its platform — but the good news is that it’s the exception rather than the rule. With OpenPhone, you can easily sign up for a seven-day free trial and test our platform with your team risk-free.
If you decide we’re not a fit, there’s no need to call us to cancel. Just pull up the OpenPhone app and end your subscription. We’ll even hang on to your numbers for 60 days, in case you need access to old data or conversations.
3. Automate tasks without breaking the bank
With Nextiva, automating work requires costly add-ons and pricey usage fees per month. That’s not the case with OpenPhone — you can set up workflow automations on every plan.
For example, you can tap into:
- Snippets that help you respond to frequently asked questions with standardized message templates and responses.
- Auto-replies that instantly respond to missed calls, texts, and voicemails so your customers know when to expect a response.
- Scheduled text messages you can queue up in your customers’ time zones so you’re not catching them at awkward times or risking TCPA compliance.
- AI-generated responses that can help you brainstorm text replies to tricky or sensitive conversations.
The best part? OpenPhone has direct integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot, and other popular CRMs so you can easily log data (yes, even text logging) in the tools you’re already using.
We even work with webhooks and 7,000+ third-party apps like Zapier, so you can easily sync customer interactions at a glance.
4. Work as a team with collaboration tools
Nextiva requires you to upgrade for better collaboration tools. With OpenPhone, they’re available on every plan. As long as everyone on your team owns a laptop, tablet, or cell phone, they can start collaborating with coworkers in 15 minutes or less.
The best way to do this is to set up shared phone numbers, which are the easiest way to split responsibility for calls and texts. Every member of the number is notified of incoming messages, so important conversations never fall through the cracks.
You can also set up custom ring groups to decide who should receive incoming call notifications first. If your priority team member isn’t available to pick up the phone, the next available person (or group) can pick up. We also offer warm transfers and internal threads to help reps get context on conversations.
5. Share information more easily
Sharing information can get expensive with Nextiva, especially with their add-ons and usage fees for tools like transcriptions.
OpenPhone, however, doesn’t charge extra for collaboration.
It only takes a few seconds to update your team with:
- Custom contact properties. You can create custom tags for contacts or add checkboxes and numbers so everyone knows which conversations to prioritize.
- Call recordings. You can manually record specific calls for your team or upgrade to access automatic call recording for all calls to a specific number.
- AI transcripts. Rather than sitting through long hours of call recordings, you can transcribe every call and quickly locate the important bits.
- Analytics. Every member of your number can peek at daily statistics, including call volumes, busy times, unique conversations, and more.
Pros and cons of Nextiva pricing plans
Nextiva offers a few advanced features for large customer support teams. However, it’s not necessarily the most cost-effective platform for startups, scaleups, or businesses on a budget.
Pros:
- Unified communications: You can manage phone calls, text messages, and video calling with Nextiva.
- Multichannel management: It’s easy to streamline the customer experience by connecting everything from social media accounts to chatbots and email inboxes.
- Softphone compatibility: You can use Nextiva’s calling, texting, and video conferencing services on desktop, mobile, and browser-based apps (requires upgrade).
Cons:
- High monthly costs: Nextiva is one of the most expensive business VoIP services on the market and nearly 25% more expensive than comparable business phone systems.
- VoIP requires an upgrade: You can’t make or receive calls, texts, or internet faxes unless you upgrade to Nextiva’s second plan.
- Scalability issues: Voicemail transcriptions require upgrading to the Core plan, toll-free numbers never get unlimited minutes, and you can only unlock unlimited text messages by upgrading to the Power Suite plan.
- Steep add-on costs: Even after upgrading to the Power Suite plan, you still have to pay an undisclosed amount to unlock skills-based routing, advanced IVR, call transcriptions, and more.
See why OpenPhone is the best virtual phone service provider
Nextiva doesn’t make sense for most small business owners, either from a features perspective or a financial one. That’s why thousands of growing brands start with OpenPhone first — the #1 small business phone solution on G2.
With OpenPhone, you can unlock all basic VoIP features for just $15 per user per month. Then when you’re ready, you can upgrade for more. Whether you need texting automations or third-party integrations, it’s never been easier to scale your business phone system.
Get started with a free seven-day trial and test OpenPhone for yourself.
