Nextiva vs Grasshopper: Which wins out?

If you’re a startup or small business owner, the lines between personal and professional often become blurred. A business phone service can help set some much-need boundaries — for both you and your team. 👯

A business phone service benefits your team and customers alike. The right service protects your colleagues’ privacy, prevents after-hours communication, and increases productivity and cross-collaboration between teams. At the same time, it helps improve the customer experience and speed up response times to clients and prospects.

But what business phone service best fulfills your business needs? Two of the most popular options are Nextiva and Grasshopper. Below, we dive into the Nextiva vs Grasshopper debate, pitting the two against each other in pricing, advanced features, integrations, and customer satisfaction. And if both options fall short — a very real possibility — we present a third option that may be the “fits just right” option for your team. 🐻 

Nextiva vs Grasshopper: How do these services measure up?

A business phone service should make your life easier and your workday more efficient. Below, we analyze how Nextiva vs. Grasshopper stacks up on price, functionality, integrations, and customer satisfaction.

1. Pricing: Which option benefits your bottom line? 

Winner: Grasshopper

As a small business owner, you need to be hyper-aware of operational costs. Fortunately, virtual, softphone, and business VoIP systems cost less than your standard landline. 

Pricing plans should be — we repeat, should be — the easiest category to compare. Unfortunately, both Nextiva and Grasshopper lack transparency (and can be outright confusing) in terms of pricing.

Nextiva’s plans start at $23.95 per user per month for teams of up to four users. However, this bare-bones package lacks many must-have features your team needs. To add CRM integrations and SMS, you can expect to pay $27.95 per user per month. For all the bells and whistles, your price goes to $37.95 per month per user. Most importantly for any businesses outside the US, you may not be able to sign up for Nextiva. Nextiva requires you to have a US address and bank account.

Grasshopper phone plans range from $28-$80 per month (you aren’t billed per user, like with Nextiva). All plans include all Grasshopper features. The one catch is that even at the most robust Grasshopper plan, you only get five different phone lines — if you have more team members, you must use extensions.

2. Features: Which service offers the tools you need? 

Winner: Nextiva (barely)

The best business phone services should be … well, more than a phone service. It should increase productivity for your team and allow you to better serve your customers. 

Nextiva is a cloud VoIP system, routing calls through your internet connection, rather than typical phone lines. Depending on your plan, Nextiva offers several features your standard desk phone does not. You receive unlimited voice and video calls, an auto-attendant, voicemail, email integration (with Outlook and Google Contacts), caller ID, faxing, and mobile (iOS and Android) and desktop apps. Unfortunately, due to Nextiva’s staggering pricing, many essential features — like SMS, integrations, conference calling, video conferencing, and call recording — are inaccessible for small businesses. 👎 

Grasshopper is a virtual phone service, where team members add a business line to their existing mobile device. With Grasshopper, you get a number of valuable features, like instant messaging, desktop and mobile apps, local numbers and toll-free numbers, call forwarding, virtual receptionist, voicemail transcription, and instant responses. However, it lacks a number of basic features, like call recording, integrations, and shared phone numbers.

3. Integrations: Which option works with other apps? 

Winner: Nextiva 

The best business phone systems integrate with other platforms. With a VoIP or virtual phone system, your phone shouldn’t just place phone calls — it should allow communication to seamlessly flow between Slack, email, and texts. 

When it comes to integrations, the Grasshopper vs Nextiva debate is simple: Nextiva wins, hands down. Grasshopper offers exactly one integration — Gmail. You can’t fuel cross-collaboration or improve customer support by integrating with forms, Slack, CRM systems, or other apps.

Nextiva offers several native integrations, but (surprise!) you’re going to have to pay for it. Their basic plan includes integrations with Outlook and Google Contacts. To integrate with Salesforce, HubSpot, Zendesk, Oracle, or Microsoft Teams, you’ll need to upgrade your plan. 

4. Customer satisfaction: Which tool best serves its customers?

Winner: Nextiva

When it comes to choosing a phone service, you want a provider who works with you — not against you.

When browsing through user reviews for Nextiva on G2, it looks promising. The average score is 4.5 stars across 276 reviews. But upon further investigation, you’ll see Nextiva’s unfriendly call center, constant bugs, and poor call quality leave much to be desired.

One Nextiva customer said: 

“Nextiva’s phone service is completely unreliable and has cost us customers, in addition to countless hours of wasted team resources. Nextiva has not helped us solve any business problems — they only created more business problems for us!”

With Grasshopper, things aren’t any better. The average rating on G2 is four stars across 118 reviews. Missed inbound calls, terrible customer phone support, and poor sound quality are just a few of the common customer complaints. 

One Grasshopper customer said: 

“Poor call quality. The voicemails do not stay on the system for more than 30 days. The name of the caller is visible on the windows app, but it does not get recorded in the call log. Worst part for me was that when it comes to text messages, a user could have access to every user’s text messages or nobody’s.”

The best alternative to Nextiva and Grasshopper: OpenPhone

Nextiva and Grasshopper have similar downfalls: They have confusing price plans, have a lack of customization and integrations, and either don’t offer (or charge an arm and a leg for) advanced features. Unfortunately, many common alternatives — including Vonage, Skype, RingCentral, and Jive (formerly GoToConnect) — pose similar problems. 

OpenPhone is the best alternative to Nextiva and Grasshopper because it has a clear (and affordable!) pricing model, offers robust features, integrates with thousands of apps, and when it comes to customer satisfaction, clearly wins out. 🙌 

Pricing 

OpenPhone works by adding an extra business line to your iPhone, tablet, Android, or computer. Pricing starts at just $15 per month per user. OpenPhone’s Business plan starts at $23 per month per user.

Functionality

OpenPhone offers advanced features including desktop and mobile apps, a built-in lightweight CRM system, call recording, a shared inbox, virtual assistant, automated replies and workflows, and free SMS messaging and calls to the US and Canada. 

Integrations 

Plus, OpenPhone offers native integrations with Slack, Gmail, and HubSpot CRM. Through Zapier, OpenPhone connects to thousands of apps, including Airtable, Calendly, and other CRM systems. 

Customer satisfaction 

Don’t believe OpenPhone can transform your business? Don’t take our word for it — with 196 reviews on G2, all but four give OpenPhone five stars, with the final four being four stars (no one-, two-, or three-star reviews in sight). OpenPhone customers are highly pleased with the price, ease of use, advanced features, and customer service. 

One OpenPhone customer said:

“What I like best has got to be the price and convenience. Rather than going through the headache of getting your wireless carrier to set you up with an expensive and temporary international service agreement, this only takes Wi-Fi or cellular data, and you can use this phone number anywhere in the world. You can’t beat the price or the convenience to make sure you have a working phone anywhere in the world. You transfer over your old number from a previous carrier or start fresh. The user experience is amazing.”

Here’s a quick breakdown of how OpenPhone, Grasshopper, and Nextiva compare.

Nextiva vs. Grasshopper vs. OpenPhone: OpenPhone easily wins 

When comparing Nextiva and Grasshopper, you’ll want to investigate a third option: OpenPhone. 

While Nextiva and Grasshopper offer limited features for a very high price point, difficult customer service, and few integrations, OpenPhone wins across the board. Through native and Zapier integrations and dozens of features across messaging, calling, and cross-team collaboration, you get a phone service that fuels your business. Plus, it weighs in at just $15 per month per user.

Ready to see how OpenPhone can better serve your team and customers? Get started with a seven-day free trial today.

Words by Daryna Kulya

Co-Founder at OpenPhone. Ukrainian-Canadian in SF. Love exploring new hiking trails.