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Vonage pricing plans (+ fees, & add-ons)

Vonage pricing

Vonage doesn’t look terribly expensive — at least, from the outside looking in. But between its residential program and its sprawling commercial website, it’s hard to figure out how much it might actually cost your business.

These days, most of Vonage’s customers aren’t using its pre-built business communications plans, mostly because they’re too expensive to maintain. Instead, they’ve opted for Vonage’s APIs and international calling system — both of which require deep pockets and coding knowledge.

If you’re curious about how much it costs to purchase a Vonage plan, you can use this guide to get the full picture. Don’t like what you see and want a cost-effective option? We offer a Vonage alternative at the end of the guide.

TL;DR

Vonage isn’t the best choice for small businesses because it’s priced per line rather than per user, charges hundreds of dollars in hidden fees, and traps basic features behind expensive add-ons (including secondary line appearance and call recording).

What is Vonage?

Vonage pricing: Vonage app

Vonage is a VoIP communications platform that launched in 2001. Its two major services, Vonage Residential and Vonage Business, were designed to replace landlines with internet calls. Today, Vonage also offers ‘unified communications’ for businesses — which includes phone calls, text messages, and video calls — provided you’re willing to upgrade your plan.

Vonage pricing and plans at a glance

Vonage’s plans are priced according to the number of employees you have.

For five or more users, you’ll pay a discounted rate. If you’re a team of four or fewer, you’ll have to pay extra per user per month.

Here’s what you’ll pay for a Vonage account if you have less than four people on your team:

Vonage pricing and plans

Mobile

The Mobile plan starts at $13.99 per line per month billed annually ($19.99 per line per month billed monthly). With it, you unlock basic VoIP features such as unlimited domestic calling, SMS/MMS, and voicemail.

Unfortunately, the Mobile plan doesn’t offer any bells and whistles. You won’t be able to access video meetings or team messaging, and if you want transcriptions of your voicemails, you’ll have to upgrade to the highest tier.

Key featuresWhat’s missing
Unlimited calling (domestic)Team messaging
SMS and MMS (MMS requires API)Single sign-on
Desktop and mobile appsVoIP desk phone support
Simple voicemail (no transcriptions)Video meetings
Third-party integrations (VBC app center)

Premium

Vonage’s Premium plan starts at $20.99 per line per month billed annually ($29.99 per line per month billed monthly). It unlocks more business-specific features, including team messaging, video meetings, and third-party integrations.

Just keep in mind these third-party integrations are limited — popular cloud CRMs such as Pipedrive aren’t available as native integrations on their platform. You may also have to pay extra for the ‘luxury’ of some integrations. Connecting to Salesforce, for example, costs an extra $4.99 per month.

Key featuresWhat’s missing
Team messagingCall groups
Single sign-onOn-demand call recording
VoIP desk phone supportVisual voicemail
Video meetings
Third-party integrations (VBC app center)

Advanced

Vonage’s most expensive plan costs $27.99 per line per month billed annually ($39.99 per line per month billed monthly). With this upgrade, you can finally tap into Vonage’s best features, including call groups, call recording, and visual voicemail.

Feeling underwhelmed? You’re not alone. Most VoIP apps offer these features on their base plans.

Plus, Vonage’s most expensive plan is still missing essential features, including the ability to set up shared phone numbers or get automatic call recording for your team.

Key featuresWhat’s missing
Call groupsBusiness inbox ($9.99 per month)
On-demand call recordingConference bridges ($14.99 per month)
Visual voicemailLocal paperless fax ($14.99 per month)
IP phone paging ($4.99 per month)
Secondary line appearance (14.99 per month)

Hidden fees to know

The price you pay per line with Vonage only scratches the surface of what you’ll pay per month.

Here’s the full breakdown of Vonage’s hidden additional fees:

  • Varying taxes and fees: These largely depend on your state, county, or province, so there’s no way to know the exact amount unless you contact Vonage’s sales team. All US customers pay a Federal Universal Service charge, and your state or province may also tack on local taxes, fees, and surcharges. Keep in mind you may have to pay additional fees, such as $1 per line per month for the emergency services fee and an additional $3.50 Recovery Fee (RCIP) per month for your extensions.
  • 411 directory assistance: Want to search your local area for a new vendor or supplier? You’ll pay $1.99 per call to research numbers and addresses over the phone.
  • Call recording: If you don’t want to upgrade to the Advanced plan for on-demand call recording, you can purchase it as a separate add-on for $4.99 per month. However, if you want automatic call recording, be prepared to shell out $49.99 per month.
  • Call transcription: Call transcriptions aren’t included with any Vonage plan, which means you have to leverage WebSockets to integrate your own transcription service. Then, you have to pay per-second billing. 
  • Unified business inbox: It costs $9.99 per month to organize your SMS, MMS, and Facebook Messenger texts in a single, unified view.
  • Toll-free numbers: Every toll-free number costs $39.99 per month, which is nearly eight times the cost of toll-free numbers from OpenPhone ($5 per month).
  • Call queue: If you want to place incoming callers on hold before a rep becomes available, you’ll need to pay an extra $14.99 per month.
  • Secondary line appearance: The only way to manage incoming calls as a team is to pay $14.99 per month (applies to desk phones only).
  • International calling: Vonage does offer VoIP international calls, but this is a separate service that isn’t bundled with pre-built plans. Worse, Vonage isn’t transparent about how much this costs, so you’ll have to contact sales if you want a custom quote.

5 things to keep in mind before committing to Vonage

Here are a few more reasons to consider Vonage alternatives: 

1. Pricing isn’t ideal for small businesses

If you’re a small team on a tight budget, Vonage likely isn’t the best option. While Vonage offers volume-based discounts of up to 30% on the first 99 lines, that won’t help a small business. To secure the lower rate starting at $13.99 per line per month, you have to lock into a one-year contract. Canceling the contract early can lead to penalties, with fees potentially equaling the total cost of the service contract. 

Additionally, future purchases of metered or unlimited extensions are charged at the standard rate, which can be higher than alternative VoIP providers.

If your team needs to add features like call recording, toll-free numbers, and shared business inboxes, your monthly price can become prohibitively expensive. 

💡 Related: Nextiva vs Vonage: Which is the better business phone option?

2. There’s no built-in way to send MMS

Although Vonage advertises MMS on every plan, it’s not available in their pre-built packages. You’ll need to tap into their communication API if you want to send or receive images, videos, audio messages, or PDFs on your business phone number — which is not ideal if you don’t have a developer on your team. 

Plus, Vonage’s communication API isn’t included in plans and is charged with custom or pay-as-you-go options. While this may work for larger contact centers that need to scale up support during busy seasons, it’s not practical for small businesses.

3. Basic calling features not included in plans

Vonage’s plans are bare-bones at best, even compared to traditional phone providers. The base plan lacks team messaging features, the middle tier doesn’t offer visual voicemail or call groups, and the most expensive tier only comes with limited call recording.

Some mission-critical features are only available as expensive add-ons, including call forwarding, simultaneous ring, and Do Not Disturb. There’s no way to tell what your additional costs would be unless you contact sales — not ideal for folks who need simple pricing and scalable features.

💡 Related: Ooma vs Vonage: Which one is right for you?

4. AI functionalities live behind a paywall

Want to tap into AI tools? Vonage won’t make this easy. Its AI Virtual Assistant is only available for an undisclosed add-on fee.

Sure, you can access a few fringe AI features, but it’s nowhere near as robust as its self-service call routing capabilities. You also won’t have access to time-saving AI tools such as AI message responses, call summaries, or contact suggestions as you would on OpenPhone.

5. Setup is clunky and unintuitive

Most of Vonage’s services need to be set up with an API, so it might take a while to get your phone system up and running. Even on the base plan, you have to contact support to activate most services — including the ability to call and text from the same number, set up an auto-attendant, and more.

Even if you are willing to contact customer support, you should know past Vonage users don’t report great experiences. Vonage prefers to help users through its chatbot support, which means it could take days (or up to a week) to get issues resolved.

The not-so-great cherry on top? The lack of a free trial. There’s no way to try Vonage before you buy, which could trap your small business into a phone system you don’t love.

OpenPhone: A more effective alternative to Vonage

Vonage’s plans may not look expensive on the surface, but if you peek under the hood, you’ll find all sorts of unexpected surprises. Plus, its pre-built plans don’t offer the solutions most growing small businesses need, including shared numbers, call recordings, and advanced features like call transcriptions without clunky APIs.

Thankfully, OpenPhone is a much simpler Vonage alternative offering cost-effective plans that scale as you grow. Each one comes with call recording, unlimited calls, and built-in SMS. There’s no need to code or hire a developer, either.

FeaturesOpenPhoneVonage
Price per month$15 per user per month$13.99 per line per month
Unlimited calling
Unlimited SMS, MMS to US & Canada(MMS requires API + extra costs)
Toll-free numbers✓ ($39.99 per month)
Additional phone numbers$5 per number$4.99 per local number
Number porting
Call recordingRequires upgrade
Shared phone numbersX (Shared inbox only)
Group text messagingX
Shared contactsX
Auto-repliesRequires upgrade
Text message templatesRequires upgrade
Slack integrationRequires upgrade
AI featuresRequires add-on
Gmail integrationRequires upgrade
Zapier integrationRequires upgrade
iOS and Android apps
Web-based apps

1. Business-friendly pricing

OpenPhone pricing

Unlike Vonage, OpenPhone pricing starts at $15 per user per month — with no minimum annual contracts or sneaky hidden fees. Our transparent pricing lives on a single, accessible page so you never have to guess what your monthly bills will be.

Plus, OpenPhone’s plans were designed to scale alongside you, making it easy to move up or down however your business needs. You’ll never have to upgrade plans before you’re ready. 

And by the way: OpenPhone doesn’t charge extra for teams with fewer users. It’s always the same price to add more teammates to your account. Plus, each one comes with their own US or Canadian local number (or North American toll-free number). You can purchase as many additional numbers as you need for $5 per month.

2. Record calls without breaking the bank

OpenPhone offers unlimited on-demand call recording on every pricing tier. Want to record every call that reaches your number? Auto call recording is available on our Business plan.

Since we don’t charge fees or per-minute pricing for call recording, you’re free to make (and store) as many recordings as your team needs. You can record calls for training purposes, quality assurance, and even legal purposes, in case of a dispute.

Need to send call recordings somewhere other than OpenPhone? You can automatically push call recordings to another platform by creating a simple workflow in Zapier — no developers or coding required.

3. Easy to set up with your team

OpenPhone typing notifications

Vonage was built for mass communications. OpenPhone was designed for human collaboration. Each plan comes with shared numbers, shared contacts, and threads and mentions, which allow everyone on your team to work together as a unit.

There’s no need to wait on us to set up the features you need. You can set up call flows, phone menus, and shared number capabilities inside our simple desktop or web app. There’s no need to deal with APIs if you don’t want to — you can set up your account in 15 minutes or less.

4. Give customers a good impression with texting automations

Automations with Vonage can be frustrating and time-consuming since they’re not available on pre-built plans and require an API developer. But with OpenPhone, it’s easy to set up customizable workflows that save hours for your team (and countless headaches for you).

For example, you can use:

  • Snippets to create text message templates and respond to FAQs
  • Auto-replies to save time texting and respond to every missed call, text, and voicemail
  • Text message scheduling to queue up a message in the recipient’s time zone (so it’s never outside of business hours)

5. No-fuss cancellations 

OpenPhone platform

Trying to cancel your plan with Vonage? They have a nasty reputation for using dark patterns and junk fees.

With OpenPhone, all you have to do is log into the app and unsubscribe in a few taps.

We get that life doesn’t always go as planned, so we made it quick and easy. We’ll even hang on to your number(s) and call history for you in case you decide to come back.

Pros and cons of Vonage pricing plans

Vonage works best as an enterprise business phone system; it’s often too complex and expensive for most small business needs.

Pros: 

  • Video conferencing: You can access UCaaS solutions that include video conferencing.
  • Microsoft Teams integration: This allows you to connect with the software you’re already using.
  • Adjustable API: With the help of your developer and the Vonage customer support team, you can integrate your business apps with pre-made communication features.

Cons: 

  • No shared phone numbers: There’s no way for everyone on your team to work from the same number (even sharing a line requires a desk phone).
  • AI tools require an add-on fee: Vonage’s most impressive AI features require an undisclosed monthly add-on cost.
  • Coding required for best features: Vonage is more of a communication API than a business phone system, and many of its best features — including AI tools and call transcriptions — require a developer to implement.

See why OpenPhone is the best VoIP service provider

OpenPhone mobile and desktop apps

Vonage was created as a customizable phone system for large enterprises, not a simple pre-built one for small businesses. That’s why thousands of small business owners have migrated from Vonage to OpenPhone — the best VoIP app for teams and small businesses.

We make it easy to manage your calls with a system that comes with all the bells and whistles. We’re built to scale alongside you, so upgrade when you’re ready. And when you’re ready for an API, no worries: we can help with that, too.

See why 1,800+ reviewers rated OpenPhone the #1 business phone system on G2 by testing our software with a free seven-day trial.

5/5 - (2 votes)