The Top 7 Small Business Phone Systems in Canada

Our research has put the best phone systems for small businesses to the test, and has revealed that RingCentral is the top system that you can currently get your hands on.

When you’re setting up the building blocks of your small business, avoiding hidden and hefty costs is vital, as well as investing in a system that integrates seamlessly into your software infrastructure. The golden solution to all these hurdles? Investing in a high-quality cloud-based phone system.

To help you navigate through all the options, we review the seven best phone systems, comparing them on the factors that matter most to small businesses so you can be confident you’re investing in the solution for you. For even more personalised help, why not try our free quote-finding tool to get tailored quotes from the top phone systems for small businesses?

The top 7 small business phone systems

As a small business looking for a new office phone system, you’re really spoilt for choice. Here are our top picks for the small business phone systems on the market today.

The 7 best small business phone systems are:

Want to find out what makes them so great? Read on for our reviews of each of these small business office phone systems, including prices, features, and more.

RingCentral – Premium – Best Small Business Phone System for External Connections

How much does RingCentral Premium cost?

What kind of small business features does RingCentral Premium offer?

• Software integrations: at the Premium and Ultimate subscriptions, you can sync your phone system with over 90 CRM platforms, with key helpdesk integrations like Salesforce and Zendesk, analytics, and other platforms like Slack, WhatsApp, and Facebook. This makes your customer service muscle stronger, and allows you to instantly draw on customer-specific data to provide a frustration-free experience.
• Customer support: RingCentral provides multiple customer support channels, including live chat, a phone line, and email support. It also includes onboarding support to help you set up your system.Plus, it has a 99.9% uptime guarantee to ensure your system won’t experience downtime frequently.
• Features: Managing growing call volumes is much easier with plenty of inbound communication tools, such as ring groups, voice-to-text, and spam prevention features. You’ll also be equipped with advanced tools like call barge, call whisper, and call monitoring to help you supervise calls and train your team. RingCentral also offers outstanding add-ons, such as RingCentral Webinar, RingCentral Contact Center, and RingCentral Engage Digital to boost your team’s capabilities.
• Scalability: RingCentral has an impressive offer for scalability, equipping you with all the right tools – call queue, ring groups, web conferencing tools, internal live chat, and pretty much all the management features you could ever need as a small business! It also includes multi-factor authentication, password rules, compliance certifications and encryption, which will help shield your operation as you continue to scale up.

How does RingCentral Premium compare to other VoIP providers for small businesses?

Factoring in price, integrability, features, and customer support, our in-depth research has awarded RingCentral a great 4.7/5 rating for its value as a system for small businesses. With access to key features like call queue and ring groups, you can easily take on a large number of callers and glam up your operation. Because of this, we’ve awarded RingCentral a 4.1/5 rating for features – the second highest score in this category out of all the providers we’ve looked at!

What’s even more impressive is that, compared to competitors like Vonage and Dialpad, RingCentral races ahead for customer service features in our research, scoring a 5/5 rating in this category. So, you can be confident you’ll have a whole dashboard of nifty features to power your small business.

What do users think of RingCentral?

We know how important users’ experiences and insights are in choosing your VoIP provider. That’s why we’ve scoured the most trusted review sites, including G2, Capterra, TrustRadius, and Trustpilot, to find out what customers have to say about RingCentral. Tallying user ratings, RingCentral got an aggregated customer score of 3.5/5. Here’s a helpful user review:

8×8 – X2 – Best small business phone system for scalability

How much does 8×8 X2 cost?

What kind of small business features does 8×8 X2 offer?

• Features: 8×8 X2 is packed with features, including call queue, voicemail-to-text, call forwarding and flip, team messaging, and document sharing. It also includes an AI-powered virtual assistant to automate the routing of call traffic. Most impressively, its call and video conferences can host up to 500 participants per meeting.
• Software integrations: integrable with CRM, Helpdesk, Web Conferencing, external and internal live chats, email, and more, starting at the X2 subscription. This makes 8×8 a powerful tool your team can leverage to personalise customer experience and work quickly by avoiding having to hop back and forth between different communication channels.
• Customer support: 8×8 provides 24/7 live chat and phone line support, so you can reach its team any time you experience a problem. It also issues a 99.9% uptime service-level agreement to guarantee minimal downtime for your system. Plus, you can ask for onboarding support through 8×8’s Customer Success Managers – but it’s unclear whether this comes at an additional cost.
• Scalability: 8×8 X2 allows you to sync your internal communications, as it’s compatible with platforms like Slack, Telegram, and Teams, so you and your team can work remotely. It’s also equipped with call queue, ring groups, analytics, customisable call routing, and call recording, all of which allows you to handle large numbers of callers, and gather data to optimise your small business mojo.

How does 8×8 X2 compare to other VoIP providers for small businesses?

Awarded a 4.6/5 overall rating by our independent researchers, who’ve put 8×8 X2’s features, pricing, and customer support to the test, we believe it stands out due to its flexibility of choice. Whether your small business needs a comprehensive, savvy system or you just want the essentials, 8×8 can tick off the boxes on your small business phone system checklist. 

Although we’ve given 8×8 a 2.5/5 for its pricing, placing it far behind Google Voicw and GoTo's 5/5 rating in this category, you can consider the extra couple of quid you’re putting down on the table a worthy investment, thanks to 8×8’s broad range of features. Nevertheless, we have awarded 8×8 a stellar 5/5 rating for its generous customer support and security, which is unrivalled by all other providers featured here.

What do users think of 8×8?

Rounding up user reviews, 8×8 received an aggregated customer score of 3.5/5 across G2, Capterra, TrustRadius, and Trustpilot. Here’s what one user in Canada had to say:

Dialpad – Pro – Best small business phone system for conversational AI

How much does Dialpad Pro cost?

What kind of small business features does Dialpad Pro offer?

• Features: Dialpad’s Pro plan comes with an impressive list of inbound communication features, including spam prevention, call queue, and ring groups. Best of all, it has a unique conversational AI that provides your support and sales agents with real-time customized suggestions to improve customer interaction.
• Customer support: Dialpad Pro also offers 24/7 live chat and phone lines so you can contact its customer support team anytime, on any day. You can also request onboarding support to help you set up your system, but this comes at an additional cost.
• Scalability: with access to call queue, ring groups, and a variety of management features like call recording, analytics, and call transcripts, Dialpad Pro offers a good range of tools you can rely on to build up your business. You can also use internal live chat and web conferencing to slash costs, as you can keep your operation remote. However, its security measures do miss out on multi-factor authentication and password rules, making it less secure than other providers like Google Voice and 8×8.

How does Dialpad Pro compare to other VoIP providers for small businesses?

Our thorough research has looked closely at how suitable Dialpad Pro is for small businesses, and has awarded it an overall 4.6/5 rating.  Dialpad Pro is nifty and futuristic thanks to its conversational AI, which allows you to do a lot of things hands free and focus your attention on other tasks as you work on making your small business succeed. Although it misses out on some crucial external connections (2.3/5 in our research) , we awarded it a great 4/5 rating for its customer support, ranking above other providers like Nuacom, GoToConnect, and bOnline in this category.

What do users think of Dialpad?

Our researchers analyzed Dialpad’s user reviews, and found it earnt an excellent 4.4/5 average customer score across G2, Capterra, Trustpilot, and TrustRadius. Let’s hear one of these reviews:

Ooma – Office Pro – Best small business phone system for affordability

How much does Ooma Office Pro cost?

What kind of small business features does Ooma Office Pro offer?

• Customer support: Ooma Office Pro offers 24/7 live chat and a phone line, so help is available whenever you need it. Moreover, it provides a 99.9% uptime guarantee to ensure your system is always working with minimal downtime.
• Scalability: Ooma Office Pro enables you to add an unlimited number of users to the system, and comes with a solid list of inbound communication features to handle growing call numbers, including ring groups, a virtual receptionist, and customisable greetings and hold music. However, it doesn’t come with a call queue feature.

How does Ooma Office Pro compare to other VoIP providers for small businesses?

Scoring an overall 4.4/5 and a perfect 5/5 for price in our research, Ooma Office Pro stands out from the crowd due to its very alluring affordability. For just $29.99 per user, per month (billed annually), you can access a very generous range of inbound communication and customer support features. Although Ooma's price score is definitely very impressive, keep in mind this stellar 5/5 score is equialized by Dialpad Pro, Google Voice, and Net2Phone. However, what sets it apart is its more competitive price point and better customer support.

However, where Ooma Office Pro falls behind the rest is in security features. Scoring a very poor 1/5 for security in our research, Ooma Office Pro doesn't offer multi-factor authentication, password rules, and user permission. If security is your main concern as a small business, we'd recommend looking at Google Voice standard or 8×8 X2.

What do users think of Ooma?

Ooma garnered an outstanding 4.4/5 average customer score from G2, Capterra, Trustpilot, and TrustRadius. Check out what one user had to say:

Google Voice – Standard – Best small business phone system for Google Users

How much does Google Voice Standard cost?

What kind of small business features does Google Voice Standard offer?

• Security: Google Voice has an unmatched security system, with complete and updated compliance certificates for various information security and data privacy laws. Besides, its system is reinforced with multi-factor authentication, strict password rules, and user permissions to protect against hacks and phishing.
• Customer support: Google Voice Standard comes with 24/7 phone line support, so you can call any time you encounter a system issue. Plus, it has a 99.9% uptime guarantee to ensure that there’ll be minimal downtime while your system is operating.

How does Google Voice Standard compare to other VoIP providers for small businesses?

Our researchers have put the key features offered by Google Voice for small business to the test and have given it a 4.4/5 rating. Whilst it’s a great option for Google users, its limited offer of features gives it a 2.6/5 rating in this category. In terms of features, it matches Nuacom, but lags far behind others like RingCentral and 8×8. However, what it does excel at is security, which is the reason we gave it an excellent 5/5 rating in this category. No other provider equals Google Voice in security, except for 8×8.

What do users think of Google Voice?

Combining user ratings from G2, Capterra, TrustRadius, and Trustpilot, Google Voice received a high overall customer score of 4.4 /5. Take a look at this user review:

Net2Phone – Business Lite – Best for International Calling

How much does Net2Phone Business Lite cost?

What kind of small business features does Net2Phone Business Lite offer?

• Customer support: On the Business Lite plan, you can reach Net2Phone through various customer support channels, such as email, live chat, and phone lines (but note that these aren’t open 24/7). It even offers free onboarding support to help you set up your system. Plus, it has an uptime guarantee wherein Net2Phone can provide reimbursements if you experience service interruptions lasting 30 minutes or more.
• Scalability: our researchers gave Net2Phone a 4.1/5 for scalability thanks to a rich offer of customer support (only misses out on 24/7 live support), call queue, ring groups, and a low user limit of 6 users. Keep in mind it doesn't score higher because it misses out on important management features like call monitoring, call-flow designer, and analytics and reporting.

How does Net2Phone Business Lite compare to other VoIP providers for small businesses?

Scoring a stellar 5/5 for price in our research, one of the reasons we love Net2Phone Business Lite is because of its competitive price. However, there are other providers who are just as competitive because they all occupy the same top spot, including 8×8, Ooma, and Google Voice. So, while not unique, it’s still a really safe bet if you want something that won’t stretch out your wallet. Having said that, Net2Phone Business Lite is far from perfect. Our research gave it a measly 1.5/5  for external connections because of the limited menu of systems you can sync it with. It also scores a 2.9/5 for features and security, placing it behind others like Dialpad Pro, RingCentral Premium, and 8×8 X2.

What do users think of Net2Phone?

Averaging user reviews from G2, Capterra, Trustpilot, and TrustRadius, Net2Phone got an outstanding total score of 4.7/5. Read one of the reviews below:

GoToConnect – Standard – Best small business phone system for value for money

How much does GoToConnect Standard cost?

What kind of small business features does GoToConnect Standard offer?

• Scalability: with an unlimited user limit, ring group, call queue, analytics, call recording, and customisable call routing, GoToConnect Standard gives you the features that will help you piece together the bricks of your scaling small business. What’s more, GoToConnect also gives you access to internal live chat and web conferencing, which can help keep your business working remotely and cost-effectively.
• Security: GoToConnect also provides robust security features, including TLS/SRTP encryption and user permissions, so you can protect sensitive information. Moreover, it has compliance certificates for various information security and data privacy laws.

How does GoToConnect Standard compare to other VoIP providers for small businesses?

After combing through all the information available on GoToConnect, our researchers have given it a 4.2/5 overall rating. Although its customer support score of 3.4/5 lags a bit behind that of RingCentral and Vonage, the features you can access for what you pay for your Standard subscription gives you greater value for your money than those systems would. GoToConnect also gives you free international calling to 50+ countries, making it a great softphone option for businesses who need this sort of offering.

What do users think of GoTo Connect?

GoToConnect got a high average customer score of 4.4/5 across G2, Capterra, Trustpilot, and TrustRadius. Hear what one user had to say:

How did we compare the best phone systems for small businesses?

Our team of independent researchers has conducted an in-depth dive into seven of the most used and best rated phone system suppliers on the market. Prioritising all the possible features that small businesses might need from a VoIP phone system, we’ve narrowed it down to the top seven providers and their best subscription models for small businesses. They shine through because of their onboarding and management features, and their ready-made integrations that can help you strengthen your operation.

We’ve also aggregated customer reviews from platforms like Trustpilot and Capterra to assure you that our knowledge is not only robust on paper, but also in practice. Regardless of which choice you make to meet the demands of your small business, our research-backed recommendations will match you with the most suitable players in the VoIP market.

How to choose the right phone system for your small business

Our researchers surveyed real small businesses and found out that money, scalability, and compatibility with their existing software infrastructure are the most important factors they'd consider when choosing a VoIP phone system. Let's explore these factors in more detail:

• Money: as is the case for a lot of things in small business, money can be an inevitable pain point. Therefore, it’s important to prioritise options that charge low up-front monthly fees, offer inclusive domestic minutes, provide multiple communication channels (so you don’t have to pay extra to get these from other providers), and provide solid customer support, so you can avoid losing money during a potential phone downtime.
• Compatibility with your software infrastructure: when you’re entering the VoIP-verse, the last thing you want to do is spending aeons switching back and forth between all the software platforms you use to run your small business. Therefore, choosing a provider that’s like a Swiss army knife when it comes to integrations is key. Look out for ready-made integrations with things like CRM, workspace software, email, web conferencing, internal messaging, and external messaging platforms.
• Scalability: as a small business, you can be burdened by extra costs in the long-term if you outgrow an important software system and are forced to upgrade to a different provider. Therefore, you’ll need a VoIP system that can grow as fast as your small business can. Key indicators for this will be providers that let you onboard an unlimited number of users, and come with call queues, ring groups, a good array of management features, and things that allow you to run your operation remotely, like internal messaging and video conferencing. Security will also be key here as this shields your business from risks as you expand.