The 7 Best VoIP Providers in the US in 2023

Our rigorous research has found that 8×8 is the best VoIP provider in the market. We think it's a great all-round solution because of its great security measures, 24/7 support, and easy scalability. While it's more expensive to other providers on this page, we think it's a worthy investment.

Every VoIP provider on this page is suited to a specific need so keep reading to find one suited to your business.

Alternatively, if you're short on time, you can use our quick and free quote-finding tool. In exchange for a few details about your business, we'll connect you with the providers that can tick off the right boxes in your VoIP wishlist.

What are VoIP Phone Services and Systems?

VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol and is a telephone system that uses an internet connection to make and receive calls, without the need for traditional landlines or physical wires.

Because it's run over the internet, these phone systems aren't limited to a specific desk or area, so you can make calls via your laptop or smartphone from anywhere in the world.

VoIP phone systems are more affordable compared to traditional landlines and have much higher audio quality. Because the phone lines are virtual, businesses can quickly scale up or down without needing to install or remove lines. With hybrid and remote working being the norm, VoIP systems allow businesses to run smoothly no matter where your team is.

The Best Business VoIP Phone Systems

According to our detailed research, the following suppliers offer the best VoIP phone systems available in the US in 2023:

1. 8×8

Best All-Round VoIP Provider in the US

Our detailed research has shown that, overall, 8×8 is the best VoIP provider for US businesses. It scored incredibly well in a number of our research categories, including features, security, customer support, and scalability, and scored 4.7/5 overall – our highest rating.

In particular, we love the breadth of features available on 8×8’s plans. As you’ll see in our key features analysis below, from the X2 plan upwards, 8×8 boasts all the features we know to be most important for productive comms with customers and clients – from unlimited minutes and local numbers to ring groups, call queues, and CRM integrations. It is also compatible with a range of plug-in-and-play desk phones.

8×8’s security features also impressed us, earning the provider a score of 5/5 in this category. With multiple compliance certifications, multi-factor authentication, password rules, and TLS/SRTP encryption, 8×8 does a lot to ensure your company’s calls and data are kept under lock and key.

Finally, as a result of our research, we can tell you that 8×8 offers a really good level of customer support (it also scored 5/5 here) – something any provider must do before we could reasonably call it the best! 8×8 has a user forum and a knowledge base to peruse, and a 24/7 live chat function and phone line for those out-of-hours issues. Email support is also available for your less time-sensitive queries.

2. RingCentral

Best VoIP Provider For Customer Service Teams

Scoring 4.5/5 overall in our research, RingCentral is a close second to 8×8. However, it’s less of a solid all-rounder and more of an excellent option for customer service teams specifically.

Customer service teams have to deal with a lot of incoming calls. RingCentral boasts a great range of features to help make light work of this, including a virtual receptionist, local toll-free numbers, and customizable greetings and hold music on all of its plans. Upgrading to a Premium or Ultimate plan will also enable you to set up ring groups and call queues, to organise your callers even more smoothly. RingCentral also comes with external video calling and SMS features, giving your customers more ways to get in contact with your team.

Of course, training is hugely important in the world of customer service – your team’s phone manner has to be great, after all. RingCentral comes with features that can help with this, including call transcripts, call recording, call monitoring, call whisper, and call barge. Be wary, though, that RingCentral’s cheapest packages don’t offer all of these, so you’ll have to pay a little more for the full breadth of training and monitoring tools.

Finally, it’s worth knowing that RingCentral comes with ready-made integrations with helpdesk, workspace, email, conferencing, and messaging platforms to help unify your comms and easily hold customer data. Once again, though, most of this is only available on RingCentral’s Premium and Ultimate plans.

3. Vonage Business Communications

Best VoIP Provider For Small Businesses

Vonage is our top choice for small businesses for a number of reasons. Firstly, it offers excellent value for money (in these stakes, it was beaten only by GoToConnect, our top pick for startups), with plenty of features, including unified communications tools such as video conferencing and team messaging, available even on Vonage’s cheapest plans. Unlimited domestic minutes only kick in on the Professional and Ultimate plans but, as you’ll see, these packages are still very affordably priced. 

We know small businesses are often looking for pathways to grow, so it’s great that Vonage did very well in our scalability comparison, scoring 4.5/5 on this front. The ring group, call queue, and call routing features on Vonage’s more advanced plans will help your team handle growing volumes of calls, while call recording, monitoring, and analytics will help you train new staff and ensure the quality of your business’s comms is top notch. There’s also the fact that Vonage allows an unlimited number of users on all of its plans, so you won’t be forced to pay for an upgrade once your team hits a particular size.

Small businesses should also feel reassured by the decent level of support Vonage offers to its users, including a user forum, a knowledge base, and live chat, email, and phone support (though you should be aware that these lines aren’t open 24/7). Vonage’s 99.999% uptime guarantee means it’s unlikely your all-important income will be unexpectedly impacted by downtime.

4. Zoom Phone

Best For Affordability

Scoring a perfect 5/5 for price in our research, Zoom Phone is a feature-rich and affordable solution. With plans that cost $10, $15, and $20 per user per month, it’s a solid choice if you’re looking for a functional VoIP system that won’t stretch out your wallet. The good news is that despite its low cost, it doesn’t compromise on features. Scoring a 4/5 for features in our research, you can use any inbound communication and conversation feature. It outcompetes others like Ooma and Nextiva that have a more restricted menu of features.

However, Zoom isn’t great for security. Scoring a 2/5 in this category in our research, Zoom misses out on multi-factor authentication, password rules, and user-permissions. Therefore, we'd recommend looking at GoToConnect, RingCentral, or 8×8 if you're keen to keep your unified communications operation safe from unwelcome attention.

5. GoToConnect

Best VoIP Provider For Startups

GoTo’s phone system, GoToConnect, is our favourite VoIP system for startups. When you’re starting a business, you have to make sure you’re getting as much as you can for as little money as possible. During our research, GoToConnect was our top scorer in the category of value for money, earning 4.5/5 – so it’s a good bet if you’re looking to secure helpful features like unlimited domestic minutes and multiple communications channels (such as phone, video chat, and messaging) for a relatively small price tag.

As your startup accrues a customer base, you’ll need a VoIP system that can help you communicate with potential customers and clients as professionally as possible. With GoToConnect, you can set up a virtual receptionist, customizable on-hold music, recorded greetings, and voicemail capability to give callers a polished experience when they get in touch. You can also set up local numbers, so customers don’t have to pay to phone you. Better still for budget-conscious new businesses, these features are all available on GoToConnect’s cheapest package.

Of course, it’s likely that you won’t stay at startup size forever. Fortunately, GoToConnect’s unlimited user limit and available call management features mean it’s a scalable system – it earned a scalability score of 4.4/5 in our analysis.

6. Ooma Office

Best VoIP Phone System For Customer Satisfaction

Ooma scores a 4.4/5 when it comes to its customer score. This isn't the absolute highest score, but when you average it out with the rest of its offering, Ooma looks to be a very promising investment for those who need a bit of help. Scoring an overall 4.3/5 and a solid 4.1/5 for features, Ooma Office is one of the most affordable business VoIP phone system packages for large companies that we’ve come across. It includes video meetings and softphone apps for all your employees, and can be customized to meet the varying needs of your different teams. Ooma can be integrated with a variety of productivity tools (like G Suite) and CRM platforms, so you can keep all your important activity in one place.

The significant downside to Ooma is that its security offering isn’t great. Scoring a 1/5 for security in our research, Ooma misses out on multi-factor authentication, password rules, and user permissions. If security is at the top of your list, we’d recommend turning to 8×8 or RingCentral. It also falls short on some fairly simple features, like call transcripts, call monitoring, and team messaging/document sharing, which can be useful for those looking to document everything.

7. Nextiva

Best VoIP Phone System For Flexible Set Up

Nextiva is pretty flexible when it comes to set up as it boasts its own first-party hardware and is compatible with third-party desktop phones like Cisco, Yealink, and Polycom. This is particularly useful if you have a preference for having a desktop phone as part of your VoIP system. Although others, like Ooma, also offer first-party desktop phones, Nextiva strides ahead because it has a wider range of third-party desktop compatible phones.

With a 99.999% uptime guarantee, 24/7 Live Support, live chat, and onboarding support, we like Nextiva because of its expansive customer support – our researchers also gave it an excellent 4.5/5. So you can be confident in knowing that if you crash into trouble when using your VoIP system, Nextiva’s customer service will be there to help. However, when it comes to security, Nextiva doesn't perform too well. Scoring an all-right 3/5 in this category in our research, you miss out on multi-factor authentication and password rules. You're better off turning towards 8×8, GoToConnect, or RingCentral if you want to have more peace of mind.

The Benefits of a VoIP Phone System

So, why invest in a VoIP phone system for your business? There are plenty of reasons to do so, but these are the most impactful:

1. Cheaper Calls

Because VoIP systems make and take phone calls over the internet, those calls end up costing a lot less than those made over traditional phone lines. In fact, most VoIP system suppliers include free unlimited calls within the US and Canada as part of their price plans, so you won't have to pay extra for them.

Some – but not all – VoIP suppliers also let you make international calls for free. If yours doesn't, don't worry – international calls made over the internet are still cheaper than those made traditionally.

2. Flexibility and Mobility

Cloud-based VoIP systems can be accessed from anywhere, on any device (cell phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop) that has an internet connection and the system app installed. So, whether your staff are based in the office, working from their own homes, or travelling, they'll be able to make and take business calls, and access the UC features your system includes, like video chat and instant messaging.

3. Easier Scalability

With a VoIP phone system, you won't need to pay for additional phone lines or hardware as your team grows. All you need to do is add more users to your VoIP system and have them download the system app onto their devices. That said, you can use IP desk phones rather than cell phones if you prefer – just contact your VoIP system supplier and they'll provide what you need.

4. Better Sound Quality

You've probably heard that the sound quality on VoIP calls is pretty bad. After all, when VoIP first started to be adopted on a large scale, that was very much the case. But now, advancements in the technology – for example, IP phones being fitted with noise-cancelling microphones – mean that VoIP call quality is usually fantastic.

As long as you have a reliable internet connection with plenty of bandwidth, you can expect your VoIP calls to be crystal clear. In fact, you can usually count on them sounding even better than calls made via the traditional phone network.

5. Sophisticated Features

As we've explored in our list of the best business VoIP phone systems, these solutions come with a variety of features designed to make your working life more streamlined and give your customers and clients a friendly and professional experience when they call your business, no matter how big or small it is.

How to Choose a VoIP Phone Services Provider

With seven providers on this page, it can be difficult to determine which VoIP provider is right for your business. Here are the most important factors to take into account when choosing your VoIP provider:

Pricing

The cost of a VoIP system is typically determined by the number of users as providers tend to charge per user, per month. Providers also offer different tiers to match the needs of your business. The more expensive a tier, the more comprehensive it is.

To lower pricing, you can:

• Choose a provider with a low price per user
• Choose a lower-priced tier
• Pay annually as the per-user fee is usually lower

Here are some questions to ask when deciding between an expensive and cheaper option:

• What features does your business need? This will help you determine which tier is best for you.
• How good is the service and support? Checking out what our research has to say about the provider's research or searching up customer reviews online will help you figure out how reliable the support it.

Uptime Guarantee and Call Quality

An improved call quality is one of the reasons businesses switch to a VoIP provider so you want to make sure the system you choose is high quality. There are a number of factors that can affect call quality including the strength of your internet connection, hardware, and Quality of Service.

When choosing your VoIP system, check the uptime guarantee for the provider as this is the provider's promise to offer a certain level of call quality and uptime.

Key VoIP Features

Here are some of the most important features you want to look for in a VoIP system:

• Call conferencing: this allows for smooth collaboration and remote working
• Call queue: this helps ensure your customers are directed to the right agent and keeps them on hold until they're available
• Integrations: if your business uses software such as a CRM system, being able to integrate it with your VoIP system will provide a smoother experience for your customers and agents
• 24/7 live support: a lot of VoIP providers will offer 24/7 live support which is key to ensuring continued high-quality calls

How Did We Find The Best Business VoIP Phone Systems?

Our team of independent researchers has conducted an in-depth dive into the eleven most used and best-rated business VoIP system suppliers on the market. 

The eleven providers have been tested in seven main category areas, across 16 subcategories, for a total of 78 areas of investigation.

We tested each provider in the following areas:

• Customer score: this refers to external customer reviews and ratings.
• Cost: we weighed up the cost of each provider including the monthly subscription, setup fees, and hardware.
• Features: we tested the comprehensiveness of the features each provider offers.
• Customer support: refers to the extent of the customer support offered by the provider.
• Scalability: we tested each system's ability to support your business scaling up or down.

Regardless of which choice you make to meet the demands of your business, our research-backed recommendations will match you with the top players in the VoIP market.

The Expert Market Product Testing Process