Vonage Review and Pricing: The Best Business Phone System for Building Your Company

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It’s important that business phone systems are wired in a way that is simple yet scalable because, in the world of business, growth is the topmost agenda. With Vonage’s scalable business solutions, it’s a prime business phone system for building your company, scoring 4.5/5 in our in-depth research.

Its prowess landed Vonage spots in both our best unified communications as a service (UCaaS) providers and best virtual phone numbers lists. and its two different VoIP services are designed for small to medium-sized businesses and large corporations. However, both offerings provide the most flexible cloud communications platform for the needs of your business.

This Vonage review will go through the key factors you need to look into when shopping for a phone system: pricing, inbound and outbound communication features, integrability, scalability and customer support.

Our comprehensive research on Vonage will be the basis to help measure how this phone system performs against the rest of the top 11 phone system providers. We’ll also highlight its standout features plus its pros and cons.

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Expert Rating
4.5
Best For

Building Your Company

Price

$19.99 – $39.99 per user, per month

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Vonage’s Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Wide range of software programs and features for scalability
  • Affordable plans
  • All plans include 24/7 live support

Cons

  • Limited security options
  • Doesn’t include some outbound communication features

✓ Pro: Wide Range of Software Programs and Features for Scalability

Managing customer relations with a powerful CRM tool is essential to any business. Vonage doesn’t just offer lots of CRM tools but helpdesk giants too, making it easier for any business to grow. Some of these include Hubspot, Office 365 and Salesforce. This is why Vonage scores an impressive 4.5/5 for scalability in our in-depth research. GoTo Connect, however, scores lower than Vonage at 4.4/5 in scalability because there are only a few software platforms that you can integrate with. Thus, research shows that Vonage has a more scalable system.

Vonage also offers key features that will allow you to improve the efficiency of your business. There is no limit to the number of users on any of Vonage’s plans. Although, there’s an additional cost to add communication features, such as call queue, ring groups, call barge and call whisper. The option to add or remove these is available for you whenever, depending on the development of your business’ journey.

✓ Pro: Affordable Plans

Vonage’s least expensive plan starts at $14.99 and has over fifty standard features plus a 24/7 US-based service and tech support. This is a good deal yet, it only scores 3.8/5 in pricing because it lacks some outbound communication features such as ring groups, customizable greeting and virtual receptionist.

RingCentral, however, scores 3.5/5 in this category because its lowest plan costs $19.99 per user, per month and it doesn’t offer ring groups and call queue in it, not until you upgrade to their Premium or Ultimate Plans. Meanwhile, Zoom is a lot cheaper than Vonage, starting at $10 per user, per month except it doesn’t offer external live chat integrations on any of its plans and Vonage does.

✓ Pro: All Plans Include 24/7 Live Support

When you operate a corporation-level of communication technology, it’s a relief to find a variety of customer support channels for you to choose from. It’s a much bigger relief if 24/7 live support is included in the list of services on offer.

All of Vonage’s business phone plans offer 24/7 live support, with user forum, knowledge base, live chat, email and phone support. Its customer support score is 3.4/5 because you need to pay an additional fee if you want to take advantage of the onboarding support during the initial setup.

Meanwhile, Zoom gets 3.3/5 because it only offers very limited customer service channels which are only user forum and knowledge base. Now, 8×8 gets a perfect score in the customer support category because all customer support channels are available in all its plans including those that aren’t included in Zoom but, like Vonage, their onboarding support costs extra.

✘ Con: Limited Security Options

While all data signaling traffic flow through the Vonage platform is encrypted, multi-factor authentication can’t be set up for user accounts and password rules aren’t enforced. This sees Vonage score a slightly above average of 3/5 for security in our research. It is, however, compliant in a number of fields, including HIPAA, HITECH, HITRUST and PCI.

Net2Phone also scores 3/5 in this category and yet, unlike Vonage, it is only HIPAA compliant. However, like Vonage, Net2Phone doesn’t enforce password rules, too. Hence, its low score.  8×8 scores a perfect score in security because it offers more security options such as multi-factor authentication, software encryption and compliant in a lot of fields. However, 8×8 doesn’t offer password rules and user permissions in its Express Plan.

✘ Con: Doesn’t Include Important Outbound Communication Features

Vonage may receive a solid score of 4.5/5 for features in our research, offering lots of outbound communication features across all of its business plans, it does fall short. Call conferencing and efax are only accessible as optional paid-for add-ons. In addition to this, anSMS service won’t be available unless you pay extra for it to be added. It is also missing task management, call transcripts, and a call flow designer.

8×8, on the other hand, scores 4.8/5 in this category because it offers call conferencing, efax and SMS without any extra charges.

How Much Does Vonage Cost?

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Select

Professional

Ultimate

Price

£9.00

Price

£12.50

Price

£16.50

Features

Desktop app

Mobile App

Call Forwarding

Call Transfer

Vonage Meetings

Features

All Select plan features

Call Monitoring

Call Queue

Virtual Receptionist

Call Group

Call Recording: On-Demand

Features

All Professional plan features

Calling UK landlines: unlimited

Calling UK mobiles: unlimited

Call recording: company-wide

Integration suite

Vonage’s least expensive plan starts at an affordable price of $14.99 and all the business plans include:

  • Phone service via high-speed internet

  • Retain existing number

  • 50+ key features

  • 24/7 US-based service and tech support

These business plans come on a minimum one-year contract, which you may cancel at any time through Vonage’s online portal or customer care hotline. However, if you need to cancel within the contract period, an early termination fee may apply thus, dropping its overall pricing average to 3.8/5.

Meanwhile, GoTo Connect gets an average of 4.3/5 in this category even when its least expensive plan costs $27 because it offers better value for money because it offers lots of key features and provides 24/7 support. Other than that, it offers unlimited domestic and free international calls to over 50 countries without getting tied to a contract, making it best for businesses with international clients.

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Vonage’s Standout Features

Smart WAN

For Vonage to fully adopt digital transformation, it utilized an SD-WAN solution. Vonage’s SD-WAN solution, called smart WAN, allows you to enjoy voice, video, and data without compromising on quality, privacy, and control. It allows your business to continue through disasters, such as power outages, as it creates fail-safes on multiple broadband connections that help minimize disruptions. This will prove beneficial for businesses as it helps reduce overheads. There are other benefits that come with it too, such as enabling cloud usage and improving performance. This is why most phone system providers use SD-WAN software. Businesses that are shifting to remote work would benefit from this. A hybrid business, for example, has started to adopt this technology as part of their network connectivity strategy and security control.

Vonage Reach

With so many people making use of cell phones, it seems only natural that texting is the ideal form of communication and the main reason why phone system providers include this service in their plans. While there is an extra cost for the SMS feature to be added to your Vonage business plan, the additional cost isn’t just for a simple SMS/chat service. Vonage Reach is a powerful communication service platform that allows you to send a text message to one recipient or hundreds of recipients. This feature also allows you to do landline texting, cross-channel marketing and smart targeting which enables you to get more leads and close more deals in a short amount of time.

Volusion

Vonage’s ecommerce platform is Volusion, which has been in the ecommerce industry since 1999. You can request this app to be added to your Vonage plan and setting it up is so simple. You can create your online store in minutes and immediately start selling online.

Through Vonage’s unified communications solution, this integration between Vonage and Volusion will be able to provide better customer experience and even lower communication costs.

What Kind of Business is Vonage Best For?

Small businesses will benefit the best with Vonage’s services because it gives you the ability to create a comprehensive service based on the features and tools it offers on all of its plans and because of that, it can serve as a powerful solution that fuels growth and innovation. With features such as unlimited nationwide calls, free international calls, SMART WAN software, businesses get the opportunity to fully explore digital transformation and quickly scale digital solutions.  It is worth noting that Vonage’s comprehensive system can meet corporate-scale business communication needs, too.

How Does Vonage Compare with Other Phone Systems?

Our in-depth research allows us to measure Vonage’s performance and compare its ratings with the top phone system providers. Vonage scores fairly well in a few of these categories, but we will do a deep dive into each category below.

Platforms

Vonage

8×8

Ring Central

Ooma

Nextiva

Goto Connect

N2P US

Zoom

Nuacom

Google Voice

Dialpad

Inbound & Outbound Communications Features

4.5

4.8

4.2

4.1

3.9

3.4

3.6

4

3.3

2.6

4.4

Pricing

3.8

2.5

3.5

3.5

3.8

4.3

4.5

5

3.5

4.0

4

External Connections

3.5

4.2

4.3

2.7

3.3

2.6

2.8

3.7

2.9

2.8

2.4

Scalability

4.5

4.9

4.9

4.1

2.9

4.4

3.1

4.3

3.8

2.9

3.3

Customer Support

3.4

5

5

4.5

4.5

3.4

3.9

3.3

3.5

3.1

4.5

Inbound and Outbound Communication Features

The reason for its high 4.5/5 score for features is because Vonage is feature-rich especially in the inbound communications services since most features are available especially when you upgrade to its Premium and Advanced plans like the call queue feature, for example, which isn’t included in other providers’ plans.. However, some outbound communication features aren’t available on any plans, such as call transcripts, call-flow designer, and task management.

Meanwhile, more outbound communication features are available in 8×8’s X2 and X4 Plans, including call transcripts and call-flow designer, which aren’t included in any of Vonage’s plans.

Integrability and Scalability

Scaling strategy can easily be mapped out and accomplished when the communication solutions you have are at a level that allows you to function far beyond the traditional system. Vonage has a line-up of powerful integration software services that you can choose from and integrate in your system. This includes: Hubspot, Office 365 and Salesforce.

However, RingCentral scores a near-perfect 4.9/5 in this category, despite not offering software integrations in its Essentials and Standard plans. That’s because it has a variety of software programs for CRM, helpdesk, web conferencing, and internal and external live chat integrations that you can choose from once you upgrade to its Premium or Ultimate Plans and with a variety of ready-made integrations, business growth is inevitable.

When it comes to scalability, however, Vonage’s good integrability record gives your business the opportunity to scale, earning an average of 4.5/5 in scaling. Aside from that, Vonage offers collaboration features, such as team messaging, document sharing, and video conferencing will allow you to improve the efficiency of your services. Adding communication features, such as call queue, ring groups, call barge, and call whisper will require an additional charge but despite the additional charge, adding these to create an optimal service is what makes it such a scalable system.

Customer Support

There is an additional cost if you need to utilize its onboarding service. Plus, Vonage’s uptime guarantee is only 99.99%, meaning there is 0.1% chance of downtime per month, which is roughly 43 minutes. This ranks it fifth in the customer support category where they get an above average 3.4/5 score in our research. However, Vonage has various customer support channels, including a user forum, knowledge base, phone and 24/7 live chat and email support.

8×8, on the other hand, ranks first with a perfect 5/5 in this category because it offers various customer support services, including onboarding support, where they offer free online courses.

Does Vonage Have Good Customer Reviews?

Our researchers have gone through customer reviews across business review sites, such as G2, Capterra, TrustPilot and TrustRadius. Vonage’s average customer score is a solid 4/5.

These are some of what they have to say about Vonage’s service:

``Vonage has everything you need in a business telecom provider!``

What do you like best about Vonage Business Communications?

Vonage has a clean user interface. I appreciate that I can always see when my coworkers are online and can be messaged. My contact book is easily integrated with other devices, and the mobile app is a pleasure to use as well. It has allowed my personal business to flourish in the new state where I reside.

What do you dislike about Vonage Business Communications?

In my experience, Vonage numbers get flagged as Spam much more quickly than other VoIP services. There have been a few instances where the number is completely unable to be removed from any service provider’s Spam list, making it unusable. (sic)

5/5

Nathan G, Financial Advisor
Source: G2 - November 15, 2022
``Great product for small companies``

Overall: Great!!! I definitely recommend this software and even though it might seem a bit more expensive than others in the market, their quality is definitely worth it.

Pros: It is an amazing product for small companies. It has several useful features that work great for your business needs. Compared to other similar software out there, Vonage is way more reliable for your communication needs.

Cons: Even though we do love Vonage, sometimes getting in contact with customer service is a bit time consuming and tricky, but once you are connected to a customer service representative, you know you will get the help you need. (sic)

5/5

Angela Paez, GM
Source: Capterra - April 9, 2020
``Hum and echo``

We have been with Vonage Business Communications for a number of years, but are now considering going elsewhere for our VOIP system. We have had problems with our incoming calls having a hum and severe echo, and Vonage has done nothing to resolve it if you can even get hold of a person to talk to and even more, provide technical support. We have tried changing settings in our system and Modem/Router with no results. So, it seems it has run its course. (sic)

1/5

Derrick Bartelings, Computer Technical Services
Source: TrustRadius - March 16, 2022
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Verdict

With businesses struggling to emerge from the economic crisis, growth has been a challenge. However, Vonage offers essential features you can choose from to create a broad service that could help drive business growth. Its comprehensive communications technology can cater to an enterprise, but its simplicity and flexibility make it compatible with small businesses, too. So, we recommend Vonage to startups that are refusing to be left behind whose top goal is to drive business growth fast.

However, it is lacking in some important inbound communication features such as ring groups and call queue in their most basic plan. Meanwhile, GoTo Connect has all the inbound communication features available in every plan, making it the best in low-price longevity except Vonage has better scalable business solutions because they offer a variety of ready-made integrations and is even cheaper than GoTo Connect.

Written by:
Dudez Ignacio body shot image
Dudez Perez-Ignacio is a Content Writer for Expert Market, specialising in writing about phone systems and helping readers learn about innovative communication technology trends and insights, prioritizing value to help drive business growth. Researching and writing about this every day means Dudez is fluent in the complex vocabulary of business phone systems.
Reviewed by:
James draws on his 4+ years experience as a researcher to offer specialized advice on a wide range of categories from CRM to Fleet Management. He believes all businesses can grow if they use the right tools and services.