bOnline Review: Small Price, Big Potential?

A UK-only company, bOnline describes itself as a “VoIP For Small Business Heroes” on its website – but does it stack up against the best VoIP providers on the market today? I tested bOnline’s platform hands-on to find out how it really performs when it comes to setup, usability, and everyday call handling.

In this bOnline review, I’ll walk through what it does well, where it falls short, and whether it’s a good fit for small teams looking to modernise their phone systems without blowing the budget.

bOnline Review: Setup, Interface, and Navigation

Getting started with bOnline was refreshingly straightforward. After entering my details and verifying my email address, my account was up and running within minutes – no need for a long onboarding process or setup call.

Once logged in, I landed on a clean welcome page featuring a helpful Quickstart guide. This included short videos and tips pointing me to key areas like Phone Settings, Call Flows, and User Management. For first-time users, this was a nice touch – it gave me a quick overview of where things live and how to get started without digging through menus.

Interface and Layout

The interface is relatively minimal, which helps avoid overwhelm. The left-hand sidebar provides access to all major areas of the platform, including:

• Home (detailing an overview of your account, including a 30-day call summary)
• Details (of your purchased product)
• Phone Settings (with various dropdown sections for setting up call flows, users, and more)
• Call Recordings (manage and download your recordings)
• Call Reports (review call activity and trends)
• Billing (overview of your financial accounts)
• Order tracker (an overview of hardware orders, number transfers, and appointments) and Shop (to purchase desk phones, cordless phones, and headsets)
• Chat support (which pops up a chat window in the bottom right-hand corner) and Help (for all other help guidance resources)

Each section is clearly labelled so that you’ll be hard-pressed to feel lost in the system. Features are where you’d expect them to be, and the visual hierarchy – especially in areas like the Call Flow editor – is well thought-out.

bOnline Review: What Features Does It Offer?

bOnline pitches itself as a VoIP system made for small business owners, and overall, I’d say it delivers a solid toolkit – though not without its quirks. Below is a breakdown of how I found the core features during testing.

Choosing your number, adding users and creating extensions

Setting up a phone number was quick. bOnline assigns one by default, but you can easily search for a more relevant local number by town name, postcode, or area code (like 020 for London). You can also buy ‘Silver’ or ‘Gold’ numbers for £3 per month or £20 per month, respectively, to get a more premium or exclusive business number (albeit, I didn’t notice heaps of difference from browsing the two options).

Adding users was easy, in theory. You go to the ‘Users and Devices’ tab and hit a button to create a new user. That part worked, but I had to wait around five minutes before the new profile was usable/editable. Not a huge deal, but that delay could throw you off if you’re onboarding a team quickly. Once the user was live, editing contact details and permissions was simple enough.

8×8 Work and GoTo Connect felt faster and more seamless for user provisioning in comparison, especially at scale, but bOnline should still get the job done for small teams.

Adding desk phone hardware

If you’re planning to use physical desk phones, your choice is restricted. bOnline only supports Yealink and Polycom hardware officially. As long as I input the correct MAC address and link it to the right user, the process should be straightforward, but you’ll need to be a little hands-on.

The limited hardware compatibility could be frustrating if you’re switching from a system using other brands like Cisco or Grandstream, as they aren’t guaranteed to work. GoTo Connect, for instance, supports a wider range of hardware and offers better flexibility here.

That said, bOnline’s Windows and Mac desktop apps work well as softphones, and for many businesses, that’ll be more than enough.

Importing contacts

bOnline includes a contact import tool under the ‘Company Contacts’ section, which is ideal if you’re transferring from another system or have an existing customer database. You’ll need to use their CSV format for uploads, and although it took about a minute to download the sample file, formatting and reuploading my contacts was smooth from there.

I appreciated that bOnline provides a sample template – that’s more guidance than some providers give. Still, it’s a slightly more manual process than the likes of 8×8 Work or Google Voice, both of which offer more direct syncing with third-party tools and contact lists.

Call flow setup and management

Call routing and flow tools are one of bOnline’s stronger areas. From the main dashboard, I could define working hours for each day and assign different behaviours to calls, like routing to a specific user during open hours or sending calls to voicemail outside of them. You can also toggle welcome and closed greetings depending on the time of day.

For more advanced call routing, bOnline charges £3 per month (with a free first month), which unlocks custom call flows. I tested this out and found it impressively intuitive. There are two premade templates – one for call queuing and one for interactive dial menus – or you can build your own using a drag-and-drop map interface.

I built a custom call tree with menu options like “press 1 for sales” and “press 2 to repeat”. It felt more user-friendly than similar features in Vonage or Dialpad, and on a par with RingCentral’s IVR editor.

You can also add queue audio and music using a simple four-option interface: text-to-speech, recording, upload, or from a prebuilt library. I used the text-to-speech tool and appreciated the ability to preview the voice output before confirming it.

Calls, recording and voicemail

Incoming calls appear clearly in the web app and trigger a ringtone on your connected device. I tested this using the Windows app and web app side by side – both worked as expected, though the desktop app felt noticeably quicker and more responsive than the web version. It’s a stripped-back experience, designed for simplicity rather than extensive control.

Under the ‘Phone Settings’ section, I could customise voicemail options like the ring time before redirect, a personalised voicemail greeting, and whether messages were emailed automatically as audio files. I also enabled hold music here – a nice touch, particularly if you’re managing any kind of customer support.

Call recordings are available on demand (depending on your plan) and are stored in both the call recordings tab as logs, or within the call reports tab we’ll discuss shortly.

Still, bOnline doesn’t offer more advanced call handling features like whisper, barge, or live monitoring that platforms like RingCentral and 8×8 Work include on their mid-to-high tier plans. So, while it ticks the boxes for recording and basic voicemail, it’s not designed for deep performance tracking or real-time training.

Call reports and trends

Once I’d logged a few calls, I was able to access bOnline’s reporting dashboard. The summary view gives you a quick look at key metrics – number of outbound, answered, and missed calls, plus average call length. If you’re a small team just keeping tabs on general activity, this is more than enough.

I appreciated that recordings are shown under each individual call in a dropdown format – it means you don’t have to dig far to confirm a listed call is about what you think it is. Otherwise, you’d have to corroborate calling data with recordings and switch between the tabs constantly.

For a closer look, there’s a second tab that displays your data in chart format – I used this to review call volumes by time of day and compare week-to-week activity. The graphs are clear and well-labelled, and help you identify patterns at a glance.

That said, there’s no real-time dashboard or heatmap-style interface, which you’d get from more enterprise-level platforms like 8×8 Work or GoTo Connect. It’s a trade-off between price and depth, but for most microbusinesses or solo users, what’s here is likely sufficient.

Internal communication tools

Besides calling tools, bOnline includes basic team communication tools, depending on the plan you choose. Video calling is supposed to be available on all plans apart from the Starter, and the Unlimited Calling and Unlimited Calling Plus tiers also unlock screen sharing and team chat.

However, I couldn’t find any of these tools on the web app or the desktop app, leaving me to ask customer support for guidance. Here, I was informed that bOnline doesn’t offer video conferencing at the time of writing, despite what it says on its own pricing page. A customer agent told me:

We have updated to the 3.0 version of our software so, at the moment, video conferencing is not available. It is on the list to be updated. However, we do not have a time frame as to when this feature will be available.

As such, I didn’t use this feature during testing, and should this be an essential feature for your business operations, you’ll either need to use a third-party option or opt for a different integrated VoIP solution that supports it (all of our other top-rated VoIP plans should).

Still, I liked that on the Windows app, you have all your chats, calls, and voicemails in one place, so you can easily understand your communication history across all domains with a customer, client, or colleague.

Video conferencing isn’t the only missing communication tool, though, with bOnline also without SMS tools or any social media tools (unlike providers such as GoTo Connect).

Ultimately, if multi-channel collaboration is a core part of your VoIP workflow, bOnline isn’t the best choice. But if you just need to hop on a call with a colleague occasionally, and don’t require SMS or social media support, perhaps you can make do with a free alternative like Microsoft Teams or Zoom for video calls, while using bOnline for its supported channels.

Integrations

bOnline advertises over 200 customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) integrations, which sounds great until you realise they’re not managed inside the main app. Instead, you need to log into a separate site called the CloudCTI Portal using your bOnline credentials.

From there, you can select from prebuilt integrations (like HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho, and QuickBooks) or set up a custom connection. I tested a basic integration with Zoho CRM and it worked without issue, though jumping between platforms felt like a slightly unnecessary extra step.

RingCentral and 8×8 Work both offer smoother native integrations that live directly inside their web or desktop apps, which is a better user experience. So, while bOnline does get you connected to a good range of platforms, it’s not quite as seamless as some of its competitors.

bOnline Review: How Much Does bOnline Cost?

bOnline keeps its pricing straightforward, with three main plans – Starter, Unlimited Calling, and Unlimited Calling Plus – tailored to small UK businesses. Here’s how they compare, based on my experience:

Are there any add-on costs or setup fees?

Yes, bOnline does offer the opportunity to upgrade your package with add-ons. Here’s a table listing all those publicly discussed:

Does bOnline offer a free trial?

Yes, bOnline offers a free seven-day trial on all plans. Since its plans are mainly geared to smaller-scale businesses, that’s very useful to test the waters before committing financially.

How does bOnline’s pricing compare to other providers?

At £9.95 per month for unlimited UK calls, bOnline’s middle-tier plan is one of the most affordable we’ve assessed at Expert Market. While it can’t match RingCentral or 8×8 for advanced features like whisper, barge, or multi-channel integrations, I think it makes for a great entry point if you want a no fuss VoIP setup.

bOnline Review: Help Resources and Customer Support

bOnline offers a solid range of support options, especially if you’re confident with self-service and don’t need urgent out-of-hours help. Although if your team frequently needs technical assistance or works beyond a standard business weekday schedule, its support hours could be an issue. Let’s dive into why that is.

Live Chat, AI Assistant and Live Agents

Most of the time, I used the built-in AI chat tool accessible via the MYbOnline sidebar or at the bottom-right of the screen. It was surprisingly capable. When I asked about an issue with calls hanging up, the chatbot returned six possible causes and included a support email for follow-up. It is also linked to help articles in the Knowledge Hub, which houses a solid range of tutorials and walkthroughs.

For straightforward questions, like setting up voicemail or routing rules, the AI was genuinely useful. It’s not perfect, but it often gave me the right answer faster than waiting on a human agent. And if it couldn’t answer my questions, it seemingly automatically directed me to a human agent (such as when I asked about video conferencing, mentioned earlier in this review), who provided me with quick and straightforward answers.

Knowledge Hub

The self-serve support articles are well organised and clearly written. During testing, I was able to troubleshoot contact imports and advanced call flows using these guides without having to contact support directly. Each article includes screenshots and step-by-step instructions, which help reduce any guesswork.

Compared with RingCentral or GoTo Connect, which also have large support libraries, bOnline’s Knowledge Hub is less extensive, but it covers the core use cases well enough for small businesses.

Business Hours

If you need to speak to someone, via chat, email, or over the phone, bOnline’s support team is available:

• Monday to Friday – 09:00 to 18:00
• Saturday – 10:00 to 14:00
• Sunday – No support available

That’s not a huge window, especially if you’re running a business outside standard working hours or over the weekend. After 2pm Saturday, you’re effectively on your own until Monday morning, unless the AI chat tool can help.

By contrast, providers like RingCentral and 8×8 offer more comprehensive support hours and real-time agent chat on most plans. This is arguably the main issue with bOnline’s customer support for young businesses that are working around the clock to succeed.

bOnline Review: What Alternatives Are There To bOnline?

While bOnline offers solid value for small businesses, it’s not the only option out there. Below are a few leading UK VoIP providers I’ve tested, and how they stack up against bOnline’s Unlimited Calling plan (£9.95 per user, per month + VAT).

➡️ RingCentral – Best for growing teams that need advanced features

Price: From £14.99 per user, per month (Essentials) to £29.99 (Ultimate, billed annually)

RingCentral is one of the most comprehensive VoIP platforms in the UK. On its higher-tier plans, it includes advanced tools like call whisper, barge, live analytics dashboards, and integrations with over 300 apps, including Salesforce and Microsoft Teams.

In testing, it felt more powerful than bOnline – but also more complex. Setup takes longer, and pricing is significantly higher. However, if your team needs detailed training tools, omnichannel communication (such as WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger), or advanced reporting, RingCentral outclasses bOnline across the board.

Best for: Medium-to-large businesses with a focus on support, sales, or customer success.

➡️ GoTo Connect – Best for flexible hardware and communication modes

Price: From around £18 per user, per month

GoTo Connect impressed me with its broad hardware support, working with Polycom, Cisco, Yealink and more – not just the limited devices bOnline supports. It also includes SMS/MMS messaging and good collaboration tools like video conferencing and screen sharing.

Its CRM integrations aren’t as deep as RingCentral’s, and it restricts coaching features like whisper and barge to its more costly plans. But if you’re after wide device compatibility and a modern communications setup, it’s a strong alternative.

Best for: Businesses already using non-standard VoIP hardware or wanting multiple communication modes (voice, video, SMS).

➡️ Google Voice – Best for simplicity and Gmail-based teams

Price: From $10 per user, per month (Starter plan; £7.49 using current conversion rate)

Google Voice is a lightweight option if you already use Google Workspace (and you must have Workspace, or you can’t use Google Voice). It’s fast to deploy and integrates tightly with Gmail, Google Calendar and the whole Google Suite (that means Google Meetings, too, which bOnline can’t currently offer).

If you don’t have Workspace already, pricing starts from £5.90 per user, per month for its Starter plan, with Voice acting as an add-on that starts from $10 per user, per month (or around £7.50 at the time of writing).

That said, it’s very limited in terms of calling features – there’s no advanced call routing, IVR, or customisable greetings. You also can’t use it with UK landline numbers unless you’re already porting one in.

As such, it felt a bit too lean for most use cases by comparison to other platforms like bOnline, but it’s worth considering for solo founders or micro-teams working entirely in the Google ecosystem.

Best for: Freelancers or very small teams using Google Workspace who want a no-fuss solution.

How We Reviewed bOnline and Other VoIP Software