The 6 best VOIP providers for small businesses

By Henry Williams on Small Business UK – Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs

Remote working remains a big part of our lives, and while many companies are mandating that their employees spend a higher proportion of their weeks in the office, a hybrid approach looks to be the future. And with that comes the need for crystal clear communication between teams and with customers, whether in the office or not.

VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is the perfect solution for scattered teams. Not only does it allow you to make voice and video calls through your broadband connection, but it also offers a plethora of features that can streamline operations and boost productivity.

But with dozens of providers to choose from, how do you decide which one is best for you? We’ve compared the competition to bring you our pick of the 6 best VoIP providers for small businesses. 

1. Virtual Landline
2. bOnline
3. RingCentral
4. Vonage
5. Nextiva
6. Dialpad

Virtual Landline

Pricing

• Local phone numbers and national numbers: Starting from £4.50 per month (including VAT)
• 0207 or 0208 London numbers: Starting from £10.00 per month (including VAT)
• 0800 numbers: Starting from £11.95 per month (including VAT)
• Multi-user office numbers: Starting from £6.95 per month (excluding VAT)

Virtual Landline provides virtual phone numbers and office phone systems designed to suit businesses of all sizes. Whether you need a London number, a freephone option, or something that scales as your company grows, it’s a great choice for startups, relocating businesses, or teams with remote staff.

You can also transfer your current number to Virtual Landline or pick a memorable one to strengthen your brand identity. Calls are easy to manage through the intuitive app, or you can simply forward them to any landline or mobile. Best of all, Virtual Landline is one of the most cost-effective VoIP services available.

Key features

• Call forwarding, hunt groups, call queues, recording, and transfers
• A wide selection of UK local numbers (01 and 02 prefixes) to build a local presence
• Unlimited UK calls to mobiles and landlines (depending on your plan)
• Low out-of-plan call rates
• Free desktop and mobile apps
• Number porting so you can keep your existing number
• Memorable number options to boost brand recognition
• Video conferencing with Virtual Landline Office
• Call centre wallboard statistics
• Easy-to-use self-service portal
• UK-based customer support

Integrations

• CRM platforms such as HubSpot, Sage, Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce, Zoho and more
• Compatible with various devices, including smartphones and desktops, for unified communication

bOnline 

Pricing

• Starter: £7 per user per month
• Unlimited calling: Currently £9.95 per user per month (usually £13.95)
• Unlimited calling (with desk phone): £15.50 per user per month

bOnline targets startups and growing businesses, offering a VoIP system that delivers enterprise-style communication tools at a budget-friendly price. Their Starter plan begins at £7 per user per month + VAT, making it one of the more affordable VoIP options in the UK.

bOnline helps you enhance your professional image, with business hours settings, personalised voicemail greetings, and call flows so that calls go to the right place every time. You can also make and receive calls from any device and turn any call into a video meeting, and you get a minimum of 100 outbound landline minutes. 

Of course, bOnline also includes many of the advanced features you’d expect from a modern VoIP service. Even on the starter plan, you get HD voice and video, conferencing, messaging, document sharing, and international calling (from around 1p per minute) – a total of 40 VoIP features. On the unlimited and Unlimited calling plus plans you get an additional five or more features.

Key features

• Business hours scheduling
• Custom voicemail greetings & voicemail-to-email
• Call flows / routing
• Call forwarding & transfers
• Call queues
• Call recording (on demand with higher plans)
• Music on hold
• Interactive voice response (IVR) menus
• Extension dialling
• Call reporting & analytics

Integrations

Salesforce, HubSpot, Google, and more

RingCentral 

Pricing

• Essentials: £12.99 per month
• Standard: £19.99 per month
• Premium: £24.99 per month
• Ultimate: £29.99 per month

If you’re looking for a great all-rounder, look no further than RingCentral. More than 400,000 businesses make use of its simple and affordable VoIP service to manage their daily communications.

Leveraging the cloud PBX system (which means you don’t need any expensive on-premise hardware), as well as high quality voice calls, RingCentral offers unlimited instant messaging, video calling, and SMS. 

It also offers its customers 24/7 support through live chat and over the phone, and hundreds of integrations with essential business apps, including Salesforce and Zendesk. All of this on the most basic tier. Higher tier plans include on-demand call recording, unlimited audio conferencing, custom roles and permissions and hundreds of participants in a video call.

Key features

• 24/7 customer support
• Team messaging
• 100 – 4,000 inclusive minutes per user depending on plan
• On-demand call recording
• Video call and conferencing for up to 200 participants depending on plan

Integrations

Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Slack, and more.

Vonage

Pricing

• Express: £10 per user per month
• Core: £15 per user per month
• Max: £25 per user per month

Supported in more than 40 countries and with over 96 world numbers for local and inbound calling, Vonage unified communications service is a great solution for global businesses. 

Vonage offers customers more than 30 call features on the most plan, including voice call, virtual receptionist, and call monitoring, and video call and collaboration on desktop and mobile, with the ability to record and share meetings. More advanced plans include CRM integration, unlimited calls and Microsoft Teams compatibility.

And if you need hardware such as a desk phone, Vonage also offers competitive prices on compatible business phone providers.

Key features

• Call forwarding, transfer, and monitoring
• Virtual receptionist
• Desktop and mobile app
• Video meetings and collaboration 
• 96+ world numbers

Integrations

Salesforce, Microsoft Teams, Slack, and more

Nextiva 

Pricing

• Core: £11.25 per user per month
• Engage: £18.75 per user per month
• Power Suite: £56 per user per month

Nextiva gives you everything you need to manage team and customer conversations all in one place, as well as a variety of helpful customer experience and productivity tools. 

Nextiva’s fully-cloud-based VoIP phone service gives you unlimited calling, faxing, and SMS, as well as virtual voicemail and auto attendant. You can also hold unlimited video and audio meetings with teams and guests, and present, screen share and file share within the app or browser, which makes it easy to collaborate. The most advanced plan, Engage, adds an inbound call centre, intelligent virtual assistant and skills routing, and more.

Finally, Nextiva also offers a sales CRM integration to manage leads and opportunities, and a helpdesk to manage customer service requests. 

Key features

• Unlimited voice and video calls
• Video conferencing 
• Screen Sharing 
• Auto attendant 
• Mobile and desktop SMS/MMS

Integrations

HubSpot, Salesforce, Microsoft, and more 

Dialpad

Pricing

• Standard: £12 per user per month
• Pro: £20 per user per month
• Enterprise: Contact sales

Dialpad is a unified business communications platform, offering a range of features to support both local and global businesses. 

Even on its most basic plan, it offers unlimited calling, SMS, and MMS, as well as AI meetings for up to 10 participants. You also get auto attendant, visual voicemail, and custom call routing and call forwarding, as well as 5 hours of HD video and audio meeting time for up to 10 participants. The Pro plan adds advanced integrations, 24/7 support, and local or international numbers.

On more advanced plans you get local number support in more than 70 countries, multiple phone numbers per account, and global SMS. Phone support is also only available on the pro and enterprise plans.

Key features

• Unlimited calling 
• Web and chat support
• Auto attendant
• Custom call routing
• HD video and audio meetings

Integrations

Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Zendesk, and more.

Next steps

Now that we’ve summarised the best VoIP providers currently in the market, you should have a good idea of the different features and pricing available.

For a virtual landline or a virtual office solution solution, try Virtual Landline and see how Virtual Landline can transform your business. 

Or you can simply answer a few questions using the form below to receive free, tailored quotes for your business.

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