VoIP phone services are a more affordable and easy way for business owners to communicate internally and externally. Luckily, RingCentral is one of the most affordable business phone services on the market today that offers an all-in-one solution for fewer than 10 users.
RingCentral stacks up well against the other products on our list of best VoIP phone services. With a focus on being an amazing business communication platform, RingCentral offers a phone, message, and video system to bring teams and customers together.
RingCentral also offers multiple product offerings that help users improve their phone service. With a comprehensive messaging tool and customer service features, RingCentral can help you increase your clientele by providing more professional communication.
Compare RingCentral to The Best Business VoIP Phone Services
Compared to the best business VoIP phone services on the market, RingCentral comes in at number two on our top list as the most affordable all-in-one solution for smaller teams. RingCentral takes this spot because of its internal collaboration tools that support unlimited business calls.
After researching dozens of business VoIP phone services, we managed to narrow it down to the top six on the market. If you’re looking to compare different products to find the best phone system for you, see all of our top picks and check out our reviews to help you make a decision.
RingCentral: The Good and The Bad
There are pros and cons to every software, and it’s crucial to weigh these against your business needs before committing to a VoIP phone service. Here’s an in-depth look into the good and the bad of RingCentral.
The Good
Powerful Call Routing: The RingCentral phone system offers incredibly robust and customizable call routing for your company number, extensions, and departments. The call routing capabilities offer helpful routing tools and answering rules that cater to most business needs.
With RingCentral’s call routing, you can create and manage custom answering rules for any web-enabled computer or mobile. You get the choice to have important calls forwarded directly to your mobile number—and can route all other calls to the office phone, voicemail, or virtually any phone in the world.
Not only does RingCentral let you redirect calls, but it has powerful scheduling options to pair with it. With the scheduling feature, you get to customize days and hours of operation, give each employee or department separate business hours, play custom greetings, and set after-hours rules.
Extensive Features: If the call routing wasn’t good enough already, then RingCentral’s comprehensive list of features is sure to impress any business owner. RingCentral has many features for calling and mobility, administration, international, meetings, messaging, security, and analytics.
Even in RingCentral’s tier-one pricing plan, users benefit from the more basic components of its phone system. You get features like a business phone or toll-free numbers, unlimited calls within the US/CAN only, and unlimited business SMS.
However, if you’re utilizing the higher-priced tiers, you get an advanced feature catalog that completely supports business communication at its core. Some of these features include:
- Call screening
- Call delegation
- Shared lines
- Visual voicemail
- Call flip
- Vanity numbers
Intuitive Interface: The best aspect of the RingCentral phone system is how easy it is to use, making it an excellent software for beginners. RingCentral prides itself on offering a superior user experience with an intuitive and consistent interface across both desktop and mobile applications.
The RingCentral interface allows employees and administrators to easily customize and personalize the system to their liking, making it an easy platform to navigate that has a more personal touch to it.
Not only is the RingCentral system easy-to-use, but it’s easy to set up, too. The system offers a user-friendly design that lets you begin configuring in minutes.
After the setup process, there’s no need for user manuals or expensive consultants. RingCentral lets you enjoy advanced functionality almost immediately, with call management, intelligent collaboration, and industry-grade integrations.
The Bad
Fax Inconsistencies: Unfortunately, RingCentral does fall short in some areas of its system, with the fax solution being one of them. Some users have experienced critical fax inconsistencies that have, in turn, negatively affected their overall business structure.
RingCentral offers a fax solution for businesses wanting to print, scan, and send important documents with ease. Unfortunately, according to some users, it isn’t easy to navigate. There have been many reports of faxes showing up unreadable or completely disappearing from the system altogether.
Even though faxing may not be the number one priority for many businesses out there, faxing systems still play an important role in the business world. It’s not ideal for RingCentral to have such significant inconsistencies.
Limited IVR Options: Interactive voice response (IVR) is a technology that allows you to interact with a computer-operated phone system. It’s the base of RingCentral’s phone service, and unfortunately, it lacks IVR menu options outside of the higher-priced tiers.
Many users had a similar experience with the lack of flexibility and functionality the RingCentral IVR menu had. Unless you purchase one of the higher-priced plans, you cannot customize the menu with features to improve your customer service, like a call-back tool.
Instead, users are stuck with two options: letting their customers leave a voicemail or stay on hold. This lack of functionality isn’t ideal for medium to large-sized businesses that wouldn’t directly benefit from a higher-priced tier.
RingCentral Pricing and Options
Pricing is an important factor of any VoIP phone service, and it varies depending on how extensive the product is. As stated earlier, RingCentral is one of the more affordable options on our top list for small teams, with Phone.com and Freshdesk Contact Center as overall cheaper services.
Even though there are cheaper alternatives on our top list, we think RingCentral is worth the cost, as its price point for its most basic plan stands out from the rest. It also offers a 15-day free trial period for up to five users, two desktop phones, and a maximum of 50 minutes of domestic calls per user.
Let’s take an in-depth look into each RingCentral pricing tier and what each one offers.
RingCentral Pricing
RingCentral offers three different pricing plans for individual business needs. You can choose an annual plan and save up to 33% overall.
Core Plan:
The Core plan costs $20 per user per month when paid annually.
The Core subscription is RingCentral’s entry-level plan covering the absolute bare minimum you need in a business phone system. This plan is an excellent option for small teams.
Users get access to the most basic messaging and phone services that RingCentral can offer, like a business phone or toll-free numbers, unlimited calls, team messaging, and HD video and audio conferencing.
You will also benefit from features, such as:
- Call management and phone system administration
- Mobile app
- HD voice
- Call log reports
- 24/7 support
- Phone rental options (additional cost)
The Core plan is the cheapest way to access the most reliable collaboration and VoIP features you need for professional customer service.
Advanced Plan:
The RingCentral Advanced tier is $25 per user per month if paid annually.
The Advanced subscription is RingCentral’s middle-tier plan, which covers more phone and video operations. In addition, it provides access to over 300 app integrations, including Salesforce and Zendesk.
Users get access to everything in the Core plan, plus extra tools to conduct video conferencing and more extensive calls. The Advanced plan is a more affordable way to expand your system as needed.
Some other features of this plan include:
- Automatic call recording
- Popular integrations
- Unlimited audio conferencing
- Unlimted internet fax
- Up to 100 people per video meeting
The Advanced plan is an excellent option for medium-sized businesses that need more support for collaboration purposes.
Ultra Plan:
RingCentral’s Ultra plan costs $35 per user per month.
The price jump from the Advanced to Ultra plan may seem like a lot, but that’s because RingCentral offers more extensive features to build your ideal phone system.
This plan includes support for video conferences of up to 200 people, unlimited storage for files, messaging, and recordings, as well as real-time analytics. With everything needed for an efficient business phone system, it’s easy to see why this plan is a top choice.
The Ultra plan offers users:
- Device analytics and alerts
- Business Analytics Pro
- End-to-end encryption for video and messaging
- Industry-specific integrations
- Developer platform and custom integrations
The plan is perfect for mid to large-sized businesses looking for access to a more customizable and integration-friendly platform.
RingCentral Offerings
RingCentral offers a few products that relate to VoIP phone services but give various options for different user needs. Here is an in-depth look at some of the different products RingCentral offers as a VoIP phone service:
Team Messaging
Sometimes you just don’t have the time or don’t want to call each employee to schedule meetings on a busy workday. RingCentral offers extensive team messaging for all its plans—so all you need to do is send a quick SMS to reach everyone at once.
The RingCentral team messaging feature is excellent for small and large teams, as you can create dedicated threads and chat rooms for individual groups.
You also have the option to streamline your work by inviting anyone to join the conversation, where you can share files, pin documents, and connect tools with its intuitive drag-and-drop feature. And the best aspect of this product is that you can keep your personal number private.
With RingCentral team messaging, you can send texts to coworkers, customers, or even departments from a completely separate RingCentral number. You can also search archives within single and group conversations, by searching keywords and filtering results by name, email, or team.
Some other features of team messaging include:
- Collaborate live
- Check off tasks
- Switch to a phone call
- Connect your favorite apps
Team messaging is compatible with the RingCentral mobile app and desktop software.
Inbound Contact Center
If you’re looking for a product that can help extend your phone system and provide additional high-quality customer support, then RingCentral’s inbound contact center is an excellent add-on.
The contact center expansion will help business owners manage high volumes of incoming calls by connecting customers with agents who can answer any difficult questions.
As a business owner, you get access to agent management tools that help you optimize agent schedules to minimize downtime. You also get real-time insights to see who performs their best with reports, agent monitoring, and in-depth customer surveys.
With the omnichannel option, you get to speed up services with call routing, optimize productivity by handling multiple digital and voice interactions, resolve issues faster with skill-based routing, and deepen customer relationships with personalized routing.
You can benefit from a variety of other contact center features, including:
- Screen and voice recording
- Agent scoring
- Feedback forms
- Visual reports
- Real-time dashboards
Because RingCentral’s contact center is a separate expansion, there are four different plans, though you’ll have to contact the sales team for pricing.
- Essentials: Voice-only CX with advanced routing capabilities.
- Standard: Advanced Omnichannel CX with voice and digital.
- Premium: Advanced Omnichannel CX with basic Workforce Engagement.
- Ultimate: Advanced Omnichannel CX with advanced Workforce Engagement.
RingCentral Hardware
For users who need to build out a physical office space, RingCentral offers a variety of hardware for different business needs.
From VoIP desktop phones and adaptors to headsets and receptionist-specific hardware, RingCentral has everything you need to make your business space more seamless.
Hardware rental is only available for users who purchase multi-year contracts and are an additional cost on top of your annual plan. Most desktop phones start at $3.99 per month, with an increase in price for more advanced models.
However, RingCentral offers cordless and conference phones as options, too—which are often more expensive, starting at $7 per month for cordless phones and $34 per month for conference phones.
RingCentral also offers a wide variety of headsets for the ultimate way to answer and receive calls. Most of these headsets are connected via Bluetooth and offer HD audio and pairing.
If you don’t want to purchase or rent RingCentral hardware because you already have your own, that works perfectly, as it lets you use your VoIP desk phones, laptops, and headsets. You can check phone compatibility on RingCentral’s website before purchasing a plan.
Comparing The Best Business VoIP Phone Services
You can find more of an in-depth analysis of our top six best business VoIP phone services by reading our top list.
- Nextiva – Best VoIP phone service for most businesses
- Ooma Office – Best for businesses without in-house IT
- RingCentral – Most affordable all-in-one solution for fewer than 20 users
- Grasshopper – Best mobile app for solopreneurs and small teams
- Phone.com – Best if you need fewer than 300 minutes per user
- Freshdesk Contact Center – Best for customer support teams
Overall, RingCentral is an excellent business VoIP phone service, specifically for smaller teams. It’s affordable, starting at $20 per month, with extensive product offerings like team messaging and an inbound contact center for extra professional customer support. With advanced features and an intuitive interface, anyone using RingCentral is sure to improve their phone system and internal communication.
