8 Best RingCentral Alternatives for 2023

RingCentral is a leading provider of cloud-based business communication and collaboration solutions. Despite its popularity, small businesses find its feature-rich platform too expensive and overkill for their basic call management needs. Many RingCentral alternatives in the market offer more affordable monthly plans, straightforward feature inclusions, customization options, and a user-friendly interface.

Based on our expert assessment, we came up with the top RingCentral competitors:

• Nextiva: Best for customer experience management
• Dialpad: Best for artificial intelligence (AI) voice capabilities
• Vonage: Best for flexible a la carte service plans
• Grasshopper: Best for toll-free number sharing
• 8×8: Best for unlimited international calling
• Phone.com: Best for fluctuating call volumes
• Avaya Cloud Office: Best for robust third-party integrations
• Ooma: Best for home-based solopreneurs

RingCentral & Best Alternatives at a Glance

Nextiva: Best Overall for Customer Engagement

We chose Nextiva as our overall best RingCentral alternative because it provides an all-in-one solution for business communication, collaboration, and customer management. It offers a set of features to organize customer communication in one place so you can quickly address queries, automate surveys, and reduce the costs associated with third-party applications.

Rivaling RingCentral’s unified communications (UC) capabilities, Nextiva offers a business phone system, video conferencing, team messaging, and online faxing. On the downside, Nextiva’s maximum meeting duration of 45 minutes may be too short for teams hosting lengthy meetings. A better Nextiva alternative is 8×8, which provides unlimited meeting access for up to 500 participants.

Nextiva Monthly Pricing at a Glance (per User)*

• Essential: $30.95 for unlimited local calling, 45-minute video meetings, 1,500 toll-free minutes, auto-attendant, call history, hold music, call group, team chat, and dashboard
• Professional: $35.95 for multi-level auto-attendant, 3,000 toll-free minutes, 1,000 sent and received SMS/MMS, and customer relationship management (CRM) integrations
• Enterprise: $45.95 for 12,500 toll-free minutes, 2,000 sent and received SMS/MMS, voicemail transcription, and call recording
• Free trial: Seven days

*Save up to 22% with annual billing

Nextiva Features

• NextivaONE app: A seamless desktop/mobile app experience that manages all conversations, including voice calls, video meetings, or team chat, within a single screen. All communication features live together with customer experience and productivity tools.
• Call presence: Displays the availability of team members, such as busy, unavailable, or ringing. Users can add a message below their status.
• Notes on calls: Take notes while on a call without switching screens. The note is automatically saved with the contact record.

Dialpad: Best for AI Capabilities

Dialpad is one of the top RingCentral competitors because of its extensive artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities for voice, video meetings, and real-time analytics. It comes with built-in speech recognition and natural language processing for delivering insights and automating workflows across employee and customer experiences. All plans include AI features like real-time call transcription, live coaching, voicemail transcription, sentiment tracking, and real-time analytics.

Additional phone numbers can be pricey with Dialpad because the monthly starting fee starts at $15 per user. Users are required to upgrade to the second-tier plan to purchase extra numbers, whether local, toll-free, or international. If you’re looking for a cheaper option, consider Phone.com, which offers additional phone numbers for $4.99 monthly.

Dialpad Monthly Pricing at a Glance (per User)*

• Standard: $23 for unlimited calling within the U.S. and Canada, custom call routing, up to three ring groups, and a maximum of five hours for video meetings
• Pro: $35 per user for hold queues, international numbers, up to 25 ring groups, and integrations with CRM tools
• Enterprise: Customized quote for 100% uptime guarantee, integrations with single sign-on (SSO) providers, and dedicated account manager and support number
• Free trial: 14 days

*The base plan fee is reduced from $23 to $15 when you choose annual billing.

Dialpad Features

• Fallback options: Determine how inbound calls are handled when no operator is available during business hours. Fallback options include voicemail, another department, or automated response.
• Visual voicemail: Provides an overview of your voicemail messages without having to listen to each message. Get hyper-accurate transcriptions, forward them in messaging threads, and share the audio and text versions of the voicemail.
• Simultaneous ring: Send incoming calls to multiple devices simultaneously. Set calls to ring on your computer, tablet, laptop, or smartphone.

Vonage: Best for a la Carte Pricing

We pick Vonage as our best alternative to RingCentral because it lets you customize plans based on your needs. With its a la carte pricing, choose from three prebuilt packages and add more features and integration as your business needs change. This saves you from the cost of paying for tools you don’t need. The prebuilt plans include 43 standard voice features, such as unlimited calls and SMS, team messaging, call forwarding, and conference call.

Unfortunately, toll-free numbers and minutes are not part of its service plans. You have to purchase toll-free numbers at $39.99 per month, which can get very pricey if you need multiple phone numbers. Consider Nextiva, which provides complimentary toll-free numbers and a generous toll-free minute allowance on all plans.

Vonage Monthly Pricing at a Glance

• Mobile: $19.99 per user for unlimited calls within the U.S. and Canada, unlimited SMS, unlimited team messaging, access to Vonage App Center, and up to 43 voice features
• Premium: $29.99 per user multi-level auto-attendant, 100 video attendees, desk phone compatibility, and CRM integrations
• Advanced: $39.99 per user for on-demand call recording, call group, and visual voicemail
• Free trial: 14 days

Vonage Features

• Do Not Disturb (DND): Temporarily prevents incoming calls from ringing your phone number. When enabled, all calls go directly to voicemail.
• Call announce: Announces the custom tag assigned to a call to inform you of the purpose of the call. The feature works with call screening, giving you the option to answer the call, transfer it to another agent, or direct it to voicemail.
• Call groups: Distribute calls to a group of phone lines to accommodate all incoming inquiries. Include agents with the same skillsets and product or service knowledge in the same call group.

Grasshopper: Best for Shared Toll-free Numbers

Grasshopper is one of the best alternatives to RingCentral for teams needing multiple numbers and extensions without the high cost. Secure different types of virtual numbers, whether local, toll-free, or vanity. Its pricing structure varies based on the number of extensions and phone lines included per plan—no monthly add-on fees. In fact, it’s the only RingCentral alternative in this list that adds more phone numbers as you upgrade to higher-tier plans.

One major drawback of Grasshopper is it lacks video conferencing and team chat, which most modern VoIP providers offer. If your company wants to centralize communication and collaboration, choose a provider like Nextiva that lets you manage all conversations in one place with phone, video, SMS, and productivity tools.

Grasshopper Monthly Pricing at a Glance*

• Solo: $31 for one phone number and three extensions
• Partner: $51 for three phone numbers and six extensions
• Small Business: $89 for five phone numbers and unlimited extensions

*All plans come with unlimited users, business texting, voicemail, custom greetings, and reporting. Save 10% with annual billing.

Grasshopper Features

• Custom greetings: Set up a professional business phone greeting reflecting your brand identity. Upload an audio recording or tap into Grasshopper’s professional voice actors in the Voice Studio.
• Voicemail transcription: Know the content of voicemail messages without playing the audio file repeatedly. Grasshopper transcribes voicemails and makes them accessible on desktop and mobile.
• Business texting: Send unlimited text messages with your Grasshopper phone number. Use the instant response feature to send automatic text messages to missed calls from new customers. MMS support is available for subscribers with local numbers.

8×8: Best for Global Communications

8×8 is a cloud-based VoIP solution for companies with high international call volumes and a global customer base. While most UC providers charge per minute for international calling, the 8×8 X-series plans include unlimited calls to 14 to 48 countries. It also provides local phone number support, allowing your business to establish a virtual presence in several countries.

8×8 doesn’t offer toll-free minutes on all its service plans. If you want customers to call your business without extra fees, consider Nextiva, which allocates more toll-free minutes with every subscription. It ranges from 1,500 on the Essential plan to 12,500 on the Enterprise plan. If you exceed your pool of toll-free minutes, Nextiva charges 2.5 cents per minute.

8×8 Monthly Pricing at a Glance (per User)*

• X2: $28 for unlimited calls to 48 countries, multi-level auto-attendant, call handling, call queues, team chat, 500 video attendees, voicemail transcription, and call analytics
• X4: $57 for unlimited calls to 48 countries, call monitoring, and supervisor analytics

*Save up to 23% with annual billing

8×8 Features

• Call queues: Place calls in a queue while your operators are busy with other calls. Queues can be set up to allow callers to stay on hold, provide their numbers for a callback, or leave a voicemail.
• Speech and text analytics: Uses automated speech-to-text transcription to collect insights from recorded voice conversations. Search for keywords and phrases to understand what makes callers happy or frustrated.
• Overhead paging: Deliver one-way audio announcements to your employees who belong to a specific paging group. This is useful for broadcasting announcements and notifying team members who have a call waiting.

Phone.com: Best for Fluctuating Call Volumes

Phone.com is a great alternative to RingCentral for its cheap monthly pricing options. Mix and match metered and unmetered call subscriptions to easily adjust plans based on the call volume requirements of your team. For example, you can pick the Basic plan during periods of low call volume and upgrade to the Plus or Pro plan during peak seasons. All plans include 50 standard voice features, such as call handling rules, greetings, and hold music.

One major disadvantage of Phone.com is that CRM integration is locked behind the highest tier, and integrations are limited to five applications, such as Zoho and Zapier. If you’re looking to integrate your phone system with your CRM system and existing business apps, choose Avaya Cloud Office. It has over 200 connected applications, including popular solutions like Zendesk, Salesforce, and ServiceNow.

Phone.com Monthly Pricing at a Glance (per User)*

• Basic: $14.99 for one phone number, 500 shared minutes, 10 video attendees, and 50 standard voice features.
• Plus: $19.99 for unlimited minutes and SMS, 25 video attendees, video recording, and voicemail transcription
• Pro: $29.99 for call analytics, call recording, 100 video attendees, and CRM integration

*Save up to 20% with annual billing

Phone.com Features

• Call analytics: Monitor peak times by measuring calls based on duration, direction, and time of day. You can also break down inbound/outbound calls by number or extension.
• Call screening: Answer the call to hear the number dialed and the caller ID. You are provided the option to accept or reject the call, and while you’re deciding, the caller will hear a ringtone.
• Schedules: Manage how incoming calls are handled based on the time and day the call is received. Route calls to different menus, greetings, numbers, or extensions.

Avaya Cloud Office: Best for Third-party Compatibility

Avaya combines its phones and services with RingCentral’s unified communications as a service (UCaaS) platform to deliver cloud services with a wide variety of communication and collaboration capabilities. Built on RingCentral’s platform with over 300 prebuilt software integrations, users can keep their existing applications and integrate them with Avaya Cloud Office. Currently, the Avaya App Gallery has 267 applications, including CRM systems, productivity tools, and messaging apps.

Since Avaya is based on the RingCentral cloud-native MVP platform, its offerings may be overkill for small teams with basic phone system needs. A virtual phone system like Grasshopper is a potential alternative as it provides all-inclusive plans for voice and SMS for a fixed monthly fee regardless of the number of users.

Avaya Cloud Office Monthly Pricing at a Glance (per User)*

• Standard: $25 for one phone number, 1,000 toll-free minutes, unlimited calls within U.S. and Canada, business SMS, visual voicemail, team chat, multi-level auto-attendant, on-demand call recording, and 100 video attendees
• Premium: $30 for 2,500 toll-free minutes, 200 video attendees, hot desking, call monitoring, real-time analytics, advanced call handling, and CRM integrations
• Ultimate: $40 for 10,000 toll-free minutes, unlimited storage, and device status alerts and reports

*Save up to 20% with annual billing

Avaya Cloud Office Features

• Reclaim call: Recover the last call at a phone that is ringing or is connected elsewhere. You can also reclaim a missed call that goes to voicemail as long as it is still presented through the system.
• Twinning: Enables a primary extension or secondary phone number to operate as a single phone. When a call is presented to the user’s primary phone, the secondary will ring. This is ideal for users who have a desk phone and a wireless extension.
• Distinctive ringing: Use different ringing sequences for specific call types. For example, an internal call uses a repeated single-ring, while an external call uses a repeated double-ring.

Ooma: Best for Home Office Phone

Ooma is our top recommended RingCentral alternative for solopreneurs running their business at home. The Ooma Basic plan is a free home phone service with unlimited calls within the U.S. and Canada, call waiting, call logs, voicemail, and E911 service. To use this service, simply purchase the Ooma Telo device that lets you connect landline phones to a network, making internet-enabled phone calls possible.

Note that Ooma’s collaboration features are not as comprehensive as RingCentral’s. It only supports video meetings for up to 100 participants, including access to remote control and meeting logs. If you think this isn’t enough for your collaboration requirements, consider Nextiva. This provider has dedicated collaboration software featuring video conferencing, screen sharing, team chat, and task management.

Ooma Monthly Pricing at a Glance (per User)

• Basic: Free for U.S. and Canada calling, call waiting, call logs, call hold, voicemail, caller ID, and call blocking
• Premier: $9.99 for enhanced caller ID, custom call blocking, advanced voicemail, call forwarding, and multi-ring

Business Phone Plans

• Essentials: $19.95 for one toll-free number, up to 50 voice features, ring groups, call blocking, and virtual receptionist
• Pro: $24.95 for SMS/MMS, hybrid ring groups, call recording, call analytics, and voicemail transcription, and 25-attendee video meetings for four hours
• Pro Plus: $29.95 for call queues, call screening, 100-attendee video meetings for 12 hours, and hot desking

Ooma Features

• Hot desking: Allows users to temporarily log into any unassigned desk phone and use it to make and receive calls as if it were their phone. This is ideal for remote teams working at different locations.
• Find me, follow me: Create rules on how you want to receive incoming calls in specific locations and which devices will ring. Forward calls to specific devices and ring them simultaneously or sequentially.
• Digital call deflection: Allow customers to shift from voice call to text message. This is beneficial for reducing customer wait times.

How We Evaluated the Best RingCentral Alternatives

To arrive at our unbiased score, we compiled a list of the top RingCentral competitors. We created a rubric using a set of criteria—pricing, general features, niche features, ease of use, customer support, and our expert rating. We narrowed down our options by choosing the top eight highest-ranking providers.

Learn how we evaluated the best RingCentral alternatives by clicking on the tabs below:

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

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Bottom Line

RingCentral is a reliable and comprehensive business phone system for scaling companies dealing with large call volumes and requiring intensive collaboration. However, if you’re looking for a potential alternative, it’s important to compare competencies in categories like scalability, unified communications (UC) capabilities, integration, and customer support.

We chose Nextiva among our list of the best RingCentral alternatives due to its seamless integration of UC capabilities with customer experience management. It features a generous toll-free minute allowance, an easy-to-use team chat platform, a built-in task management tool, and robust video conferencing. The pricing may be higher than other RingCentral substitutes, but you’ll be able to reduce costs given the discounts for annual billing and volume purchases.

Sign up for Nextiva’s seven-day free trial to determine if it suits your business needs and goals.

Visit Nextiva