Best Vonage Alternatives 2023 | Feature & Price Comparison

After extensive testing of business phone systems, our research reveals that 8×8 is the best Vonage alternative. 8×8 has a better range of CRM and helpdesk integrations than Vonage, and scored full marks for security, integrations, and customer support, in our impartial testing – areas where Vonage was found wanting.

However, 8×8 isn’t the only Vonage alternative out there. RingCentral rates as our best VoIP provider overall and is definitely worth a look if you operate in the retail, hospitality, or healthcare sectors, while Ooma provides an excellent customer experience.

Keep reading to compare all the best Vonage alternatives, or use our VoIP cost calculator to get a custom VoIP quote for your exact business needs.

In this guide:

• Best Vonage Alternatives: Table
• Best Vonage Alternatives: Reviews
• Should You Choose Vonage Anyway?
• How to Choose the Right VoIP system for your business
• Methodology: How We Test Vonage Alternatives
• Verdict: 8×8 is the Best Vonage Alternative
• Top Vonage Alternatives FAQs

The Best Vonage Alternatives in 2023

If you’re looking for the best Vonage alternatives, the first thing you should know is that finding the right solution for your business is all about knowing what you’re looking for. The strength of Vonage is its excellent training features, with easy-to-use call recording, transcripts, and call monitoring making it ideal for retail, sales, and customer service staff – plus it’s cheaper than many top providers, including 8×8 and RingCentral. Don’t forget, our free tool means you can easily compare VoIP phone system prices.

However, as highlighted in our full Vonage review, both RingCentral and 8×8 fared better in our VoIP software testing, due to their excellent value. RingCentral is our best-rated VoIP provider overall, as well as the best provider we tested for customer service, retail, hospitality and healthcare, while 8×8 is best-suited for sales teams.

Here are the five best Vonage alternatives right now:

• 8×8 – Best Vonage alternative and the best VoIP system for sales teams
• RingCentral – Best overall VoIP provider, best for customer service, and more
• Ooma – Better customer experience than Vonage
• Nextiva – Better than Vonage for professional services
• Net2Phone – Cheaper than Vonage, great for international business

Scroll down for a comparison between each one and Vonage.

1. 8×8 vs Vonage

The Best Vonage Alternative
Pricing from: $24 per user, per month
Tech.co Rating: 4.6/8

8×8 was the best Vonage alternative we tested and the second-best business phone system overall. It performed better in our research, receiving an overall score of 4.6/5 compared to Vonage’s 3.8/5 because of its superior VolP features, external connections, customer support and security safeguards.

While 8×8 will be a stronger choice than Vonage for most businesses, it’s industry leading call monitoring and recording tools and free training features make it an especially good fit for sales teams – as long as they’re willing to pay a slight premium for the package.

On all of 8×8’s plans, there are unlimited domestic inbound and outbound calls. There used to be a 10-user limit on its 8×8’s first paid plan, the Express package, which meant businesses or teams with more staff would have to compare other VoIP plans. Now, that plan has been discontinued, so all 8×8 plans cater to any number of users.

As Vonage alternatives go, 8×8 would be our top pick for those looking to switch providers. 8×8 has more training tools than Vonage, and it doesn’t charge extra for them which is one of the key reasons we rated it as a better VoIP provider for sales teams.

Just like Vonage, 8×8 offers features like call monitoring and call recording tools for training staff, but we found it to have better video conferencing infrastructure and a better range of CRM integrations too.

Useful additional features offered by 8×8 include a Call Whisper (for monitoring), call transcripts, call recording, and analytics/reporting tools, whereas Vonage doesn’t have transcripts on any plans or recording on its cheapest plan.

Many of these management features factored into the reason we gave 8×8 a higher scalability score (4.9/5) than Vonage (4.5/5), as well as the wealth of useful software integrations 8×8 has. As mentioned, 8×8 also scored better for security, although Google Voice trumps all other providers for security, if that’s your main concern.

This guide doesn’t include Google Voice, but if it’s an option you’re interested in you can check out our Vonage vs Google Voice guide to learn more.

8×8 pricing

The only real downside is that 8×8 is a more expensive piece of kit, and the first 8×8 plan doesn’t include all those training features mentioned above – so you’ll need to invest heavily to see the real value. How much you’re willing to spend on software might sway your decision.

If you’d like to find out if either 8×8 or Vonage (or another provider) is truly the best fit for your business, find tailored VoIP price quotes using our free comparison tool, to find the best deal.

X2 ($24 per user, per month)

This plan has no user limit and a lot of features, including voicemail-to-text, call queues, and voicemail transcription, 24/7 live support, and a number off handy analytics tools. There’s a Microsoft Teams integration for communications and video conferencing. This plan also has unlimited calls to 14 countries including Australia, the UK, Canada, and the US, and is cheaper than Vonage’s second plan ($29.99 per user, per month).

X4 ($44 per user, per month)

This plan offers unlimited calling to 48 countries, which is fantastic news for large businesses that have a global client base. Features like call barge, call whisper and call monitoring are also included in this plan, which makes it a better prospect for sales teams and other businesses that are planning to do a lot of on-phone training to improve conversations. The most comparable Vonage plan is its Advanced plan ($39.99 per user, per month).

X6 ($85 per user, per month)

This is the first plan with a task management feature, and there are several other communication features (like predictive dialing) that larger companies dealing with high volumes of calls would find useful, although they’re only available at an additional cost. Like the X4 plan, you’ll have unlimited calling to 48 countries.

X7 ($110 per user, per month)

The X7 plan by 8×8 is one of the most fully featured products our research team reviewed, with a huge range of communication, management, and conversation features, plus a full suite of security provisions and integrations. There are chat, email, and SMS options too.

X8 (140 per user, per month)

There isn’t a huge amount of difference between this plan and the X7 plan, aside from quality management, speech analytics, screen recording, and multi-screen monitoring, so will be best suited to teams where oversight of call management is important.

2. RingCentral vs Vonage

The best business phone system overall
Pricing from: $20 per user, per month
Tech.co rating: 4.7/5

RingCentral topped our business phone system testing with an impressive overall score of 4.7/5 because of its solid VoIP features and third-party connections. Also, RingCentral offers a number of customer support options Vonage lacks, including 24/7 live support, which is why we awarded the Vonage alternative a stronger category score (5/5 vs 3.4/5).

On top of this, RingCentral has more capacity for adding a range of integrations and includes collaboration features (which Vonage doesn’t have) that will help growing businesses. Because of this the VoIP provider received a stronger scalability score than Vonage in our research and testing (4.9/5 vs 4.5/5).

Our research team concluded that both Vonage and RingCentral would be good fits for retail, healthcare, and customer service teams, but that RingCentral is just that little bit more impressive in all cases.

For instance, RingCentral scored better than Vonage in our security research category (4/5 vs 3/5) because it offers multi-factor authentication and strict password rules. This it better at safeguarding sensitive data that would cost you millions if it was mishandled, lost, or stolen.

RingCentral pricing

Vonage and RingCentral plans start at $19.99 and $20.00 per user, per month respectively, but RingCentral has a line limit of 20 before you’ll have to contact sales to discuss pricing, whilst Vonage sets no user limit. 8×8 used to have a cheaper starting plan than both Vonage and RingCentral at $14.99 per user, per month, but now, its first paid plan is more expensive than both of its rivals ($24 per user, per month).

Use our free tool to find out which one is the best fit for your company, or learn more about RingCentral’s pricing below.

Core ($20 per user, per month)

On this plan, there are plenty of inbound comms features like spam prevention and a virtual receptionist, as well as video conferencing capabilities. There’s also the full range of customer service options (bar onboarding support) you get on all plans. Downsides include the fact there are not many management or training-focused features nor any software integrations to write home about, so we’d advise going for the Advanced plan.

Advanced ($25 per user, per month)

On this plan, the user limit is removed (now unlimited) and the inbound minutes are upped to 250 per month. There are also call monitoring features like call whisper and CRM integrations with popular platforms like Zendesk. Larger businesses (and businesses without dedicated IT teams) will appreciate the onboarding and implementation support included in this plan (as well as the Core plan). This costs extra with Vonage, which also makes it available on all of its plans.

Ultra ($35 per user, per month)

Big differences between this plan and the Advanced plan include its unlimited storage, 8-digit extensions, and real-time analytics to help your business learn more about how it functions. There’s also end-to-end encryption for video and messaging too, which can naturally be crucial for businesses expecting to make sensitive calls with important clients, and 10,000 toll-free minutes available. It still comes in at less than Vonage’s most expensive plan, however, which is $39.99 per user, per month.

3. GoTo Connect vs Vonage

A great VoIP for scaling businesses
Pricing from: $24.00 per user, per month
Tech.co rating: 4.2/5

GoTo Connect was only marginally beaten by Vonage in our last round of testing. However, GoTo offers a number security options Vonage lacks, multi-factor authentication, which is why its security score is stronger (4/5 vs 3/5).

According to customer reviews, GoTo Connect is more popular among its base – receiving a customer score of 4.4/5 compared to Vonage’s 4/5. GoTo and was one of the best business phone systems in terms of value for money when compared with other providers’ offerings, and while the two providers both earned 3.4/5 for their customer support, GoTo offers onboarding support at no additional cost, unlike Vonage.

However, Vonage has a better set of features overall. GoTo’s first tier plan is quite limited when compared to Vonage’s, and it doesn’t have certain training-focused conversation features (like Call Whisper) available on all plans, like Vonage does.

Another place where GoTo Connect falls down when compared to Vonage is in its integrations, of which it really doesn’t have many. There’s only really Salesforce and Zoho for CRM integrations, for example, whereas Vonage offers many more options, and so do providers like 8×8 and RingCentral.

GoTo Connect pricing

Basic ($24.00 per user, per month)

On this plan, there’s no user limit and unlimited domestic calls, as well as a full range of inbound communication features. There’s not a huge number of integrations on offer, but there’s a decent set of collaboration features including team messaging and video conferencing. There’s a phone and email line for customer support too as well as onboarding assistance. It’s not as cheap as Vonage’s first plan, however ($19.99 per user, per month).

Standard ($29.00 per user, per month)

There are some handy additional features on this plan including E-fax, call recording, and analytics tools, plus free international inbound and outbound calling to over fifty countries, which is even more than 8×8 offers (48).

4. Ooma vs Vonage

Best for customer experience
Pricing from: $24.95 per user, per month
Tech.co score: 4.1/5

Ooma didn’t score as highly as Vonage on our last round of business phone testing, with a score of 4.1/5 overall compared to Vonage’s 4.3/5, preventing it from appearing further up our list of Vonage alternatives. Ooma’s lower score was largely down to its poor security safeguards, but it’s still worth exploring whether it’s the best fit for your business.

However, Ooma offers the best customer experience out of every VoIP provider we researched, largely because of its excellent customer reviews which earned it a customer satisfaction score of 4.4/5, compared to Vonage’s 4/5.

Unlike Vonage, Ooma also offers 24/7 live chat and phone support and has “Customer Success Managers” to help with onboarding and other queries. Vonage charges extra for onboarding support, but does facilitate email support – a channel that Ooma currently lacks.

Aside from that, our research found than Vonage is a superior VoIP phone system. It has more management features (like call monitoring) available on its plans, for example, which helped it gain a better scalability score (4.5/5 for Vonage compared to Ooma’s 4.1/5).

Ooma also scored poorly for security (1/5) – the provider isn’t HIPAA compliant, whereas Vonage is, and the provider doesn’t display any compliance certifications on its site, despite them being an important aspect of VoIP security. On top of this, Vonage has user permission capabilities, whereas Ooma doesn’t. This poor security score means it’s just not as useful as Vonage for sectors that deal with customer and/or client data.

Ooma pricing

All of Ooma’s plans have unlimited domestic inbound and outbound minutes, as well as no user limit – so for businesses of all sizes, it’s worth taking a look at Ooma.

Ooma Office ($19.95 per user, per month)

Ooma’s first plan has a solid selection of inbound and outbound communication features – and is priced very similarly to the Vonage Mobile plan ($19.99 per user, per month) – but a lack of management and conversation features like a Call Whisper or Call Transcripts means it’s not the best Vonage alternative. You do, however, get Ooma’s full range of customer support options (bar onboarding). There aren’t any software integrations available on this plan, however.

Ooma Office Pro ($24.95 per user, per month)

On this plan, spam prevention and voicemail-to-text are added to the already large list of communication features, as is external video calling. This is the first Ooma plan with a call recording capability and video conferencing. There are integrations, but only for email and workspace.

Ooma Enterprise ($27.99 per user, per month)

On this plan, CRM and Helpdesk integrations are added in the form of Salesforce, MS Dynamics, and Zendesk. There’s also onboarding support – provided by “Customer Success Managers”, and collaboration features like a team messenger and document sharing.

Ooma Enterprise Call Center ($49.99 per user, per month)

This plan adds a Call queue to the list of communication features, as well as a call flow designer. Aside from that, it’s hard to split this from the Enterprise plan, although a call flow designer will reduce your number of missed calls meaning this plan would suit larger businesses receiving increasing numbers of calls.

To learn more more about Ooma and Vonage pricing stacks up, check out our full Ooma vs Vonage guide.

5. Nextiva vs Vonage

Great for professional service teams
Pricing from: $18.95 per user, per month
Tech.co rating: 4.1/5

Vonage is a slightly better provider overall than Nextiva, because of its superior VoIP features and larger selection of external connections. However, when researching Vonage alternatives, Nextiva came out on top when it came to customer support, and security.

Vonage offers more scalable packages too. As mentioned previously, our scalability scores are determined by specific features that businesses will need to grow, from security provisions to protect data, to collaboration features to promote efficient group work. Integrations with other software are also important, and Vonage has slightly more than Nextiva.

Notably, Nextiva has no capacity for external or internal live chat integrations, and you can only integrate with web conferencing software on Nextiva’s most expensive plan. You can do this with Vonage on all of its plans, although it does come at an additional cost. To be fair to Nextiva, it does have a better set of its own collaboration tools than Vonage, which may explain why communication integrations aren’t as numerous.

Nextiva has more in-house collaboration features when compared with Vonage, and other providers, which are key for many of the industries mentioned above, whereas Vonage has more training-focused features like Call Whisper, which is why it’s better for teams that require training (e.g. customer service).

Nextiva still remains one of the better options for professional services, including consultants, contractors, designers, and creative service teams, whilst Vonage is better suited to sales, retail, and customer service teams, based on the features each provider prioritizes. Consultants, for instance, have to be easily contactable by their clients, and Nextiva provides a great solution for low-volume inbound communications. It has a virtual receptionist, voicemail features, ring groups, and multiple ways to contact staff (like call groups).

Nextiva pricing

Nextiva includes unlimited domestic inbound and outbound minutes on all its plans, and no user limits on any packages, so bear that in mind when contrasting it with other business phone systems.

Essential ($23.95 per user, per month)

This Nextiva plan has basic inbound communication features and some outbound comms features, but compared to other providers on this list, it’s a bit of a thin offering. There is, however, a good range of customer support options and collaboration features like team messaging and document sharing.

Professional ($27.95 per user, per month)

On this plan, there’s everything on the Essential plan plus video conferencing, CRM, and helpdesk integrations, as well as call conferencing with 40 participants and an SMS/chat function. Vonage’s second plan ($29.99 per user, per month) also has call conferencing, but there’s a cap on 30 participants and it costs extra.

Enterprise ($37.95 per user, per month)

There’s no limit on call conferencing on this plan, and there’s also an MS Teams integration and  Single Sign-on function. This is the first Nextiva plan with a call recording function.

6. Net2Phone vs Vonage

Great for international businesses
Pricing from: $19.99 per user, per month
Tech.co rating: 4.2/5

Net2Phone’s overall score of 4.2/5 falls slightly short of Vonage’s 4.3/5, but Net2Phone is great for international businesses. It’s an all-around cheaper alternative to Vonage too – with the most expensive Net2Phone plan for teams of 10-24 costing just $31.99 per user, per month, with free international calling to over 4o countries on all of the provider’s packages.

While Vonage has better VoIP features, Net2Phone is best for international businesses, and was one of the the best value VoIP provider we tested (scoring 4.5/5 for pricing). To compare exact price quotes for your business’ needs you can use our VoIP price comparison tool.

A large reason why Net2Phone appeared last on our list of the best Vonage alternatives, is because it doesn’t have any features that will improve the staff’s on-phone manner; there’s no call whisper function allowing managers to give live feedback to their employee, for example, or features that will let other users join the call when needed (call barge).

In contrast, Vonage has capabilities for both. There are no custom call lists or external video calling on any of Net2Phone’s plans either, which Vonage has. These missing features somewhat account for the lower price.

Our VoIP software research team did conclude that Net2Phone’s packages were a little more scalable than competitor Nextiva – but still, not as scalable as Vonage, which is better for growing businesses.

Both Net2Phone and Vonage offer adequate security but Net2Phone does have the edge, with an updated scored of 4/5 in our latest round of testing because of its multi-factor authentication protections. This places the provider in line with other Vonage alternatives like RingCentral and 8×8 who both score 4/5 and 5/5 respectively.

Net2Phone also gained a better customer support score than Vonage (3.9/5 vs 3.4/5) – thanks to its 24/7 live support, which Vonage doesn’t offer. Net2Phone also offers onboarding assistance on all plans for free too, whereas this is only available with Vonage for an additional cost.

Switching to a VoIP service can save businesses anywhere between 30% and 50%. If you’re looking to make savings towards higher end of this bracket, Net2Phone will be a great Vonage alternative to switch too. Learn more about the providers pricing below.

Net2Phone pricing

As mentioned previously, all of Net2Phone’s pricing plans come with free international calling to over 40 countries, which is a lot more than other competitors featured in this article, making it the best bet for international businesses. There’s also no user limit on any of Net2Phone’s plans.

N2P Office ($21.99 per month)

Net2Phone’s most basic tier includes every VoIP feature small businesses need to get started including unlimited nationwide and international calling, a plethora of calling features — from call recording to time-based greetings — video conferencing, and SMS/MMS text messaging.  

N2P Office Pro ($24.99 per month)

This package includes everything in the N2P Office package with additional receptionist console support.

N2P Office Power ($31.99 per month)

Office Power offers everything in the previous plans with additional virtual fax features, a live chat widget, and CRM or API integrations for businesses looking to extend the VoIP software even further.

Prices listed are for businesses with teams of 10-24.

Should You Choose Vonage Anyway?

If you’re not already a Vonage customer, looking to switch, you might still want to consider Vonage as an option. Or, if you are a Vonage customer, you might have it better than you think. Scoring 4.3/5 overall in our research and testing, Vonage was ranked as the third best business telephone systems we tested, only bettered by RingCentral (4.7/5) and 8×8 (4.6/5).

The provider’s weighted customer score of 4/5 was actually higher than Vonage alternatives RingCentral and 8×8, which both scored a 3.5/5. This means that a lot more users end up satisfied with Vonage’s software in the end. Vonage fairs marginally better for pricing too, with lower overall costs than RingCentral and 8×8.

Vonage is a great fit for customer service and sales teams who will need to train their staff and provide feedback about their on-call manner, thanks to a number of useful training features. Vonage also provides very useful onboarding assistance so you’ll be able to get set up quickly and efficiently. It also proved to be one of the more scalable products we tested, and it has no user limit on any of its plans so would suit growing businesses too.

Of course, there are definitely areas for improvement. Vonage doesn’t have multi-factor authentication options or any password rules for staff, for instance, which meant it lost marks when it came to security, despite having a decent list of compliance certifications, and there are better Vonage alternatives for handling sensitive data. There’s also no 24/7 live support, which many other providers do offer.

How to Choose the Right VoIP System for Your Business

Choosing the right VoIP system for your business is no easy task, especially with so many things to consider, from pricing to integration with your existing software.

• Where are you making calls too? You’ll need to consider if your business is going to be making exclusively domestic calls, or will you be expecting inbound and outbound international calls from other countries? If your business has an exclusively US or North American customer base, for instance, you won’t need to worry about free calling to international numbers, or how many countries are covered by the provider.
• What integrations does the provider offer? Another thing to consider is integrations, and whether a provider integrates with other software you use, such as an existing CRM system. If you use Microsoft Teams, Zoom or Slack for internal communications, then you’ll want to know if they can connect with your VoIP setup, as you may not want to transition to another comms platform, just for the sake of your VoIP system.
• Do you require scalable software? Next, you’ll want to consider if your business is going to be expanding in the near future, and if so, then you’ll want to consider how scalable a given piece of VoIP software is and how many employees there are in your company. For example, if your team’s soon increasing from 10 to 30, then picking a plan with a user limit of 10 might make sense for now, but not later. Plus, the more customers, clients, or patients’ data you’ll be handling, the better security features you’ll need, and the more compliance certificates it’ll be useful if your provider has.
• How strong is the customer support? Another thing you may want to consider, on top of these key areas, is customer support and if you’ll need onboarding assistance, which might be the case if you’re a big business. Whether you need conference call features, or features to train staff with, may also be important and will differ depending on what sector you’re in. So be sure to look out for that when you’re reviewing Vonage alternatives.
• What security safeguards are available? Healthcare teams will be handling sensitive and confidential data, so might prioritize security, whereas a retail or sales team might prioritize a provider with call recording and call monitoring functions in order to provide feedback to staff on their on-phone manner.

Methodology: How We Test Vonage Alternatives

Top Vonage Alternatives FAQs