RingCentral Alternatives & Competitors
With the rise in remote work trends, more businesses are migrating to VoIP (voice over internet protocol) and unified communications (UC) from traditional communication channels such as calls and emails. VoIP offers flexible and cost-effective solutions to businesses to communicate with their teams and make international calls to collaborate with their customers.
Though RingCentral has been the leading feature-rich VoIP platform for decades, many businesses are looking for more budget-friendly alternatives and competitors that can fulfill their team needs.
Jump to:
- What is RingCentral?
- Best RingCentral alternatives and competitors
- Key features to look for in RingCentral competitors
- Choosing the right VoIP software
What is RingCentral?
RingCentral is the industry’s leading cloud-hosted VoIP unified communications provider, offering remote work solutions to your teams by combining mobile, video, and phone (MVP) features in one single app. With its click-to-dial functionality and one-click video conferencing, it ensures that your teams can always stay connected anywhere, anytime. Other features include
- Wide range of PBX tools and features
- Increased global productivity with free international extensions dialing and inbound dialing
- Seven layers of security, 99.999% uptime SLA
- Dedicated customer support and technical support
- 24/7 monitoring and optimizing to ensure cloud communication security
- Its open API enables integration with over 200 key business apps such as Salesforce, Microsoft, and Google
- Premium voice and video quality with real-time analytics
- Reduce cost and increase ROI with a one-bundled solution
- Closed caption and voice transcription technology
- Integrates AI into several features
- Mobile app for Android and iOS for easy access
RingCentral offers 4 pricing plans namely Essentials ($19.99/user/month), Standard (($27.99/user/month), Premium (($34.99/user/month), and Ultimate (($49.99/user/month); when billed annually.
But these features don’t always cut it for every company. To help you find the right tool for your needs, these are our top RingCentral alternative picks.
Also Read: 5 Questions to Ask About Small Business VoIP
Best RingCentral alternatives and competitors
We have compiled a list of common RingCentral alternatives and competitors for you to make an informed decision while choosing the right VoIP for your business.
Nextiva
Nextiva is a simple, reliable, and affordable cloud-housed VoIP provider that allows businesses to effectively communicate with their employees and customers through voice, video, chat, SMS, surveys, and other AI and automation features. With its ease of use and setup as well as tons of built-in business intelligence tools and apps, you can focus on building better customer relationships instead of worrying about technical details.
Nextiva made a significant transition from a phone-centric to a unified communication platform with the launch of NextOS that harnesses the power of AI and ML for three products: Nextiva Service CRM, Nextiva Chat, and Nextiva Surveys. Also, Nextiva Conversational AI couples natural language processing (NLP) with AI to generate human-like response to queries to deliver rich customer experience. Regardless of these noteworthy features, some users faced issues with connectivity, integration, texting, dropped calls, app glitches, customization, international billing, and chat support features.
Ooma
Though available for businesses of all sizes, Ooma is the cost-effective VoIP as well as UCaaS (unified communication as a service) solution for small businesses and work-from-home setups. Ooma is a standalone device that neither requires a computer nor any software to install. With its desktop app and mobile app, your team can collaborate and work from anywhere.
On the downside, Ooma lacks certain advanced features as compared to competitors. Users complained about an occasional drop in call quality, connectivity issues, basic faxing options, limited call functionality, and availability of important features at higher costs.
Dialpad
Dialpad is another strong AI-powered cloud communications service provider built on the Google Cloud Platform. Dialpad provides four product offerings to businesses namely Dialpad Talk, Dialpad Meetings, Dialpad sell, and Dialpad Contact center. Dialpad Talk is a business phone system that offers integrated voice, video, and messaging features as well as advanced features such as voice recognition and call monitoring.
With web and video meetings, screen sharing, and voice intelligence features, Dialpad Meetings allow businesses to collaborate with their employees and customers from anywhere. Dialpad easily integrates with several tools and apps including GSuite, Salesforce, Zendesk, and Office365. However, Dialpad still needs to work on improving reporting and analytics features, better customization, lag and connectivity issues, and offering more budget-friendly options on its subscription plans.
Vonage
Vonage Business Communications (VBC) is a powerful VoIP platform that provides a wide range of unified communication and collaboration features to businesses. From basic voice call and text communication to Vonage Meetings and Vonage App Center, Vonage can provide for most business communication needs in a single app.
SmartWAN, Vonage’s SD-WAN solution, maintains the quality of shared bandwidth for businesses’ day-to-day operations. It also eliminates the need for additional cost of multiples firewall systems and also provides a self-service customer portal for company’s communications. On the downside, some users complained that transcription can be inaccurate at times and some faced issues with connectivity and mobile app. Also, the call recording feature isn’t available in the standard plan.
Grasshopper
Grasshopper is a full virtual phone system that allows entrepreneurs and small businesses to add a second phone number to their existing cell phone; enabling them to keep their personal and professional life separate. Grasshopper is particularly helpful for solopreneurs or small enterprises who require basic virtual communication functionality without paying a hefty amount for a VoIP software suitable for large enterprises.
Beyond the basic features, Grasshopper lacks advanced capabilities as compared to other vendors such as intuitive interface, customization, and video conferencing. A few users faced issues with syncing and transferring files, calling and texting, call forwarding, delays in voice transmission, spam texts, caller ID, quality, and app glitches.
8*8
Mainly aimed at global connectivity, 8*8 eXperience Communications platform is another major player in the unified cloud communication space. It offers unlimited calling within the US and up to 48 countries (highest tier plan), business texting, video conferencing, embedded communications, team chat, and a number of high-quality VoIP features.
With a dedicated phone number, and features such as an auto-attendant, scheduled calls, and intelligent call routing, you’d never miss a call from your customers. Some users faced issues with the customer support, admin console, integrations, billing, maintenance, updates, troubleshooting, and access to guides and tutorials.
Also Read: Small Business VoIP: Easier, Cheaper, Better than Ever
Key features to look for in RingCentral competitors
So far, we have established that having VoIP for your business is a powerful tool that is the backbone of business communication and effective team collaboration. It not only saves cost but also provides increased productivity, accessibility, network flexibility, mobility of services, higher scalability, advanced features for your teams, and integration with other business systems. Following are some of the core features to look for within VoIP software:
- Voice calls
- Conference calls
- Call management, monitoring, and analytics
- Call routing, screening, transfer, rejection, queue, speed dial
- Video and web conferencing
- Do not disturb (DND)
- Custom ringtones & music on hold
- Instant messaging & IVR
- Extension dialing
- SIP Trunking
- Fax and alerts
- Softphone
- Voicemail to email and text
- VoIP Switchboard
Choosing the right VoIP software
With hundreds of VoIP software available in the marketplace equipped with tons of significant features, it might become overwhelming for you to choose the right one for your business. Not all VoIP providers offer the same features. It’s important to assess your team and business needs as well as budget constraints before making the final purchase decision.
As most of the VoIP software offers free trials and demos, so it’s always a good idea to take some of these products for a test drive with your team before you buy one.
