The Best Business VoIP Services for 2025
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Cloud-based voice over IP (VoIP) has long been the go-to solution for business telephony. But that doesn't mean choosing the right VoIP service is easy. Modern VoIP systems offer not just voice calling but also sophisticated call management, text chat, and video conferencing . Moreover, the AI explosion has increased the competition between VoIP vendors to a fever pitch. If you want to set up a basic business calling system, we're here to help. We've been testing VoIP services for more than a decade and can point you in the right direction. Our Editors' Choice winners, Intermedia Unite, RingCentral RingEX, and Zoom Phone, are good places to start, but there are plenty of other worthwhile options. Read on for our evaluations of the leading business VoIP services and what to consider before you choose one.
What Is a VoIP Phone System?
Traditional landline phones are a form of analog telephony. VoIP, on the other hand, brings voice calling to the digital age. VoIP systems convert voice calls into network packets and transmit them over the internet or other IP-based networks. Most also include a bridge to traditional phone systems, so the people you call don't need to use VoIP themselves (nor do the people who call you). In addition, they typically emulate the functions of traditional PBX (private branch exchange) business phone systems, such as conference calling, call routing, and call monitoring.
How Much Does a Small Business VoIP System Cost?
Most small business VoIP systems bill on a subscription basis. You pay based on the number of users (phone extensions) you need on either a monthly or yearly basis. You usually get a discount for committing to a full year up front.
Costs can vary widely, depending on the features you need. Among the products we tested, prices range from $10 per person per month for a basic service all the way up to $65 per person per month for an advanced, enterprise-grade product. Most small businesses can expect to pay about $20 per person per month.
What's the Advantage of a VoIP Phone System?
VoIP phone systems supplanted traditional PBX phone systems because they are less expensive and more versatile. Even today's residential VoIP offerings include features far beyond those of conventional telephone systems. In addition to voice calls, most modern VoIP systems integrate other features, such as call recording, conference calling, SMS/MMS texting, social media management, team collaboration , and video conferencing. As such, you could refer to them as unified communications-as-a-service (UCaaS)—we discuss this concept in more detail below.
Most VoIP solutions have evolved into managed, cloud-based services, and for good reason. Moving to the cloud helps reduce costs, increase reliability, and relieve the management burden on your organization's staff.
How to Choose a Business VoIP System
Whether this is your first time switching to business VoIP or you're upgrading an existing system, the sheer number of options can be dizzying. It's important to remember that while we've evaluated the VoIP systems in this roundup based on factors like features, ease of use, and cost, the solution that's right for your business might not necessarily be the one that looks best on paper.
Your first order of business should be to consider just how your company plans—or needs—to use its phones. For example, if your goal is to upgrade an existing PBX, replacing it outright might not be a viable option, if only because some parts of the system aren't easy to convert to softphones or even desktop VoIP handsets.
For example, suppose you're operating a heavy manufacturing environment with outdoor activities, such as a steel fabrication yard or a landscaping company. In that case, your rugged old outdoor phones may be just what you need there, and you should deploy VoIP only for office and remote workers.
Even for less extreme environments, you should consider the features you actually need—now and in the future. Without careful planning, it's easy to end up paying for capabilities you'll never use, not to mention unnecessary complexity that makes your phone system hard to manage.
A critical step in this process is to sit down with all of the stakeholders who your eventual decision will affect. Naturally, this includes the IT staff and the data security folks since your voice calls will now be data communications. However, department heads and employees who use the system to get work done should also have their say, especially those whose work drives revenue and engages customers.
You don't want to hamstring anyone's activities by skimping on features, but you also don't want to overwhelm them with options they don't understand. The best VoIP system for your business will always be one that doesn't just technically meet your employees' needs; your workers should feel comfortable using it, too.
What Are Softphones?
Traditional VoIP systems use dedicated VoIP phone equipment that sits on your desk and establishes calls via the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). But VoIP has come a long way since these humble beginnings.
Softphones are among the most important innovations that modern VoIP systems. In a nutshell, a softphone is an app that replicates all of the features of a traditional desktop business phone and often much more. What you lose in plastic hardware, you gain in functionality, including text chat and video conferencing.
At their most basic, softphones let you use the speakers and microphone on your PC, laptop, or other devices to mimic the capabilities of a desktop phone. Their screen-based interfaces make it easier to switch between communications channels, even mid-call, and they also help the system integrate with other software, such as customer relationship management (CRM) systems.
Mobility adds another wrinkle. These days, most workers are accustomed to taking calls on the go. However, using a mobile phone's built-in calling features means sacrificing VoIP's productivity-enhancing features, such as call monitoring, logging, transferring, and integrations with other apps. Many VoIP systems offer softphone apps that run on Android and iOS devices, and in some cases, these apps have full feature parity with their desktop versions. Make sure to investigate these options thoroughly if your staff includes a significant number of road warriors.
Can Your Network Handle VoIP?
Networking issues have always been a primary concern for any VoIP implementation. VoIP traffic is much more sensitive to network bumps and potholes than most general office traffic, such as web browsing. A VoIP system that doesn't have enough bandwidth leads to connection difficulties, dropped and lost calls, or garbled conversations.
Further complicating matters is the ad hoc design of many modern small-business networks. Your small office network likely consists of a few wireless routers rather than dedicated Ethernet jacks at workers' desks, making monitoring and maintaining traffic quality more difficult. At least some of your staff are almost certainly working from home , and your internal IT staff will have little to no control over these staffers' home networks.
Finally, the business VoIP systems in this roundup are all managed cloud services rather than on-premises products that mimic a traditional PBX. That's a good thing: Cloud VoIP services can potentially offer greater reliability, easier management, and more features, all at a lower cost than first-generation VoIP systems. But they also increase your reliance on the public internet for the most basic communication needs.
The upshot is that, unlike your local LAN, your company can do little to control networking conditions on the public internet. Managing your connectivity is almost entirely the province of your network provider—or multiple providers if your workforce is widespread. Often, the most you can do is to hope for the best.
Fortunately, the internet bandwidth available to homes and small businesses today is far greater than in the early days of VoIP. Check out our roundup of the best internet service providers (ISPs) to see which might be able to offer you the most bandwidth, and consider subsidizing high-speed connections for your remote workers.
What Is UCaaS?
The real value of modern VoIP systems comes from their flexibility and integration options. That's where the aforementioned unified communications-as-a-service (UCaaS) field comes in.
The features of any particular UCaaS solution vary widely from vendor to vendor. Still, most include options for online collaboration, integrated faxing , mobile VoIP, and video conferencing. But their integration possibilities are their major benefit. For example, they might integrate with your CRM system to recognize a customer's phone number or some other identifier and automatically pull up the customer's record for the technician or salesperson answering the call. It could even alert a manager to monitor the call if it's a critical client.
Other popular UCaaS integrations include help desk software and marketing automation tools. Some vendors even offer industry-specific features for specific verticals, such as healthcare.
What AI Features Are Available for Business VoIPs?
If your current phone system uses an automated menu to help route customer calls or interfaces with your website's e-commerce features, expect vendors to pitch you on artificial intelligence. Among the most common implementations is for reporting and analysis. AI tools, for example, can give you a granular understanding of call and network quality, call sentiment, and more. Automatic call transcription and summarization are also common features.
Neil McAllister contributed to this story.
