If you’re thinking about using 8×8 at your organization, then you’ve dialed up a winner. Our in-depth research assessed 12 leading business phone systems in the US and crowned 8×8 as the best overall business phone system – with a total score of 4.7/5. Furthermore, our experts rated 8×8 as the best VoIP provider on the market.

When it comes to choosing a VoIP (voice-over-internet protocol) system, we recommend comparing five key factors: inbound and outbound communication features, pricing, integrability, scalability, and customer support channels. So let’s find out why our researchers placed 8×8 atop our business phone systems ranking in this 8×8 review.

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Expert Rating

4.7

Best For

Overall Auto Attendant Phone System

Price

$24 -$140 per user, per month

8×8’s Pros & Cons

Pros

Extensive customer support
Comprehensive features
Enhanced security
High scalability

Cons

Expensive higher plans
Mediocre customer score

✔️Extensive Customer Support

Our researchers gave 8×8 a perfect 5/5 customer support score, tying with RingCentral in this key area. This is because 8×8 provides various customer support channels, including a user forum and knowledge base articles. You can also reach its customer service through live chat, email, and phone. Best of all, 8×8 provides 24/7 live support, so you can quickly get support during emergencies.

8×8 also offers onboarding assistance to help you set up your system at your workplace. Besides that, a customer success manager (CSM) can help you adjust the system and transition to different packages as the needs of your business grow.

✔️ Comprehensive Features

Offering the best list of features, 8×8 takes over the game with an outstanding score of 4.8/5 for features. It’s the highest score in our ranking, with Vonage coming in second with a score of 4.5/5.

8×8 beat Vonage in several features. First, 8×8 provides customizable greetings, a virtual receptionist, and ring groups across all plans, while Vonage only offers them on its mid to high plans. 8×8 also offers power dialer, predictive dialing and auto dialer at an additional cost, whereas Vonage doesn’t offer them at all. Plus, you can get call barge and call whisper for free with 8×8’s X2 plans and higher, while Vonage charges an additional cost for these features. Vonage also lacks some features that 8×8 offers, such as task management, customizable SLAs, call transcripts, call flow designer, and teams you can set up in your VoIP.

✔️ Enhanced Security

Tying with Google Voice, 8×8 also ranks first for security. 8×8 is complete in compliance certificates, giving you the assurance that it’s strict in abiding by data privacy laws. You’ll also get multi-factor authentication and strong TLS/SRTP encryption to protect your information.

As an extra layer of protection, 8×8 also enforces password rules and user permissions when you subscribe to X2 or higher plans. All these security measures protect you from unauthorized and fraudulent activities that can cost your business a lot of money.

✔️ High Scalability

Scoring 4.9/5 for scalability, 8×8 ties again with RingCentral in first place in this ranking. Our researchers assessed 8×8 as super scalable for the following reasons:

All plans allow you to set up localized and toll-free numbers, so anyone from any state can call you for free.
You can collaborate with your team easily with team messaging, document sharing, and video conferencing across all plans.
Although 8×8 limits you to just 10 users on its Express plan, you’ll get unlimited users when you upgrade to X2 and higher plans.
X2 and higher plans get call queues and ring groups to help you better manage a large volume of calls.
Auto dialer, call recording, call transcripts (for an additional cost), and analytics reports to help you manage your calls are available from X2 plans and up.
You can get advanced features such as call barge and call whisper for an additional cost when you get on the X4 plan or higher.
You can enjoy advanced management functionalities like customizable SLAs, task management, and teams for X6 plans and higher.

❌ Expensive Higher Plans

While 8×8 has an Express plan, which starts at $15 per user, per month, more advanced plans can range from $85 to $140 per user per month. RingCentral, which goes neck and neck with 8×8 for capabilities, has a steeper starting plan (Essentials) at $19.99 but offers its most advanced plan (Ultimate) at only $59.99. That’s $80 cheaper than 8×8’s most advanced plan! For this reason, 8×8 only gets a pricing score of 2.5/5.

❌ Mediocre Customer Score

Pooling the reviews from G2, Capterra, TrustRadius, and Trustpilot, 8×8 receives an average customer score of 3.5/5. Most criticism involves how its customer service handles complaints.

How Much Does 8×8 Cost?

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8×8 Express	8×8 X2	8×8 X4	8×8 X6	8×8 X7	8×8 X8

Price $15/user/month	Price $24/user/month (paying monthly) $32/user/ month (paying annually)	Price $44/user/month (paying monthly) $57/user/ month (paying annually)	Price $85/user/month (paying annually)	Price $110/user/month (paying annually)	Price $140/user/month (paying annually)
Key Features Up to 10 users Unlimited domestic calls Number porting Call conferencing (up to 100/meeting	Key Features Everything in the Express plan Call conferencing (up to 500/meeting) Voicemail to text Call queue Ring groups E-fax Analytics/ Reporting	Key Features Everything in the X2 plan Call monitoring	Key Features Everything in the X4 plan Task management Power dialer (additional cost) Predictive dialing (additional cost) Auto-dialer (additional cost)	Key Features Everything in the X6 plan Co-browsing Chat, email, SMS, and social media channel integrations	Key Features Everything in the X8 plan Outbound preview campaign dialer

Comparing prices from all 12 business phone systems, our researchers ranked 8×8 in 7th place, with a pricing score of 2.5/5. This low score is due to the steep prices of its more advanced plans (X6 – X8 plans). These cost between $85 to $140 per user, per month when paid annually. That’s quite high when compared with RingCentral – whose overall score of 4.7/5 comes a close second after 8×8’s – as its most sophisticated plan is only priced at $59.99 per user, per month.

Regardless, if you’re looking for the best value for your money, Zoom Phone offers plans from $10 to $20 per user, per month. These are the most affordable business phone system plans you can get, ranking first in our pricing analysis with a perfect 5/5 score in this category.

However, Zoom Phone gets a lower 4.5/5 next to 8×8’s 4.7/5 overall score. This is because Zoom Phone offers limited customer service. While you can get online support from user forums and knowledge base articles, you have to pay extra to get Zoom Phone’s live chat, email, and phone support. Add to this the fact that onboarding and 24/7 live support are not available for Zoom Phone users, whereas 8×8 offers all these support channels across all plans.

That said, 8×8 offers the biggest range of plan options with six pricing tiers, whereas RingCentral only offers four and Zoom Phone offers three. This means there’s an 8×8 plan for most budgets and business sizes. Likewise, with a greater choice available, you can choose a package that more closely suits the needs of your business.

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8×8’s Standout Features

Customer Success Manager

8×8 offers customer success managers (CSMs) to help you manage your ever-evolving needs. These experienced technical experts can help you from onboarding to scaling globally. From the get-go, your CSM will help your team understand your business phone system, helping you maximize its features and increase productivity.

They’ll also conduct periodic business reviews to help you improve your usage and guide you as your business evolves, identifying performance blockages and workflow inefficiencies. They’ll provide solutions to correct these, so your business is quick to adapt to its changing demands. The catch is, it’s unclear whether CSMs are available on every plan or only on certain plans.

AI-powered Virtual Assistant

8×8 also provides AI-powered virtual assistants (VA) that automate the management of high-volume calls. These VAs will also help you provide self-service solutions to your clients, so your agents are freed up to focus on complex issues. Your virtual agents can also analyze data for every transaction. This includes speech analytics on all of your calls to spot customer behavior patterns and provide appropriate responses.

What Kind of Business is 8×8 Best For?

Tallying all the critical factor scores from our research, we’ve found that 8×8 is the best overall phone system for its impressive list of features, customer support, security, and scalability. For this reason, it’s likely that any business of any size will do well with 8×8, with plans for small to large-scale businesses.

If you’re starting a small business, you won’t have to pay for features you don’t need. That said, if you go for its more advanced plans, you’ll be treated to a feature-packed system that can manage your growth and a large volume of customers.

Our research also determined that 8×8 is the best phone system for sales teams, based on its aggregated scores for customer support, features, external connections, and price. Although it got a low pricing score, 8×8 has the top score for customer support, so it’s easy to seek help when you experience system issues. It ranked first for features, which means you have access to advanced functions that will help you manage your team and have the potential to increase your sales productivity. Plus, you have a wide variety of external connections, making it easier for you to integrate the software your sales team is already using. This is why we recommend 8×8 if your business is focused on growing its sales team.

How Does 8×8 Compare With Other Phone Systems?

Our team of experienced researchers analyzed 12 business phone systems using four key factors: inbound and outbound communication features, pricing, integrability and scalability, and customer support channels. Now, we’re going to dig deeper into how 8×8 compares to other VoIP systems in these factors.

Platforms	8×8	Ring Central	Vonage	Zoom Phone	Ooma	Nextiva	Goto Connect	N2P US	Dialpad	Nuacom	Google Voice
Features	4.8	4.2	4.5	4.0	4.1	3.9	3.4	3.6	4.4	3.3	2.6
Pricing	2.5	3.5	3.8	5.0	3.5	3.8	4.3	4.5	4.0	3.5	4.0
Integrability	4.2	4.3	3.5	3.7	2.7	3.3	2.6	2.8	2.4	2.9	2.8
Scalability	4.9	4.9	4.5	4.3	4.1	2.9	4.4	3.1	3.3	3.8	2.9
Customer Support	3.5	3.5	4.0	4.7	4.4	4.2	4.4	3.8	4.4	4.6	4.4

1. 8×8’s Inbound and Outbound Communication Features

Analyzing the features of the 12 business phone system providers, 8×8 ranks first fo features, scoring 4.8/5 in this category. It provides a long list of inbound communications features across all pricing plans, including customizable greetings, a virtual receptionist, and localized toll-free numbers. 8×8 also offers advanced features like voicemail-to-text, call queue, and ring groups from its second-lowest plan and above.

Vonage comes in close at second place with a 4.5/5 features score, with voicemail-to-text and call queue at an additional cost. With cheaper plans and features you can add for a fee, Vonage lets you choose the advanced functionalities you want to include to your plan. .

8×8 and Vonage offer almost all the same outbound features, including set caller ID and external video calling. The difference is that Vonage only provides SMS/chat and e-fax for an extra cost, while 8×8 offers them free. Moreover, 8×8’s call conferencing can hold up to 500 users per meeting, while Vonage only has a 30-user capacity.

2. 8×8’s Integrability and Scalability

8×8 ties with RingCentral for scalability, and is only marginally behind RingCentral when its comes to integrability.

Of the 12 providers, 8×8 comes in second, behind RingCentral, with an excellent 4.2/5 score for external connections. Both providers have helpdesk integrations with Salesforce, Hubspot, Freshdesk, and Zendesk. They also have ready-made integrations with Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365, and Google Workspace. But the reason why RingCentral comes at the top is that it can integrate with up to 97 CRM integrations, while 8×8 only has ready-made integrations with 12. 8×8 also lacks integrations with analytics platforms, whereas RingCentral can integrate with 57 of them.

For scalability, our research found 8×8 and RingCentral tied for first place. They both offer similar scalability features with an almost perfect score of 4.9/5. This is due to the extensive communication, collaboration, and management features both 8×8 and RingCentral offer. For example, both provide localized toll-free numbers on all their plans, allowing clients to reach you anywhere in the country without cost.

8×8 also offers features – like call queue and ring groups starting on it X2 plan – to help you handle large call volumes when your business grows. 8×8 also provides call barge and call whisper starting at X6, helping you supervise conversations between your team and clients. Meanwhile, RingCentral offers all these advanced features on its Premium and Ultimate plans.

3. 8×8’s Customer Support Channels

Our research sees 8×8 share the top spot with RingCentral for customer support, with a perfect score of 5/5. Both providers offer extensive customer support channels, such as a user forum, helpful online articles, chat, phone, and email. Best of all, both provide 24/7 live support, so you can reach out to customer service at any time, on any day of the week. You can find this on 8×8’s second-lowest plan and up, as well as across all plans for RingCentral.

The main difference is when it comes to onboarding support. RingCentral only provides onboarding support on its three most expensive plans. Whereas, with 8×8, you can get onboarding support from its customer success managers – although it isn’t clear which plans CSMs are included with.

Does 8×8 Have Good Customer Reviews?

To back up our research, we also gathered the scores from the most trusted customer review sites: G2, Capterra, TrustRadius, and Trustpilot. 8×8 has an average customer score of 3.5/5. Users praise 8×8 for being easy to set up. Moreover, they love its mobile app, making it a good alternative for desk phones, especially when employees start working remotely. The main complaints revolve around buggy functionalities and unhelpful customer support. Let’s take a look at some helpful reviews below:

“My Company works in the clinical trials sector and read the reviews on the 8×8 sales and support services, which left me in some doubt as to whether they may be the right choice! My experience was 100% excellent with both sales and support departments. They were courteous, well trained on their products, patient with me as I’m new to VoIP telephony and above all followed up every request for a call almost immediately.

Put it this way, it’s as good a service as I have seen. Don’t be put off by 3-star reviews. Certainly, try them for yourselves, James was my point of contact. Thank you James. Cheers Brian” (sic)

Brian Murray, 8x8 user

- July 14, 2022

“Excellent service provided from Stuart Woodfall. Initially, I spoke to Sav who was very informative and efficient. Then Stuart Woodfall took over and provided the best customer support ever! He was always available, helpful, professional and friendly. Nothing was a problem for him. He even set up a zoom meeting and shared screens to show me how to set up another user, etc. He did follow up calls not just emails, which is a blessing nowadays! He went above and beyond to say the least. I would highly recommend 8X8 and their service is phenomenal. Thank you very much Stuart.” (sic)

Leah Young, 8x8 user

- March 14, 2022

How We Reviewed 8×8

We've researched and tested 10 market-leading VoIP phone systems, evaluating them in terms of functionality, usability, cost and security options, so we can make the most useful recommendations to US businesses.

Using our in-house research framework and ranking process, we evaluated each VoIP system across seven core categories of interest, each weighted differently, and then combined the results to come up with a final score.

Our main testing categories for VoIP products and services are:

Cost: The pricing structure associated with the VoIP service, such as monthly subscription fees, call rates, setup fees, hardware costs, and any additional charges for add-on features or services.
Call features: The functionalities and capabilities offered by the VoIP service, including basic features such as call forwarding and voicemail, as well as advanced features like auto-attendant and conference calling.
External connections: The VoIP service's ability to connect and integrate with external systems or devices, such as compatibility with existing phone systems or integration with mobile devices.
Customer support: The assistance and resources provided by the VoIP service provider to customers, including technical support, online resources, and access to customer support representatives.
Security options: The measures and features implemented by the VoIP service to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and protection of voice communications and data.
Scalability: The ability of the VoIP service to accommodate the growth and changing needs of an organization, e.g. capacity to handle a growing number of users or support multiple locations.
Reputation: External customer opinion; the feedback and ratings given by customers who have used a particular VoIP product – the market position and reputation a VoIP software holds.

Verdict

8×8 offers the broadest list of call features and high scalability, so it will flourish in organizations that want to grow through their sales teams. Having an easy set up and strong customer support will also fit well in businesses with high staff turnover and those wanting to onboard quickly. It also offers the biggest range of plan options, which means you’ll have choices that fit your budget and the size of your business.

Speaking of prices, you might be put off by the amount you have to shell out for 8×8’s top plans. If you prioritize value for your money over features, then Zoom Phone could be the better choice for you. Zoom Phone plans range from $10 to $20 per user, per month, giving you the most affordable plans and a decent number of features.

However, if you need a business phone system that gives the best performance, we recommend 8×8. Rated first in features, customer support, security, and scalability by our researchers, 8×8 certainly can meet the demands of your business.

If you’re still unsure about choosing 8×8 as your business phone system, why not try our free quote-comparison tool? Just answer a few questions about your needs, and we’ll match you up with trusted providers, who will get back to you with quotes that are customized for your business. It’s a quick and easy way to find the best systems for you and compare how much they’ll cost.

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