Cheapest VoIP Providers: Top Cheap Phone Plans For UK Businesses

The cheapest VoIP plan for UK businesses is Virtual Landline at £6.95 per user, per month. It’s a stripped-back, mobile and desktop cloud phone that covers the essentials, which makes sense if you just need a single professional business number and basic call handling, without paying for a full unified communications suite.

With the UK’s PSTN switch-off scheduled for January 2027, sticking with legacy landlines is now a business risk. Opting for the cheapest Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) plan can be a smart upgrade here, but only if the plan’s fine print (such as contract terms, minimum users, add-ons and number porting) makes sense for your team.

In our guide, we’ve found the lowest-cost plans from trusted VoIP providers we’ve researched and tested, flagging the extra costs that typically change the listed monthly price, like metered outbound minutes, paid call recording, CRM integrations and hardware restrictions.

* Google Voice pricing is only available in USD (converted to GBP); you must be a Google Workspace user which costs an additional fee.

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1. Virtual Landline Office Lite: Cheapest VoIP Plan for UK Businesses

Virtual Landline Office Lite is the cheapest VoIP plan we found for UK businesses at £6.95 per user, per month (undercutting our previous cheapest UK option, bOnline Starter), and it’s built for small teams that want a modern phone system without paying for unnecessary features they won’t touch day-to-day.

You’ll have a 12-month contract minimum, which then moves to a 30-day rolling contract, thereafter.

Office Lite is designed around one main business number that can be used by multiple people via extensions (so you can still route calls to different users). It also uses per-minute pricing and minute bundles, depending on what you agree to.

If you need a direct dial number for each user and unlimited calls to UK landlines (plus, 1,000 minutes to mobiles), Virtual Landline’s Office Complete package is a better fit, for a still low-cost £9.95 per user, per month.

What does Virtual Landline Office Lite do well?

• Gives you a credible business number fast: Virtual Landline positions Office Lite as a new local or national phone number setup with mobile apps, which suits sole traders and tiny teams trying to look established without buying desk phones.
  • Notably, Office Lite doesn’t come with the 25-user minimum barrier that makes NBC Call Centre Basic a non-starter for many small businesses.

• Simple call handling that feels fitted to businesses: The core value is basic call control with call queues, routing, caller ID, music on hold and voicemail-to-email all included, so callers don’t hit a dead end when you’re busy.
• Multi-user on one office line (extensions): If your goal is to have one number customers remember, but with multiple people answering the phones, Virtual Landline’s multi-user model supports that through extensions, which is a sensible way to keep costs down while still separating responsibility internally (separate numbers will cost more with VoIP providers).

• Quick, low-friction day-to-day admin: In my hands-on testing, adding a contact and confirming it exists in the directory was extremely straightforward (a couple of clicks inside the desktop app). That matters because cheap tools often hide basic actions behind clunky menus.
• Bandwidth guidance is refreshingly clear: Virtual Landline’s published recommendation is at least 1Mbps dedicated per 10 phone lines. It’s not a perfect rule for every network, but it’s a useful quality control for small teams before switching from landlines.

Are there any downsides to Virtual Landline Office Lite?

• You do not get a direct number per user on the cheapest tier: Office Lite can run multiple users via extensions, but Virtual Landline only offers a unique number for every user as an Office Complete (and higher) benefit. If your staff need direct inbound lines (sales, account managers, duty phones), you may need to budget for the upgrade.
• Minute bundles aren’t as baked in as rivals: Virtual Landline’s bundled minutes are associated with higher tiers, with Office Lite instead involving per-minute pricing or minute bundles depending on your setup. That means the cheapest seat price can become less cheap for outbound-heavy teams.
• Lightweight feature depth: This is a ‘do the basics well’ type of plan. In testing, call quality was perfectly fine (no obvious improvement or drop versus other providers), but the experience is deliberately stripped back in terms of user interface and feature depth. That’s good for speed, less good if you want deeper analytics, richer admin controls or automation.
  • You can’t upgrade on a per-feature basis like bOnline Start either, which makes it a little less flexible if you only need specific features improved upon.
  • Vonage Express is often the most feature-rich option of the best cheap plans discussed on this page.

• No voicemail transcription in my testing: When I tested the platform, voicemail transcription wasn’t available (albeit, I’ve been told it’s a feature Virtual Landline is working on), which can be a real time-saver for busy owners who triage messages between meetings.
  • If transcription is a must-have, compare against plans that include it by default, such as Google Voice Starter, which has that and other AI-based time savers.
• Contract commitment is longer than month-to-month budget tools: A 12-month minimum term is normal in UK business telecoms, but it’s still a meaningful constraint for new businesses that want maximum flexibility while they stabilise.

What businesses is Virtual Landline Office Lite best for?

Best for: UK sole traders and microbusinesses that want a cheap main office number with basic routing and queueing, and are happy using extensions rather than paying for a separate inbound number per user.

Not ideal for: Teams that need a direct dial number for every staff member on the cheapest plan, or any business with heavy outbound calling that wants bundled minutes clearly included in the base price.

2. bOnline Starter: Cheapest UK VoIP Plan for Heavy Inbound Calling

bOnline Starter is one of the cheapest VoIP plans for UK businesses at £7 per user, per month (+ VAT) on a 12-month contract.

It’s built around unlimited inbound calling, but it hard-caps outbound use at 100 UK landline minutes per user, per month, meaning it’s a cost-saver for inbound-first setups (such as business support lines) rather than dial-heavy teams (such as estate agents or recruiters).

Importantly, unlike Virtual Landline, each user gets their own dedicated number, too, which can be more practical for certain teams.

What does bOnline Starter do well?

• Handles inbound calls properly at a low price, across both mobile and desktop apps.
  • Call queues are included, so callers aren’t dumped into missed calls when you’re busy.

• • You can set business hours and holiday dates, then route calls accordingly for any out-of-hours callers.
  • You get a professional welcome greeting and hold music, small touches that stop your business from sounding cheap.
  • Paired with routing controls, interactive voice response capabilities are included in bOnline Starter, so callers can reach the channels they want to with speech alone.

• It’s simple to operate day-to-day. When I tested bOnline’s web app, setup was quick, the navigation was clean, and key actions (adding users, building basic routing, managing voicemail behaviour) were easy to find without digging through settings.

• More ‘team-ready’ than ultra-minimal, cheap plans. If a cheaper plan only really works as a single-line setup, bOnline Starter is the one you pick when you want a low price and a small-business phone system you can grow into.
  • That’s because each user gets a direct line, unlike Virtual Landline Office Lite.
  • You also customise your Starter package with add-ons, such as CRM integrations (more than 200 ready-made options) and call recording. Other providers don’t allow this. For instance, RingCentral requires users to purchase its Premium plan for CRM integrations, which costs between £17.99 (100 users or more) and £24.99 (one user) per user, per month.
  • You also get video and audio conferencing to chat with your team internally. With competitors such as NBC Call Centre Basic and Vonage Express, video calling isn’t included at all.

Are there any downsides to bOnline Starter?

• The outbound minutes cap is a deal-breaker for many teams.
  • You get 100 outbound UK landline minutes per user, per month, which won’t be enough for sales, bookings, recruitment, or any customer-facing team doing regular outbound. You’d need to pay an extra £6.95 per user/month with bOnline (albeit for a still competitive £13.95 per user, per month) for the pleasure.
  • If staff call mobiles a lot, you’ll hit the ceiling even faster (and you’ll end up upgrading sooner than planned).
• Starter is not a full collaboration suite.
  • There’s no native team messaging, like RingCentral Essentials, so you may need a separate chat tool.
  • It’s also missing several other layers you’d expect once you’re serious about performance tracking, such as call recording, forwarding and voicemail, call reports and HD video screen-sharing, plus integrations with Microsoft or Google Workspaces.
• Hardware flexibility is limited. If you want desk phones, you’re operating inside bOnline’s supported ecosystem, which is essentially only Yealink models. As such, this is not the best option for businesses migrating a mixed bag of existing handsets.
• Support coverage isn’t built for 24/7 businesses. If your line going down on a weekend is an emergency scenario, this is a weak point versus providers that prioritise round-the-clock support.
  • Instead, bOnline offers Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm, and Saturday, 10am to 2pm, with no available support on Sundays.

What businesses is bOnline Starter best for?

• Best for: Sole traders and small teams that are inbound-heavy (services, clinics, local trades, studios) and want a professional call experience on the cheapest possible monthly spend.
• Also good for: Teams that want basic routing and queues now, and can add more capability later, without jumping straight into £20 or more per-user plans.
• Not ideal for: Outbound-heavy teams (sales, recruiters), organisations that require deep analytics and coaching, or anyone who needs maximum hardware freedom and 24/7 safety-net support.

3. Google Voice Starter: Best Cheap VoIP Plan for Unlimited Calling

Google Voice Starter is a Google Workspace add-on for teams of up to 10 users, and it’s one of the few cheap options that can remove outbound-minute anxieties.

Google states that calls to most European countries from within Europe (including the UK) are included, so you’re not constantly counting minutes like you are on bOnline or Virtual Landline. This doesn’t apply to all number types, however, so you’ll still need to be careful, but UK landlines and mobiles are listed as cost-free.

*Google Voice pricing structure uses USD ($). However, we have converted these values to British Pounds (£) for ease of comparison. Pricing correct as of March 2026.

What does Google Voice Starter do well?

• Unlimited-style calling for UK and European usage. Google says calls to most European countries from within Europe are included, which makes this a stronger pick than bOnline Starter if your team calls across borders regularly.
• Better financial sense for outbound-heavy teams than minute-capped rivals. If you’re comparing it directly to bOnline Starter, the difference is simple: Voice is built to avoid per-user outbound caps, while bOnline Starter’s minutes ceiling can force an early package upgrade for sales, bookings, recruitment and other outbound-heavy work.
• Cleaner buying decision for Google-first businesses. If you already run on Google Workspace, Voice is designed to sit inside that ecosystem as an add-on for smaller teams (up to 10 users), rather than becoming another standalone comms vendor you have to govern and maintain separately.

• Practical calling features: Voice Starter gives you the core stuff busy teams often use, such as call forwarding (not available with bOnline Starter) across devices, plus voicemail transcription for fast triage (not offered by Virtual Landline).

• User-testing ease: In testing, the web interface felt self-explanatory, with key tools where you’d expect them, search worked reliably, and small UX touches (like contact/profile customisation) made day-to-day use feel less clunky than typical budget VoIP dashboards.
• Appealing support: Google positions Voice with 24/7 support as part of the Workspace ecosystem, and has strong security measures you expect from a global corporation like Google. That is a meaningful advantage over budget UK providers with limited support hours on evenings, nights, and weekends, such as bOnline or NBC.

Are there any downsides to Google Voice Starter?

• Starter is not the full phone system tier. Key small-business phone system tools like ring groups and a multi-level auto attendant sit on higher Voice tiers, not Starter.
  • If your cheapest-plan requirement is for one main number, multiple teams, and smart routing and call management controls, bOnline Starter or Virtual Landline will usually feel more PBX-like from day one.
• Not every UK number type is included in unlimited. As stated earlier, standard UK calling shows as £0.00 per minute (landlines and mobiles) with Google, but several common non-geographic and premium types are billed separately. For instance:
  • UK personal numbers: £0.174 per minute
  • UK shared-cost numbers: £0.109 per minute
  • UK universal access numbers: £0.015 minute
  • UK pager: £0.116 per minute
• Your true cost includes Google Workspace, and billing terms vary. Voice is a Workspace add-on, so you’re stacking costs, and Workspace pricing can be bought as flexible month-to-month or with a one-year commitment, depending on what you choose.
  • If you already need Workspace, this will work well. But if you don’t, it won’t make sense to purchase Google Workspace only to use its phone service.
• A hard ceiling at 10 users on Starter. If you’re already at (or quickly approaching) 11+ or more seats, you’re effectively shopping Voice Standard/Premier (or a different provider) before you’ve even started.

What businesses is Google Voice Starter best for?

• Best for: Small UK teams already on Google Workspace that make frequent outbound calls (including to European clients) and want to avoid minute-caps as a growth tax.
• Also good for: Lean owner-led businesses that want a predictable calling setup without adopting a full UCaaS suite (team messaging, deep analytics, coaching tools) on day one.
• Not ideal for: Inbound-heavy operations that need queues, departments, ring groups, and multi-level IVR routing on the cheapest tier — or any business that needs more than 10 users immediately.

4. RingCentral Essentials: Best Cheap VoIP For Future Scalability

RingCentral Essentials is the cheapest way into RingCentral’s ecosystem, offering a business phone system that you can scale into more advanced, world-leading plans later (its Ultimate plan is our highest-rated VoIP plan overall), without switching providers.

On Essentials, for the starting price of £7.99 per user, per month (two to 19 users), you get the core apps (desktop, mobile, browser), team messaging, document sharing, and call logs, plus 100 inclusive domestic and EMEA calling minutes per user.

The trade-off is that Essentials is light on call-handling depth. If you need IVR menus, audio and video conferencing, deeper analytics, or CRM integrations, RingCentral pushes you up to Standard or Premium.

What does RingCentral Essentials do well?

• It’s the most future-proof cheap plan. You can start lean, then upgrade into a much deeper platform (Standard/Premium) without a provider switch.
  • Virtual Landline Office Lite is cheaper, but it’s structurally a single-number setup. RingCentral is built around multi-user growth.
  • bOnline Starter gives you more small-business call handling features on day one, but RingCentral’s ceiling is higher when you’re ready to move beyond starter-type constraints.
• Strong day-to-day usability. In our hands-on testing across providers, RingCentral’s admin environment is one of the easiest to navigate for basic setup and ongoing management, which matters when you’re trying to keep costs low by not needing paid support time.

• Team messaging and document sharing included. RingCentral’s cheapest tier includes real-time chat with team members, where you can share various file types across both iOS/Android apps, laptop and website versions of its software.
• Unusually rich reporting tools. With Essentials, there’s also access to over 30 KPIs related to call volume, such as missed calls and average duration, alongside call log reports on user activity, adoption reports about how employees are using RingCentral products, and trend graphics.

• 24/7 support is built into the RingCentral experience. That can be a real safety net for small businesses that can’t afford to have the line dead over a weekend.
  • bOnline’s limited weekend coverage is a genuine operational risk for businesses that treat telephony as business-critical.

Are there any downsides to RingCentral Essentials?

• The calling allowance is capped. Essentials includes 100 domestic and EMEA calling minutes per user, plus 0 inclusive freephone minutes. If your team makes lots of outbound calls or you run an 0800 line, this gets expensive fast, unless you upgrade.
  • Google Voice remains the better pick for heavy calling teams because it’s built around unlimited calling value (even once you factor in Workspace).
• Essentials is weak for proper call handling. The plan lacks the more useful queue routing and group handling features that small businesses actually need when they’re busy (overflow, routing options, ring groups, hunt groups sit higher up the stack).
  • bOnline Starter is the more phone-system-ready starter plan for inbound-heavy SMEs because queues and routing are meaningfully usable at the cheapest tier, while Virtual Landline Office Lite can be better value for a single number setup.
• Many integrations you actually care about are paywalled. Essentials doesn’t give you the same value as RingCentral’s higher tiers for integrations. CRMs like Salesforce or Zendesk only come into play at the Premium level (£24.99 per user, per month) via RingCentral.

• There is no proper receptionist-style IVR on Essentials. RingCentral’s more advanced menu-building and automated receptionist experience is positioned above Essentials, so Essentials can feel bare if you want callers routed cleanly from day one.
• There are no video meetings or audio conferencing on this tier. If you want your VoIP app to double as a lightweight collaboration hub, you’ll need to step up your plan to Premium.
  • bOnline Starter, Virtual Landline Office Lite and Google Voice Starter all include video calling in some capacity.

What businesses is RingCentral Essentials best for?

• Best for: Small UK teams that want a cheap entry point but know they’ll need a more capable system later, and would rather upgrade plans than migrate providers.
• Also good for: Businesses that operate outside a regular 9-to-5 and want 24/7 support coverage as a baseline safety net.
• Not ideal for: Inbound-heavy teams that need proper queues and menus now, or outbound-heavy teams that will burn through 100 minutes per user quickly (you’ll end up upgrading early, which undermines getting a cheap plan today).

5. NBC Call Centre Basic: Cheapest VoIP For Larger Call Centres

NBC Call Centre Basic is built for one specific buyer: a 25 or more seat UK team that needs a call-centre style setup at a low headline rate.

It starts at £9.99 per user, per month (plus VAT), with a 25-user minimum, lets you keep your existing number and offers handsets from £5 per month (optional). However, no call package is included, so your monthly cost depends heavily on how much your team actually calls.

What does NBC Call Centre Basic do well?

• It’s one of the few cheap plan options here that’s available to larger teams. Google Voice Starter caps at 10 users and RingCentral Essentials caps at 19. But NBC is explicitly priced for 25 or more users.
  • If you’re comparing cheap plans but you’ve already outgrown small-team caps, NBC is one of the only realistic options on this page.
• Call Centre Basic is more telephony basics than true call-centre operations. You do get essentials like voicemail, voicemail-to-email, call forwarding, out-of-hours management and music on hold.
  • Call Centre Basic does not include call queues, call reporting or analytics, call recording, or call flows, however, so it won’t suit high-volume inbound teams unless you move up the NBC ladder.
• It keeps procurement simple for traditional call centres. Call Centre Basic offers direct debit billing, number retention, and optional desk phone rental (from £5 per month) as options for businesses rolling out 25 seats or more.
  • Compared with BYOD-first, app-led setups, this is more friendly to those businesses with physical handsets who might only just be transitioning to VoIP before the deadline in a matter of months.

Are there any downsides to NBC Call Centre Basic?

• The headline price can be misleading because calling is not included. With no call package included, it means you need to model your costs using real call volumes.
  • Against this page’s other “cheap” picks, that’s a major difference: bOnline Starter and RingCentral Essentials include a small outbound allowance, while Google Voice is positioned around unlimited calling.
• Your total monthly cost can climb quickly once you add the basics many teams expect. For instance, call recording is listed as an extra (starting at £5 per month for 30-day recording), while an AI auto-attendant is listed as an extra (from £2.99 per month).
  • Extra numbers add cost too (additional local numbers from £2 per month; non-geographical numbers from £5 per month).
• Support hours aren’t a 24/7 safety net. NBC lists UK customer care hours as Monday to Friday from 9am to 6pm (not round-the-clock), which is a risk if weekend downtime could mean an emergency for your operations.
  • RingCentral is the standout choice for 24/7 coverage.

What businesses is NBC Call Centre Basic best for?

• Best for: UK call centres with 25 or more users that need queues and auto-attendant style call handling and are prepared to cost-model minutes (because the plan doesn’t include a call package).
• Also good for: Teams that still want (or need) a more traditional rollout with optional desk phones rather than a softphone-only setup.
• Not ideal for: Small teams (you won’t meet the minimum) or any organisation that wants an all-in predictable bill with calling included by default (you’ll be better served by a plan that bundles minutes, even if the per-user sticker price looks higher).

6. Vonage Express: Best Cheap VoIP For Calling Features

Vonage Express is the best cheap plan if you care about call handling breadth, not the lowest sticker price.

At £10 per user, per month (with a five-user minimum), it includes a deep bundle of day-to-day calling tools inside Vonage’s desktop and mobile apps. But it’s still a metered calling plan, and its more advanced call centre and integration tools are set at higher tiers.

What does Vonage Express do well?

• It packs in more calling controls than the other cheap plans. Vonage Express includes a long list of practical features for both desktop and mobile use, such as call screening, hold (with music), call parking, call waiting, call forwarding, call flipping, call blocking, and voicemail-to-email.
  • If you’re choosing between Vonage Express and NBC Call Centre Basic at a similar per-user cost, we’d argue Vonage gives you a better toolkit out of the box in terms of straight calling (albeit for £0.01 per user extra).
• Team communication is stronger than most budget plans. Team messaging is built into Vonage’s mobile and desktop apps, so you’re not forced to add a separate chat platform on day one, like RingCentral Essentials.
  • This is a practical advantage over bOnline Starter for teams that want chat alongside calling without jumping tiers.
• Admin and reporting basics are included. Each user gets call logs, and you get an admin portal for permissions, plus basic analytics to track activity.
  • This is a more appropriate setup for managers than ultra-minimal plans designed mainly as a single company line, such as Virtual Landline’s Office Lite
• Useful caller ID controls for outward-facing teams. Vonage includes a dynamic local caller ID, which is helpful if your business depends on customers picking up calls from unknown numbers.

Are there any downsides to Vonage Express?

• It’s not that cheap for very small teams. The five-user minimum means a solo business or two-person team can’t buy “just what they need” in the way they can with Virtual Landline Office Lite or bOnline Starter.
• Calling is metered, which won’t be suitable for outbound-heavy teams. This is not the plan you pick if your team spends all day on the phone.
  • Google Voice Starter remains the more defensible pick for heavy outbound calling patterns because it’s positioned around unlimited-style calling value, whereas Vonage Express is priced around a metered model.
• Vonage paywalls advanced call management features. Tools like call recording, call monitoring, queues, groups, and receptionist tools only appear on Core (£15 per user, per month), as well as CRM integrations.
  • This is how bOnline Starter can be a smarter cheap buy, because you have the flexibility to add features like CRM integration and recording without forcing every user onto a higher priced tier.

• Video meeting tools aren’t part of the entry tier. Vonage Meetings and other conferencing/receptionist tools are positioned on Core (around £15/user/month) and up.
• • If you want video included on a cheap plan, bOnline’s entry-level positioning is stronger since it comes included (albeit with its own limits).

What businesses is Vonage Express best for?

• Best for: Small businesses (five or more users) that want the widest set of calling features at the cheap plan level, and don’t need call centre tools or CRM integrations yet.
• Also good for: Teams that want team messaging inside the same app as calling, without committing to a higher-tier UCaaS plan immediately.
• Not ideal for: Solo users and microteams (due to the minimum seats), outbound-heavy calling teams on tight budgets (metered calling) or any business that expects queues, recording and CRM integrations to be included without stepping up to £15 or £25 per user, per month tiers.

How To Choose the Best Cheap VoIP Provider for Your Business

Above all, price is often the determining factor for businesses. As such, when picking the best VoIP for your needs, you need to consider the bottom line cost (or the best value option for your specific business needs). This requires you to consider several different features:

1. Pricing structures

Compare the pricing plans offered by different providers. We recommend you look beyond the initial cost per user and consider any additional fees for setup, equipment or extra features that you require.

For instance, many of the providers we listed here either require additional payment or for your business to opt for a slightly higher-priced package for specific features, such as call recording or video conferencing.

2. Contract terms and lengths

It’s also worth considering how long you want to commit to a specific VoIP provider. Some providers may offer discounts for annual contracts or three-year commitments in some instances.

We also recommend reviewing the terms of any contracts carefully, as you may find cancellation policies and contract renewal terms that bring unexpected costs in the future.

3. Trial periods

Long contracts might not be preferential for a business looking to cut costs in the short-term or for a first-time VoIP business looking to see what features work for them. However, you can often make use of free trial periods to check if a service is right for you.

Some VoIP providers offer money-back guarantees, too, if the trial is too limiting for your business needs.

4. Scalability, integration and compatibility

Choosing one VoIP provider that could meet all your future business needs down the line, rather than chopping and changing your plans as required, can sometimes keep costs lower.

This is because you won’t have any of the costs of changing providers, such as any changeover fees, costs of adapting and integrating existing hardware or software with a specific VoIP, or losses in efficiency when you and your staff need to learn your VoIP system.

So, if a provider offers flexible plans or add-on features to accommodate an increasing number of users or additional functionalities as your business expands, it can be both an easier and more cost-effective solution for the long term.

Of course, this only applies to businesses that may need greater functionality in the future, with tools for CRM integration, analytics or advanced calling tools often reserved for higher price tags.

If your business isn’t likely to require any further tools down the line, sticking with the cheapest plan around shouldn’t pose any problems.

5. Features

Of course, price interacts with the features you need. Basic features like call forwarding, voicemail-to-email transcription, and mobile integration should come as standard.

However, as mentioned, many providers restrict their advanced features, such as video conferencing, CRM integration and call analytics, for certain plans. It’s worth considering what plan offers the best value for the functionality you need.

6. Customer support

Quality customer support is crucial for resolving issues promptly as and when they arise. Look for providers that offer 24/7 support and multiple channels of communication such as phone, email and live chat.

7. Security and compliance

Since VoIP systems tend to handle sensitive business communications, robust security measures are essential — especially in certain sectors, such as healthcare. Verify that the provider implements encryption protocols and compliance with industry standards, such as GDPR or HIPAA, depending on your business’s requirements.

How Did We Find The Cheapest VoIP Providers in the UK?

To find the cheapest VoIP providers in the UK, we took our top-ranked VoIP services and simply found the lowest-priced plans that they offer.

From there, we compared each of them against one another, looking at how much value you get for that low price (as often, the cheapest VoIP plans are somewhat limited compared with the higher priced and fully-fleshed out plans on offer). Some of these assessment areas include:

Our main testing categories for VoIP products and services are:

• Call management features: The software’s capabilities for streamlining incoming calls. VoIP-using organisations often deal with high call volumes. They rely on call management features to create a better experience for these callers.
• Software integrations: The extent of the software’s compatibility with other business applications. VoIP software is often used with customer-data applications and other communication technologies in order to increase operational efficiency.
• Communication channels: The other communication methods supported beyond voice calling. VoIP is often purchased to streamline communication into one application rather than separate platforms.
• Training features: The software’s capabilities for supporting employee training initiatives. VoIP-using businesses often train their employees on telephone etiquette.
• Hardware integrations: The software’s compatibility with different devices. VoIP software is often used with standalone hardware.
• Customer support: The accessibility and convenience of customer service channels offered by the VoIP provider.
• Security options: The software’s security features to protect calls and data. Organisations can be put at risk if sensitive information is leaked due to a breach of security.
• Pricing factors: The software’s pricing structure and cost-effectiveness. For this page, we ranked providers purely on their per user cost, but we’ve also assessed the value of these plans in the reviews above.

Where possible, we’ve also completed usability testing for VoIP services that we could get hands-on with. Testers put VoIP software through its paces to assess how well each could complete certain prescribed tasks.

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