An auto attendant is a pre-recorded voice that welcomes phone callers with a menu of options, such as pressing 1 to speak with sales or pressing 9 to leave a voicemail. It serves as your business’ virtual receptionist service, greeting your callers, giving them options to route their call, or delivering basic pre-recorded information like your operating hours or location.

While this technology used to only be available to larger businesses with the budgets to match, it’s now affordable and easy for any small business to use. In fact, it’s included as a standard feature with most VoIP phone services.

We looked at the most popular phone system options that include an auto attendant and that covered the range of options for small businesses in terms of ease of use and other available features.

Best Phone Systems with an Auto Attendant Summary

When considering which phone systems with an auto attendant are the best for small businesses, we looked at the leading VoIP phone service providers that include an auto attendant as one of their standard features. However, because it’s generally a standard feature that’s included with most VoIP phone service packages, an auto attendant is only a part of the total service offering that your business will receive.

Because of that, this buyer’s guide will present the leading VoIP phone service options that include an auto attendant as well as summarize the other features you can expect to receive from each provider — and, of course, what they each cost. This will help you compare providers to see which one is the best match for your needs and budget.

Best Phone System with an Auto Attendant: Nextiva

Who Nextiva is best suited for

Nextiva’s primary differentiating feature is the level of customer support that they offer. When you first sign up for the service, Nextiva’s award winning team assigns your small business a US-based account representative to assist you through the process of setting it up and ensuring that you’re making the best use of its available features.

Nextiva’s industry-leading commitment and delivery continue while you’re using their service. Should you encounter any issues, 95% of their incoming sales and support calls are answered by the second ring with the goal of answering any question or resolving any issue within your first contact with them.

Finally, Nextiva’s pricing model is competitive with other full-service VoIP phone service providers, give or take a few dollars depending on your specific needs.

For more details, check out our user reviews of Nextiva.

What Nextiva costs

Nextiva prices their service based on the number of users:

• $34.95/month per user for 1-4 users
• $29.95/month per user for 5-19 users
• $24.95/month per user for 20-99 users
• $21.95/month per user for 100+ users

All of Nextiva’s plans include their auto attendant feature.

What other features Nextiva includes

Nextiva’s cloud-based PBX service delivers most of the standard calling and administrative features you would expect from a VoIP phone service provider, including:

• Web-based system administration
• Hold music
• Call forwarding
• Conference bridge
• Send audio files of voicemails to email
• Voicemail transcription
• User extensions
• Call barging

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Best Affordable Phone System with an Auto Attendant: Grasshopper

Who Grasshopper is best suited for

Grasshopper gives businesses the ability to present a main business line to their customers or to set up a phone number in a different area code from where they’re based. Calls are made and received on the customer’s personal mobile phone, although they appear to come from and to the virtual number.

This service can serve two useful purposes for small businesses:

• Create a main business phone number to give to your customers without the need for a full phone service; or,
• Create a phone number in the city you do most of your business in, even if you live elsewhere, to reduce your long distance costs.

If your business needs a quick and economical solution to appear larger and more professional, then Grasshopper’s virtual phone service can provide you with one.

For more details, check out our user reviews of Grasshopper.

What Grasshopper costs

Grasshopper offers four plan levels that vary depending on usage, including:

• $12/month plus $0.06/minute
• $24/month for 500 minutes
• $49/month for 2,000 minutes
• $199/month for 10,000 minutes

Every Grasshopper plan includes custom greetings, unlimited extensions, and unlimited call handling, which together comprise the basic functions of an automated attendant. Click here to try Grasshopper with a 30-day money back guarantee.

What other features Grasshopper includes

In addition to the individual features that together comprise the functionality of an auto attendant, Grasshopper also offers:

• Web and app-based account management
• Call blocking
• Call forwarding
• Call screening
• Conference calling
• Voicemail transcription
• Incoming faxes emailed to you as PDFs

Visit Grasshopper

Best Full-Featured Phone System with an Auto Attendant: RingCentral

Who RingCentral is best suited for

RingCentral is one of the leading VoIP phone service providers in the market. They offer a feature-rich service with comprehensive and accessible customer support, albeit at a generally higher cost than most of their competitors. If your business’ primary consideration in choosing a VoIP phone system is the range of features offered and you’re willing to pay a premium for a premium service, then RingCentral may be the right fit for you.

For more details, check out our user reviews of RingCentral.

What RingCentral costs

RingCentral’s Standard plan starts at:

• $49.99/month per user for 1 user
• $34.99/month per user for 2-19 users
• $31.99/month per user for 20-99 users
• $29.99/month per user for 100-999 users

And all of RingCentral’s plans include their auto attendant feature. Click here to try RingCentral free for 30 days.

What other features RingCentral includes

RingCentral is one of the more full-featured VoIP phone services on the market, with a wide range of cloud PBX and in-call features that will help your small business. Some of these include:

• Multi-level interactive voice response
• Pre-recorded or custom greetings
• Hold music
• User extensions
• Dial-by-name directory
• Call monitoring
• Incoming and outgoing caller ID
• Computer-based dialing
• Call forwarding
• Call recording
• Send audio files of voicemails to email
• Paging and intercom
• Conference calling with screen sharing
• Third-party application integrations

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Best End-to-End Phone System with an Auto Attendant: Vonage

Who Vonage is best suited for

Vonage’s unique partnership with Amazon Chime integrates the online communication and collaboration tool with Vonage’s VoIP phone service. Chime’s online meetings, video conferencing, online chat, and file sharing capabilities help to enhance Vonage’s phone service to be a more complete end-to-end business solution than other VoIP phone service providers.

For more details, check out our user reviews of Vonage.

What Vonage costs

Vonage prices their service based on the number of users:

• $39.99/month per user for 1-5 users
• $29.99/month per user for 6-9 users
• $24.99/month per user for 10-20 users
• $19.99/month per user for 20+ users

All of Vonage’s plans include their virtual receptionist feature, which is their version of an automated attendant.

What other features Vonage includes

In addition to their virtual receptionist, Vonage includes many other features to help your small business present a professional face and manage your calls, including:

• Hold music
• Call conferencing
• Call forwarding
• Call waiting
• Caller ID
• Send audio files of voicemails to email

Other features that come at an additional cost include:

• Toll-free numbers
• Call groups
• Call monitoring
• Call recording
• Conference bridge

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Best À la Carte Phone System with an Auto Attendant: Phone.com

Who Phone.com is best suited for

Phone.com offers more of an à la carte package where some of the features that come standard with other services incur an additional charge. This makes Phone.com a potentially more economical solution, depending on your needs. For example, if your primary need is for an auto attendant service and you don’t require any additional features, then Phone.com is one of the lowest priced options to give you one.

However, note that the service we reviewed from Phone.com is not a full VoIP phone service. Rather, Phone.com forwards calls to your existing phones — usually your mobile devices, to provide you with a business line on the go. This means that while Phone.com’s rates are generally low, it relies on you using your existing phone service’s call plan’s minutes.

For more details, check out our user reviews of Phone.com.

What Phone.com costs

Base plans from:

• $12.99/month for 100 minutes
• $19.99/month for 500 minutes
• $29.99/month for 1,000 minutes

All of Phone.com’s plans include their auto attendant feature. Click here to try Phone.com with a 30-day money back guarantee.

What other features Phone.com includes

Phone.com includes many standard call features with all of their price packages. Some of the more useful features for small businesses include:

• Incoming and outgoing caller ID
• Call forwarding
• Pre-recorded or custom greetings
• Hold music
• Call transfer
• Send audio files of voicemails to email
• Call waiting
• User extensions

Phone.com also offers a range of premium features for an additional cost, including:

• Call recording
• Voicemail transcription
• CRM integration
• Custom toll-free numbers

Visit Phone.com

Best Phone System with an Auto Attendant for International Calling: 8×8

Who 8×8 is best suited for

If your small business conducts a lot of its business outside of the US, then 8×8’s top two pricing tier packages may work out to be a more economical solution. Their Unlimited and Global plans include international calls to either their top nine or 40 destinations, respectively.

However, for the more typical users, the additional costs for features that other providers include as standard, such as call queuing and toll-free numbers, cost extra with 8×8 and this can quickly cause your overall costs to increase. As well, 8×8 lacks 24/7 customer support.

For more details, check out our user reviews of 8×8.

What 8×8 costs

8×8 offers three levels of pricing plans, which are priced per user and include different amounts of calling time to different regions:

• $24.99/month per user for 250 outbound minutes to the US and Canada and $0.029/minute thereafter
• $39.99/month per user for unlimited minutes to the US, Canada, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands and Guam and calls to landlines in France, Italy, Ireland, Spain and the UK
• $79.99/month per user for unlimited minutes to 8×8’s top 40 calling countries

All of 8×8’s plans include their auto attendant feature.

What other features 8×8 includes

The most useful feature that 8×8 offers is that their Unlimited and Global pricing plans include international calls to either 8×8’s nine or 40 top destinations, respectively. And for international calls outside of the included destinations, 8×8’s rates start at $0.034/minute. For businesses who make a lot of international calls, this could present significant cost savings over other VoIP phone service providers.

Other standard calling features with 8×8 include:

• Compliant with HIPAA, PCI, and FISMA
• Ring groups
• Hold music
• User extensions
• Call forwarding
• Incoming caller ID
• Call waiting
• Call transfers
• Send audio files of voicemails to email
• Third-party application integrations

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Bottom Line: Best Phone Systems With An Auto-Attendant

Auto attendants used to only be available to businesses who could afford more sophisticated and costly phone systems, but the improvements in both the accessibility and affordability of VoIP phone systems has put it, and many other advanced features, within reach of most small businesses. In fact, automated attendants are now commonly included as a standard feature with most phone systems at no extra cost. Which phone provider you choose depends on your business’ specific needs and there are now many options available on the market.

Still not sure which phone system is right for you? Read our head-to-head review of RingCentral vs Grasshopper to find out which is best for your business.