Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunking is a method of sending and receiving communications over the internet through private branch exchange (PBX) equipment. Key elements include customer support, pricing, number availability, and scalability when choosing from the best SIP providers. We compared dozens of SIP solutions to identify the seven best SIP trunking providers and their best-use cases.
- RingCentral: Best overall SIP trunking solution with robust collaboration features for remote teams
- Nextiva: Best for non-tech savvy teams that want a coding-free SIP trunking solution
- Vonage: Best SIP trunking provider offering location-based routing
- Twilio: Best for growing companies looking for a flexible SIP trunking system
- Broadvoice: Ideal choice for companies expanding worldwide and needing unlimited calling plans
- Bandwidth: Best SIP trunking provider offering multiple location network coverage
- Telnyx: Top provider with affordable calling and texting rates
SIP Trunking Providers at a Glance
SIP Trunking Providers | Starting Price | Key Features | Uptime Guarantee | FSB Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | $30 per user, monthly |
| 99.999% | 4.36 out of 5 |
 | $14.95 per user, monthly plus $0.008 per minute |
| 99.999% | 4.28 out of 5 |
 | Pay-as-you-go calling starts at $0.0135 per minute |
| 99.999% | 4.2 out of 5 |
 | Pay-as-you-go calling starts at $0.0010 per minute for U.S. toll-free |
| 99.95% | 3.73 out of 5 |
 | $11 per user, monthly |
| 100% | 3.6 out of 5 |
 | Voice: $0.0055 per min for domestic inbound voice API Messaging: $0.004 per message for SMS outbound |
| N/A | 3.51 out of 5 |
 | Pay-as-you-go calling starts at $0.0050 per minute for local calls |
| 99.999% | 3.51 out of 5 |
Want to know how PBX and SIP trunking differ? For in-depth information on SIP trunking, read our What Is SIP Trunking guide.
RingCentral: Best Overall SIP Trunking Provider
What We Like
- HD (high definition) audio and video
- Built-in app customizability
- Up to 300 integrations
Where It Falls Behind
- Integrations unlock at upper-tier plans
- Does not offer professional audio greetings
- Base plan only allows up to 20 users
RingCentral Monthly Pricing (per User)*
- Core: $30 for message and phone functionality for 20 users
- Advanced: $35 for an unlimited number of users, unlimited internet fax, audio conferencing, third-party integrations, and video conferencing for up to 24 hours and 100 participants
- Ultra: $45 for automatic call recording, real-time analytics, customer relationship management (CRM) integration, devices status reports, and video meetings with up to 200 participants
*Prices are based on one to 20 users. Discounts of up to 33% are available for users who opt for annual billing.
RingCentral is the best overall SIP trunking provider for small to medium businesses because of its robust unified communication (UC) solution. It’s a feature-rich platform offering conferencing, business SMS (short messaging system), and multi-channel support. Businesses with remote teams benefit from its file sharing, task management, and whiteboarding capabilities, features that consolidate and streamline remote communication.
Although RingCentral topped our list of providers, consider another provider if you need advanced artificial intelligence (AI). Vonage’s AI virtual assistant facilitates conversations, answers phone calls, transcribes, and takes notes in real time. RingCentral’s AI lags a bit in this area, and focused its AI on auto-tracking and adjusting lighting in video conferences.
RingCentral Features
Attach files from your computer, Google Drive, and other storage solutions to chat messages. (Source: RingCentral)
- Team messaging: RingCentral’s powerful messaging includes group and one-on-one chats. Drag and drop files from your desktop and online files, making it easier to find files by arranging them chronologically. Other capabilities include assigning tasks, presence status, and an advanced search function to help you find buried documents, links, and past conversations easily.
- Advanced reporting: View real-time and historical call center data on your dashboard. Each dashboard allows you to select specific information in your dashboard by choosing the particular widgets you want to be displayed. Create custom report templates with features and metrics and apply filters to limit the information in the report.
- Video conferencing: Stay connected with colleagues using RingCentral’s HD video meeting with artificial intelligence. Virtual meetings have no time limitations and support up to 200 video participants.
Not sure if this provider is the right solution? Read our RingCentral review to learn if it suits your business needs.
Nextiva: Best SIP Provider Offering a Coding-free SIP Trunking Solution
What We Like
- Unmetered plan includes a toll-free number
- Eight U.S. points of presence
- 24/7 support available
Where It Falls Behind
- SIP trunking packages do not include auto-attendants
- Lacks hardware support
- Video conferencing only available in business VoIP, not SIP trunking
Nextiva Monthly Pricing (per User)
- Metered: $14.95 plus $0.008 per minute for 100 inclusive minutes and fast account setup
- Unmetered: $24.95 for unlimited calls nationwide
Nextiva is designed to integrate your PBX system into the cloud without any coding knowledge necessary. Instantly convert your traditional phone system to VoIP-based solutions with Nextiva and enjoy fast and free account setup. Start using SIP trunks in four steps. First, get a personalized quote, and check your hardware compatibility. Then, select or port your numbers, and finally, begin placing your calls once you receive your SIP service credentials.
While Nextiva offers free toll and direct-dial numbers, its SIP trunking does not include call recording. If you’re looking for a SIP trunking provider with call recording, Telnyx[ is your best bet. It offers a cost-effective platform with significantly lower pricing for its business texting—which Nextiva lacks. Sending SMS starts at $0.0025, while receiving SMS is entirely free.
Nextiva Features
Instantly convert chats to calls and video conferences with one click. (Source: Nextiva)
- Professionally recorded greetings: Small businesses benefit from having polished hotline menus and voicemails. Nextiva’s professional plan comes with one greeting, and you can choose from six male or female voice-over artists. Languages include Latin American Spanish, American English, and British English.
- HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)-compliant internet fax: This feature allows businesses handling confidential information to quickly send documents via fax without violating HIPAA compliance laws.
- Voicemail transcription: Easily read voicemails while checking your email and say goodbye to listening to each one. It’s also easier to cut and paste text to contact records or forward the information to the appropriate team member.
Check out our Nextiva review to learn more about what it offers, including scalable call management systems with unlimited domestic calling.
Vonage: Best SIP Trunking Provider Offering Location-based Routing
What We Like
- Includes transport layer security (TLS) support ensuring data privacy
- Programmable SIP
- Offers additional secondary accounts
Where It Falls Behind
- Reported lengthy report on customer configurations
- Call quality is dependent on broadband speed
- Metered pricing drives the monthly cost for high-volume usage
Vonage Pay-per-use Pricing
Making calls:
- Using PSTN Leg: Starts at $0.0135 per minute
- Using SIP Leg: Starts at $0.0042 per minute
Receiving calls:
- Using PSTN Leg: Starts at $0.0048 per minute
- Using SIP Leg: $0.0042 per minute
Vonage is best for businesses’ location-based routing to reduce latency and improve call quality. Its automatic location-based routing (ALBR) determines the user’s current location based on the IP address and automatically routes calls to the closest gateway. Other features include dashboard analytics for real-time campaign insights, number porting, and multi-codec support.
Unfortunately, high-definition video is not offered by Vonage, and HD voice is an add-on feature. If you need these features, RingCentral supports HD audio and video. Further, Vonage’s virtual meetings only accommodate 100 attendees, while RingCentral’s solution supports up to 200 participants.
Vonage Features
Vonage’s dashboard lets you customize your phone system in real time. (Source: Vonage)
- A la carte options: Add integral features to your Vonage VoIP calling packages, such as voicemail transcription, text-to-pay, and professionally recorded greetings. Easily add or remove premium services directly from your admin dashboard.
- Call block: Predetermine blocked calls and phone numbers. Incoming calls from a blocked number will hear a fast busy, while outgoing calls to a blocked number will hear, “I’m sorry, Calls to this number have been blocked by your administrator.”
- VonageReach: Use VonageReach to text automatically regarding upcoming appointments or broadcast a message to leads about a new promotion. You can even send pictures and configure actions like click-through tracking.
Looking for more information on this provider? Check out our comprehensive Vonage review to determine if its solutions best suit your needs.
Twilio: Best Provider for Companies Needing a Flexible SIP System
What We Like
- Customer support includes e-guides, phone, email, and online tutorial videos
- Offers budget-friendly, pay-as-you-go pricing
- Comes with built-in conversational AI and chatbots
Where It Falls Behind
- Steep learning curve and requires some coding know-how to maximize
- Limited collaboration features
- Lacks prebuilt integrations
Twilio Pay-as-you-go Pricing
Making calls:
- U.S. Zone 1: $0.0053 per minute
- U.S. Toll-free: $0.0010 per minute
Receiving calls:
- Local: $0.0034 per minute, plus $1.15 per month
- Toll-free: $0.0130 per minute, plus $2.15 per month
Twilio’s business SIP trunking service is ideal for growing companies with increasing call traffic needing scalable solutions. It offers a wide array of services that allow you to create custom APIs. Advanced functionalities include voice analytics, quality monitoring, and alert triggers. The best part is that Twilio is deployable within minutes and offers pay-as-you-go pricing with unlimited concurrent calls and phone number services in more than 70 countries.
While Twilio has a wealth of features with easy-to-use, self-service tools, Twilio’s SIP trunking does not support fax-over-IP (FoIP). For companies that want ready-to-use, robust solutions, consider RingCentral. This is a complete solution and one of the best business phone systems for managing communications across multiple channels.
Twilio Features
Twilio Elastic SIP Trunking (Source: Twilio)
- Teams View: Easily monitor the real-time status and activity of up to 200 agents. Twilio’s productivity features allow supervisors and managers to listen to live calls, monitor active conversations, and view individual task information.
- Omnichannel capabilities: Consolidate your communications across multiple channels into one platform. It supports chat-based channels for your website and mobile iOS and Android apps. A free API key to connect your team to WhatsApp is also available.
- Global reach: Create communication streams between your team with customers and leads worldwide. It offers over 65,000 prefixes for local, national, and toll-free numbers and advanced opt-in features that let you add rules to accounts for international languages and regulations.
Learn more about how Twilio helps businesses build their own communications infrastructure in our detailed Twilio review.
Broadvoice: Best SIP Provider With Global Unlimited Calling Plans
What We Like
- Offers unlimited outbound calling to over 60 countries
- Robust Call Record page
- Premium tiers include unlimited audio conference attendees
Where It Falls Behind
- Video conferencing only accommodates 50 participants
- No advanced AI tools
- Virtual fax and video meetings not available in base plans
Broadvoice Monthly Pricing (per User)*
- Metered Trunking: $11 for 5,000 outbound minutes and excess minutes billed at 2.9 cents per minute
- Unlimited Trunking: $17 includes unlimited outbound calling
*Pricing is based on three-year terms.
Broadvoice offers some of the best SIP trunking features regarding international calling. Save while connecting around the globe with its direct inward dialing (DID) numbers and unlimited calling plans. Coupled with a 100% uptime guarantee, Broadvoice’s SIP trunks have a virtually unlimited number of associated DIDs, and calls to these DIDs use ports but do not incur additional charges.
At this time, Broadvoice does not include toll-free numbers. If you expect most of your inbound calls to be for your 800 number, consider a provider like Nextiva, which offers toll-free minutes and a free toll-free number. All Nextiva plans come with toll-free minutes that go as high as 12,500 under the Enterprise plan.
Broadvoice Features
Modernize your phone system with SIP trunks powered by your internet connection. (Source: Broadvoice)
- Auto-attendant: Broadvoice lets users customize their virtual receptionist using a personalized greeting. Ensure your call center’s alignment with your branding and efficiently connect callers to the correct person, department, or call queue.
- Forward whisper: This feature plays a recorded message telling the employee where a forwarded call originates. Make sure your agents are ready and prepared to take all calls they receive when mobile.
- Call parking: Easily place a call on hold and pick it up from another phone. You can also enable music on hold and reminders. The notification feature alerts the person who parked the call or employees set up to answer parked calls.
Are you considering this provider? Head over to our Broadvoice review and determine if its solutions are what you need.
Bandwidth: Best SIP Trunking Provider for Businesses With Multiple Locations
What We Like
- Easy-to-use portal
- Comprehensive phone number dashboard
- Global communications network
Where It Falls Behind
- Slow resolution of issues
- Hidden fees and surcharges
- Difficult number porting process
Bandwidth Monthly Pricing*
- Voice: 1 cent per minute to make a call; 55 cents per minute to receive a call
- SMS: 40 cents to send a message
- Authentication: 5 cents per authentication
- Emergency: Available upon request
*Get access to custom pricing tailored to your needs when you have a custom or high volume usage.
Bandwidth has a complex network infrastructure, effectively offering the capacity to deliver huge volumes of calls and messages quickly. For small businesses with multiple locations, Bandwidth helps by utilizing its global communications network to connect clients to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) in over 60 countries. It helps companies save money while enhancing operations and expanding their geographical reach.
Unfortunately, according to customer feedback, Bandwidth needs to improve its response time when resolving issues. Consider two of the top VoIP apps in the market, Vonage and RingCentral[, both of which offer 24/7 chat and phone support.
Bandwidth Features
Integrate directly into collaboration applications. (Source: Bandwidth)
- Emergency API: Connect your customers to emergency services nationwide. Get peace of mind with Bandwidth’s AI, which provides accurate location information for home security and patient monitoring.
- Number porting: Port up to 20,000 numbers seamlessly from one carrier to another. Select your port date and time and apply it across your entire bank of numbers with a single click.
- Call tracking: Monitor and analyze calls more accurately using Bandwidth’s voice API’s click-to-call functionality. This feature also gathers valuable insights, including the time and duration of calls and the caller’s name.
Telnyx: Most Affordable SIP Trunking Solution
What We Like
- Includes number lookup
- Offers global number porting
- Comes with text-to-speech
Where It Falls Behind
- Reportedly slow in dealing with issues, and glitches
- Doesn’t have CRM tools
- No email service
Telnyx Pay-as-you-go Pricing*
Making calls:
- Local calls: $0.0050 per minute
- Toll-free calls: Free
Receiving calls:
- Local calls: $0.0035 per minute
- Toll-free calls: $0.0150 per minute
*Local SIP outbound calls start at $0.0050 per minute; incoming calls start at $0.0035 per minute.
Telnyx is a budget-friendly, all-in-one communications platform offering an elastic SIP trunk with full outbound voice capacity. If you’re looking to cut costs for your various campaigns, voice calls begin at a low of 0.20 cents per minute and 0.40 cents to send and receive messages. Other features include on-call statistics and automatic top-up, and lets users customize a routing scheme for different business numbers.
Telnyx customer support has been lacking, with users reporting difficulty reaching Telnyx to address issues and concerns. Twilio offers 24/7 live chat, phone, and email support. Features included in Twilio’s plans include voice analytics through Twilio Voice Insights, allowing you to gain better visibility over your performance.
Telnyx Features
Telnyx Mission Control Portal account (Source: Telnyx)
- Number Lookup: Get all the information behind every phone number using the Number Lookup tool. This information will help your team format and validate numbers and identify the number type, carrier, and even the owner’s name (for U.S. numbers only).
- FastPort: Telnyx automated internal and external number porting processes, including carrier identification and data validation. With this, you’ll speed up the porting process and bulk port up to 2,500 numbers.
- Hosted SMS: Telnyx allows you to bring your number into the Telnyx platform for your SMS and MMS campaigns. Your number remains with the current provider for voice.
How We Evaluated the Best SIP Trunking Providers
The best SIP trunking provider offers excellent pricing, reliable connectivity, and helpful customer support. We examined each of the platforms by looking at pricing and general features. Plus, we considered other in-demand characteristics like HD features, uptime, call rates, and enterprise features, such as video conferencing and reporting analytics. Finally, we gave each provider an expert score based on overall features, ease of use, and value.
Learn how we evaluated the best SIP trunking providers by clicking on the tabs below:
15% of Overall Score
We examined the scalability of each vendor and gave high marks to those that offered free trials and cost-effective annual pricing options. We also checked out the per-user costs for each tier, including the availability of discounts for yearly billing.
30% of Overall Score
We considered a platform’s call quality, call detail records, and low-cost international calling. SIP trunking providers with higher uptime SLAs scored higher than those with in-depth analytics and team messaging.
30% of Overall Score
We examined platforms with multiple phone numbers like vanity, toll-free, and local numbers. We reviewed video conferencing, niche collaboration tools, and integrated unified communications as a service (UCaaS) features.
25% of Overall Score
Our expert score is based on our personal experiences using each platform. This analysis was coupled with reviews from other users. We also considered the overall value for the money, standout features, and general popularity of the services.
Want to learn more about VoIP and how to start implementing it in your business? Head over to our guide on how to set up a VoIP system today.
Bottom Line
SIP trunking systems help small businesses leverage cutting-edge technology that enables the connection between multiple channels to a VoIP or PBX phone system to make local and international calls over the internet. SIP Trunking also initiates connections between two or more participants in any internet-based multimedia, including phone calls, instant messaging, and video conferencing.
RingCentral is our top pick for the best SIP trunking provider offering robust communications platforms across multiple channels. Using IP protocol to connect on-premise systems to the public switched telephone networks, RingCentral offers unlimited calls and messaging and an option to add desk phones. Sign up for a free trial and see if it’s the best choice for your business needs.
