6 Best Virtual Phone Number Providers 2020

Virtual phone systems empower business users to add a business number to their existing landline or mobile phone so that they separate personal and work lines. We looked at the best virtual phone systems on the market and narrowed them down to the best six. We evaluated them based on pricing, features, and usability.

Top 6 Virtual Phone Services 2020

How We Evaluated Virtual Phone Number Providers

The best virtual phone services should be priced affordably enough for most small business customers. Like any business phone service, they should allow users to make and receive calls with ease. Advanced features include visual voicemail, virtual fax, automated attendants, and more.

Our criteria for determining the best virtual phone services consisted of the following:

• Price: Services should be priced within the range of what small businesses can afford.
• Ease of use: We examined how easy each service is to set up and use.
• Call management: Nearly all virtual phone systems offer a robust set of tools for making, receiving, forwarding, and blocking calls.
• Multiline management: Multiline management functionality helps team members all use a phone system simultaneously.
• Extensions: We looked at the extension support offered by each service.
• Phone numbers: We examined the kind of phone numbers offered by each type of phone system.
• Auto-attendant: An automated attendant can greet and route incoming callers without human intervention.
• Call quality: Audio quality during calls should be clear and consistent.
• Customer support: Vendors should offer helpful, responsive customer support in the event of a problem.

Based on our evaluations, we recommend Grasshopper for nearly any business customer who doesn’t require a more complete voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) phone service and those seeking a virtual phone system. The service is affordable and provides features such as faxing, a toll-free number, SMS, unlimited extensions, and more. It is also incredibly easy to use.

Grasshopper: Best Overall Virtual Phone Service for Small Businesses

Grasshopper is a virtual phone service that comes standard with unlimited domestic calling, texting, and voicemail without requiring any equipment beyond an existing phone line. Pricing for the service starts at just $26 per month on an annual basis. We find that Grasshopper is the best service for most organizations because it provides a complete phone system that can be used separately from a personal phone line.

Grasshopper Pricing

Grasshopper offers three distinct pricing packages. The Solo version is $26 per month, the Partner package is $44 per month, and the top-level Small Business plan is $80 per month. Grasshopper does not lock any features behind a package tiers, which makes it one of the best values on the market.

Each plan comes with the following virtual phone numbers and extensions:

• Solo Plan: One number and three extensions for $26 per month*
• Partner Plan: Three numbers and six extensions for $44 per month*
• Small Business Plan: Five numbers and unlimited extensions for $80 per month**Pricing is on an annual basis

Grasshopper Features

All tiers of Grasshopper come with features found in other business phone systems, such as voicemail, faxing, and call routing. It also comes with hold music, a dial-by-name directory, business texting, and an automated attendant to greet and help callers. While it does not offer as much functionality as found in alternatives like a full-fledged VoIP service, it still serves as a complete business telephony system.

Grasshopper features include:

Automated Attendant

Grasshopper offers an automated attendant that can answer inbound calls and forward them to the extension that the caller wants to reach. You can configure the system to route callers to any phone number, whether it is a mobile device or a landline. This matches the functionality found in competing systems, and it beats free systems like Google Voice, which offers no such functionality.

Call Management

Grasshopper comes standard with a full set of tools for forwarding, transferring, blocking, making, and receiving calls. You can also screen calls as well as configure the service to automatically send callers to voicemail when your office is closed for the day. This roughly matches the functionality found in other systems.

Extensions & Call Routing

Grasshopper makes it very easy to control how calls are routed. Through the software settings menu, you can create extensions and pick what number calls should be routed to. You can also define the order in which those numbers should ring. This works in a very similar fashion to the functionality found in eVoice. It is also worth noting that with Grasshopper’s highest tier, you can have unlimited extensions, which makes it one of the most generous offerings available today.

Phone Numbers

When you first sign up with Grasshopper, you will have the choice between a local or toll-free phone number for your business. A toll-free number can make your company look more established, while a local number could be more relatable to your community. This choice of numbers puts Grasshopper ahead of Google Voice, which only offers numbers with a local area code prefix.

What Grasshopper Is Missing

Grasshopper is a capable virtual phone service that should give small businesses everything they need to handle all calling traffic. However, $26 per month could be out of reach for brand new companies or freelancers who are simply looking for a separate business line. For those people, we recommend looking at Google Voice, which offers unlimited domestic calling, texting, and a local phone number at no cost.

What Users Think About Grasshopper

Our readers like Grasshopper. They find the service reliable and easy to use. However, some customers find that the company’s customer service should be more responsive when giving assistance. For more reviews, check out our Grasshopper user reviews page.

Google Voice: Best Free Virtual Phone Number Provider

Google Voice is a basic virtual phone system that can be used on desktop and mobile devices. The free service offers unlimited domestic calling and text messaging for most of the United States and Canada. It also has call screening and call block modules. It is an ideal system for solo workers and freelancers who are looking for a separate business line that doesn’t cost anything.

Google Voice Pricing

Google Voice is completely free to download and use. It comes with a free local number and calls to most of the U.S. and Canada. Calls to other countries and select U.S. locations are priced starting at one cent per minute.

Google Voice Features

Google Voice is one of the most basic virtual phone services on the market. It doesn’t come with an automated attendant, toll-free numbers, or other advanced modules (which are features found in many of its alternatives), but it still offers voicemail, call block, call screening, and text messaging free of charge. It is ideal for new startups that only need a dedicated business phone presence.

Automated Attendant

Unlike Grasshopper, VirtualPhone.com, and other providers, Google Voice does not come with any sort of automated attendant to greet and route callers. However, it does come with a call screening feature that can greet callers and ask them for their name before being connected to you. While this is no substitute for a complete attendant, it can still help your company seem more established over the phone.

Call Management

If you download the mobile app onto your iPhone or Android device, Google can gather data from your address book and integrate it into Google Voice. Like any other service, you have the option of answering a call, sending it to voicemail, or blocking the caller’s phone number entirely. This works in an almost identical fashion to Talkroute and other systems on the market.

Extensions & Call Routing

Google Voice does not offer multi-extension support. All you get is one phone number that can be shared across multiple devices. If you need extensions, then offerings from CallHippo or Grasshopper might be a better fit for you.

Phone Numbers

Google Voice offers you the choice of a local phone number from almost anywhere in the country. Simply type in a city and you will see available numbers immediately. However, Google Voice is missing the ability to adopt a toll-free 1-800 number. If you do the majority of your business in one community, then this may not be a problem. However, a number with a 1-800 prefix helps in making your team look like an established, nationwide operation. You will have to look at paid systems like VirtualPhone.com or eVoice if you require this feature.

What Google Voice Is Missing

It’s easy to overlook many of Google Voice’s flaws considering that it is a completely free service. However, it lacks many of the features that come standard with paid virtual phone services, like an automated attendant and extensions for multiple users. If you are looking for an affordable option that provides many more features, we’d recommend Grasshopper instead.

What Users Think About Google Voice

Our readers find that Google Voice is a great value because it offers a dedicated business number at no cost. They also like the basic telephony features that it offers. However, some readers have complained that the process of porting phone numbers can be exceedingly difficult. For more opinions, go to our Google Voice user reviews page.

Talkroute: Best Virtual Phone System With Call Center Features

Talkroute is a virtual phone business service that offers a unique set of features that lend themselves well to call center environments. It has a live call transfer module, call queuing, and reports on all of your call data. The service starts at $19 per month and is a good fit for companies that want virtualized call center features in their phone system.

Talkroute Pricing

Talkroute offers three distinct pricing plans. The Basic tier comes with one phone number for $19 per month, the Plus plan provides two numbers for $39 per month, and the Pro edition has three numbers for $59 per month. This is one of the more affordable options on the market.

Talkroute Tiered Features

Basic

The Basic version of Talkroute provides a basic set of telephony features. You get call queuing (which the company calls call stacking), one toll-free or local phone number, unlimited calling, and access to the company’s mobile app. You also get 500 monthly text messages per user. It costs $19 per month.

While 500 texts should be plenty for a lot of users, it is a bit disappointing that Talkroute places a limit on texts in the first place. After all, Google Voice is free and it still offers unlimited texting. It is also quite a bit more expensive than Grasshopper considering pricing is per person. Talkroute Basic is only recommended for teams that absolutely need to have call queuing features.

Plus

For an extra $20 per month, Talkroute Pro adds more advanced business telephony features. It has the ability to add a call menu, which works in an identical fashion to the automated attendants found in other services like Grasshopper and CallHippo. You also get to configure your hours of operation so that you can automatically send callers to voicemail after your office has closed.

This version is missing three phone numbers unlike the Pro version of the solution. With that said, we like Talkroute’s call center features, especially for sales teams, support staff, or any other type of work that needs to handle a large incoming call volume.

Pro

The top-level edition of Talkroute is $59 per month and comes with three phone numbers for your small business. On top of that, you get a professionally recorded voice greeting for your company. This means that you are entitled to one recording of a professional voice-over artist greeting your callers and effectively being the “voice” of your company.

Talkroute Pro is a powerful system. However, like most top-shelf packages, it is probably out of reach for most small business customers. If you are looking to save money and only need a basic set of phoning features, you would be much better served by more affordable competitors.

What Talkroute Is Missing

Talkroute offers the ability to buy a vanity number for your small business. However, its interface for doing so is a bit clunky, and you cannot buy international numbers. If being able to choose a unique phone number is important to you, look at CallHippo instead.

What Users Think About Talkroute

Online reviews have mostly positive things to say about Talkroute. Many commenters highlight the software’s intuitive user interface (UI) as smooth and painless to use. They also like the call stacking module. Common complaints include the high price and lack of faxing support.

CallHippo: Best Virtual Phone System With Vanity Numbers

CallHippo is a virtual phone system that comes standard with unlimited calling, recording, and more. There is a free version available, with paid packages ranging from $10 to $30 per user, per month. What makes CallHippo stand out from its competitors is the fact that it offers a powerful set of tools for buying customized vanity numbers. It’s great for teams that want to make their number a marketing initiative in and of itself.

CallHippo Pricing

CallHippo offers a free version as well as three paid packages ranging from $10 to $30 per user, per month. Standard features include calling, texting, and voicemail. This is one of the more moderately priced solutions available.

CallHippo Tiered Features

Basic

The Basic version of CallHippo comes with a fair number of features for a free service. You get a free softphone to use on a desktop device, text messaging, and voicemail. You also get the ability to connect call data with Slack, Salesforce, and other popular business applications.

This version is missing the call recording, voicemail-to-email, call queuing, and other features found in the paid versions of the service. It also has a less intuitive interface than other solutions on the market. Still, this is a solid solution for companies looking to try out a virtual phone service for the first time.

Bronze

The Bronze edition of CallHippo costs $10 per user, per month and adds call recording, voicemail-to-email, and call queuing to the software. While it lacks the reporting module found in Talkroute, CallHippo could still technically serve as a call center phone service. It also comes with the ability to record and deploy a welcome message that you can use to greet incoming callers.

If you want call transfer and voicemail transcription, you will need to upgrade to the Silver package. This is disappointing, as Google Voice is a free solution that comes with voicemail transcription. This edition is also missing the multilingual IVR capabilities and three-way calling of the top-tier version. CallHippo Bronze is best for people who need call recording and queuing functionality, but not voicemail transcription.

Silver

For an extra $8 per person, per month, the Silver version adds call transfer and voicemail transcription capabilities. This effectively means that your voicemails will appear in your mailbox as text so that you can read it instead of taking the time to play the file. This is also a good accessibility measure, as it helps people who are deaf or hard of hearing receive important messages.

This platform does not come with multilingual IVR, so you will not be able to offer your automated attendant in multiple languages. It is also more expensive than Grasshopper, as this solution is priced on a per-user basis. The Silver package is best suited for companies that do not have a diverse customer base and have no need for multilingual IVR.

Platinum

The top-level small business version of CallHippo costs $30 per user, per month. The two biggest features it adds are multilingual interactive voice response (IVR) and three-way calling. Multilingual IVR is useful because you can let callers choose from a number of different languages to navigate your phone menu. Three-way calling is useful in training scenarios, as it lets managers and employees both speak on sales calls and other important conversations.

CallHippo Platinum is one of the pricier options we looked at. While it has a powerful feature set, it’s hard to be too enticed by this solution given the fact that there are free complete phone systems available, such as Google Voice. Still, all versions of CallHippo makes it very easy to choose vanity numbers make it perfect for organizations that want a memorable phone number.

What CallHippo Is Missing

CallHippo offers the ability to adopt international numbers in countries all over the world. However, it lacks the option to buy a toll-free international number. If you want to cater to an overseas audience and allow them to call your company at no cost, then we recommend looking at VirtualPhone.com instead.

What Users Think About CallHippo

Customers like the wealth of telephony features offered by CallHippo. However, a large number of reviewers have complained that the user interface (UI) can be hard to navigate. Some customers have also reported service outages.

VirtualPhone.com: Best Virtual Phone System for Multinational Companies

VirtualPhone.com is a virtual phone system that offers customers the ability to buy an international toll-free number with every new account. The service, which offers a free version, also has unlimited extensions, an automated attendant, voicemail, and virtual faxing. VirtualPhone’s international number options make it a good fit for teams with an overseas business presence.

VirtualPhone.com Pricing

VirtualPhone.com has a free version and three paid editions. Paid versions range from $9 to $499 per month depending on how many minutes you want. We like that there are pricing plans available to meet any small business budget.

With each plan, you choose a bucket of minutes or text:

• Free: 100 minutes or text messages
• Starter: $9 per month for 200 minutes or texts, or $19 per month for 500 minutes or texts
• Medium: $59 for 2,000 minutes or texts, or $99 per month for 4,000 minutes or 3,000 texts
• Large: $199 for 10,000 minutes or texts, or $499 for 30,000 minutes or texts

VirtualPhone.com Features

VirtualPhone.com offers you the choice of a local, toll-free, or an international number in dozens of countries all over the world. On top of that, it also provides a standard set of telephony features such as call management, an automated attendant, and voicemail.

VirtualPhone.com features include:

Automated Attendant

VirtualPhone.com comes with an auto-attendant that works very similarly to those found in competing systems. Like modules found in other virtual phone services, users can record customized greetings for callers. This helps businesses create a bespoke phone experience for their callers.

Call Management

VirtualPhone.com comes with a complete set of options for managing all call traffic. It has options for call forward, call hold, call block, and more. It’s good for any team that wants to better manage inbound call volumes. It closely matches other solutions in this respect.

Extensions & Call Routing

VirtualPhone.com provides customers with unlimited extensions regardless of what package they choose. This means that every single employee can have their own unique extension, which is better than almost any other package on the market. This is great for growing teams that want to make sure every employee has their own line.

Phone Numbers

Like other systems, VirtualPhone.com lets you choose between a local or toll-free number. However, what makes the service truly unique is that you can adopt a toll-free international number in dozens of countries. This is great for multinational organizations that want to cater to their overseas customers.

What VirtualPhone.com Is Missing

VirtualPhone.com has an impressive feature set and is available at many different price points. However, its fax functionality is very limited, as it does not have tools for scanning and faxing from a mobile device. If you need full fax capabilities, we recommend looking at eVoice instead.

What Users Think About VirtualPhone.com

VirtualPhone.com’s customers love the fact that they can easily choose a toll-free international number for their business. They also appreciate the service’s flexible pricing. However, some customers in online reviews say that the company’s customer service team sometimes fails to help solve their problems.

eVoice: Best Virtual Phone Number Provider for Faxing

eVoice, which starts at $6.25 per month, is a virtual phone system that comes with integrated faxing capabilities. It also comes with standard features like call forward, texting, and call block. It is an ideal fit for businesses that would prefer to use fax to exchange sensitive information instead of email.

eVoice Pricing

eVoice comes in four different pricing packages based on users, minutes, and numbers. Pricing ranges from $6.25 per user, per month for two users to $15 per user, per month for 10 users on an annual basis. This is one of the more affordable virtual phone options on the market.

eVoice price plans include:

• $6.25 per user, per month: Two users, 350 minutes, six local or toll-free numbers, unlimited extensions
• $16.25 user, per month: Four users, unlimited minutes, 12 local or toll-free numbers, unlimited extensions
• $15.83 user, per month: Six users, unlimited minutes, 18 local or toll-free numbers, unlimited extensions
• $15.00 per month: 10 users, unlimited minutes, 30 local or toll-free numbers, unlimited extensions

eVoice Features

Every version of eVoice comes with standard features like an automated attendant, online faxing, and call forwarding. Outbound fax is available for an extra $1.95 per user, per month. All accounts also come with access to the company’s mobile app.

Automated Attendant

Every eVoice account comes with an auto-attendant that greets and routes your callers without human intervention. It can also let callers look up individual employees in a dial-by-name directory. This works identically to other phone systems available today. It’s very helpful when it comes to assisting those who call your company.

Call Management

eVoice comes standard with all of the call management features you’ll find in Grasshopper, VirtualPhone.com, and other providers. Business users of all skill levels should have no problem managing their calls with eVoice.

Extensions & Call Routing

With each new eVoice account, you get unlimited extensions, just like you would with VirtualPhone.com. It beats Grasshopper in this respect, which only offers unlimited extensions in its top package. This also means that, if your company grows, it will be very easy to add new extensions.

Phone Numbers

eVoice comes with the choice of either a local or toll-free 1-800 phone number. This is similar to how competing solutions work. You can also buy a vanity or international number for an additional monthly cost. This is standard for the virtual phone service. eVoice supports customers regardless of what business phone number they need.

What eVoice Is Missing

eVoice is a capable phone system. However, its pricing structure can be a bit confusing for new customers. Grasshopper, on the other hand, only offers three different pricing packages that are easy to understand.

What Users Think About eVoice

eVoice customers are fond of the system. They find that it is effective and that its interface is easy to navigate. Customers also say that faxing with the service is quite easy. With that said, many seem to be frustrated with the company’s lack of helpful customer service.

Bottom Line

Virtual phone systems are a cost-effective way of separating business calls from personal conversations. They also come with advanced features like automated attendants, faxing, and visual voicemail. On top of that, they also help your team project a more professional business image.

We recommend Grasshopper to any small company seeking a powerful, affordable virtual phone system. You can use the system on your mobile phone or computer. They even offer a seven-day free trial. Check out their website to learn more.

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