Top 5 Ooma Alternatives for 2018

Ooma is one of the leading VoIP providers for homes and businesses. Its business service offers excellent call quality as well as many of the features you would expect from a business VoIP phone service, all for a straightforward and competitive price. However, Ooma requires an upfront investment in hardware, one Ooma Office device can only support up to five extensions, and some users have reported being unhappy with their customer support and lack of more advanced call management features.

We looked at the leading alternatives to Ooma, what they offer in comparison, and how they compete for price.

Best Ooma Alternative for Virtual Phone Service: Grasshopper

We recommend Grasshopper as the best Ooma alternative if your business needs a virtual phone service rather than a full VoIP phone system. A virtual phone service gives your business its own phone number, but calls can be made or received on your personal mobile phone or desk phone — although they appear to come from and to the virtual number. In addition to the phone number, this also gives you access to a range of call management features that would normally require a full VoIP phone service, such as virtual receptionists, call directories, and ring groups.

This service has two main benefits for small businesses:

• You can create a main business phone number to give to your customers without the need for a full phone service; or,
• You can 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.

Pricing

Grasshopper has recently updated their pricing model. They now offer three plan levels that vary depending on how many phone numbers and extensions your business needs:

• $24/month for one phone number and three extensions
• $49/month for three phone numbers and six extensions
• $89/month for five phone numbers and unlimited extensions

Features

Every Grasshopper plan includes the following features:

• Custom greetings
• Unlimited extensions
• Call handling
• Web and app-based account management
• Call blocking
• Call forwarding
• Call screening
• Conference calling
• Voicemail sent as audio file by email
• Incoming faxes emailed to you as PDFs

What’s Missing

Because Grasshopper is a virtual phone service, calls are made and received on your existing mobile phone — therefore, you will still use your mobile phone plan’s minutes. This adds to the cost of Grasshopper’s service, which in many cases can make it more expensive overall than a full VoIP phone service provider like Ooma.

Visit Grasshopper

Best Ooma Alternative for Free Virtual Phone Service: Google Voice

If your phone service needs are relatively simple and you’re comfortable making and receiving calls over your computer, then we recommend Google Voice as an economical alternative to Ooma. With Google Voice, businesses can secure a single unique phone number or port over an existing one that can then be used from any mobile phone or internet-enabled device. And best of all, Google Voice is free for anyone to use.

Pricing

Because Google Voice is a virtual phone service, inbound and outbound calls are made to and from your mobile device and will use your voice plan’s minutes. However, inbound and outbound calls can also be made to and from your computer for free using only your internet connection.

Calls and texts within North America are free and international rates start at $0.01/minute. This makes Google Voice an easy way to minimize your business’ phone costs. However, as with anything else, Google Voice does have its downsides that you should consider before relying on the service for your primary phone needs.

Features

Google Voice offers some of the standard call management features that will help you in your day-to-day business, such as:

• Web and app-based account management
• Call blocking
• Call forwarding
• Call screening
• Custom call greetings
• Conference calling
• Voicemail transcription
• Share audio files of voicemails by email
• SMS transcriptions sent to email

What’s Missing

Google Voice lacks many of the call management features that other paid services like Ooma provide. These include:

• Virtual receptionist
• Dial-by-name directory
• Call transfer
• Ring groups
• Hold music

However, the most significant downside to Google Voice is their lack of customer support. Google does offer community forums for users to help troubleshoot and resolve any issues themselves, but there is no individual support available like there is with Ooma and the other Ooma alternatives on this list.

Visit Google Voice

Best Fully Featured Ooma Alternative: Nextiva

We recommend Nextiva as the best fully featured Ooma alternative because they offer the best combination of service, features, award-winning customer service, and price in a VoIP phone service.

Pricing

Unlike Ooma, there are no upfront hardware or other setup fees with Nextiva other than your phones. Pricing is based on the number of users and decreases per user as more are added.

Nextiva’s monthly pricing breaks down as follows:

• $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

Features

Nextiva delivers most of the standard features you would expect from a VoIP phone service provider that will help your business day-to-day, including:

• Web-based system administration
• Auto-attendant
• Hold music
• Call forwarding
• Conference bridge
• Caller ID
• Call blocking
• Call waiting
• Call transfer
• Ring groups
• Voicemail sent as audio file by email

But what truly sets Nextiva apart is the level of customer support that they offer. 95% of their incoming calls are answered by the second ring with most questions answered or issues resolved within your first call. A single point of contact helps to guide your business through each phase of your account — setup, training, and ongoing support.

Nextiva has also been awarded the North American Frost and Sullivan Award for Customer Service Leadership and a Stevie Award for Innovation in Customer Service and Customer Service Department of the year in the telecommunications field.

What’s Missing

Nextiva received our recommendation for the best VoIP phone service for small businesses because of its combination of features and price. The one downside to the service is that there are more economical options available, including Ooma, despite Ooma’s upfront hardware costs.

If cost is your primary concern and you don’t mind missing out on a few advanced features and Nextiva’s award-winning customer service, then Ooma or another less expensive alternative may be a better fit for your business.

Visit Nextiva

Best Ooma Alternative for International Calling: 8×8

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 option for you in the long run. Their Unlimited and Global plans include international calls to either nine or 40 of 8×8’s top calling destinations, respectively.

Pricing

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

Unlike Ooma, there are no upfront hardware or setup costs other than your phones.

Features

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 may present a significant cost savings over other VoIP phone service providers.

8×8 is also compliant with HIPAA, PCI, and FISMA regulations if your business is bound by them.

Other standard calling features with 8×8 include:

• Ring groups
• Hold music
• User extensions
• Call forwarding
• Incoming caller ID
• Call waiting
• Call transfers
• Send audio files of voicemails to email

What’s Missing

8×8 is missing a few advanced features that other VoIP phone services include standard, such as call queuing and toll-free numbers, cost extra with 8×8 and this can quickly cause costs to increase. Ooma doesn’t offer call queuing either and they also charge additional for 800-numbers, like 8×8. Nextiva, however, includes call queuing and one 800-number in their plans.

Best Ooma Alternative for Business Collaboration: Vonage

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 to be a more complete end-to-end business solution rather than just a VoIP phone service.

Pricing

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

Unlike Ooma, there are no upfront hardware or setup costs other than the cost of your phones.

Features

Vonage’s partnership with Amazon Chime integrates the online communication and collaboration tool with Vonage’s VoIP phone service, making Vonage a more complete end-to-end business solution. Ooma doesn’t offer a comparable feature.

Vonage also includes many other features to help your business manage your calls, including:

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

What’s Missing

While Vonage delivers an excellent service overall, there are some calling features that other VoIP phone services include in their plans that Vonage charges extra for. Some of these features that come at an additional cost include:

• Toll-free numbers
• Call monitoring
• Call recording

In addition, call groups, a dial-by-name directory, and conference bridges are features that Ooma includes that Vonage does not.

Visit Vonage