RingCentral Review: Features, Alternatives & Pricing for 2023
Corey McCraw is a staff writer covering VoIP and Unified Communications. Corey has over a decade of experience in marketing, tech writing, and corporate communications and has even penned content for the former First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move initiative.
This article is part of a larger series on VoIP.
RingCentral is a cloud-based phone system offering businesses a scalable platform for voice calls, video meetings, text, fax, and instant messaging. It has reliable, comprehensive features small business teams need in a complete voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) solution. Monthly plans start at $32.99 per user, with a 14-day free trial. Based on our RingCentral review, it’s best for growing businesses looking for a robust, centralized communications platform.
RingCentral Review: At a Glance
Overall Score:
4.17 / 5
What We Liked
- Supports various communication channels, such as video, SMS, and team messaging
- User-friendly for all skill levels
- Integrates with over 300 third-party applications
- In-depth analytics and reporting tools
- 99.999% uptime service level agreement (SLA)
What's Missing
- More expensive than its alternatives
- Entry-level plan lacks a video conferencing feature
- User reviews reported customer service not immediately responsive
- Scaling businesses looking for a complete phone solution: RingCentral is our top-recommended small business VoIP service because of its reliability and comprehensive features, as well as its ability to provide new communications channels as you grow.
- Businesses needing advanced features to effectively manage calls: RingCentral tops our list of the best call management systems because of its advanced call features. It allows you to completely customize the caller experience.
- Businesses with high call volumes: RingCentral is one of our highly recommended best auto-attendant phone systems, offering a multi-level auto-attendant and a visual interactive voice response (IVR) editor to easily customize inbound call routing.
- Businesses needing to support remote employees and regional offices: RingCentral made it to our list of the best providers for international VoIP calling because it offers local phone numbers in up to 100 territories, SMS capability, and service localization in 18 languages.
- Looking for flexible and customized pricing plans: Those not looking to scale any time soon should check out Vonage instead. It provides flexible, a la carte phone plans and add-on pricing options if the need arises. Read through our RingCentral vs Vonage assessment to find out which provider suits your needs best.
- Needing unlimited extensions and users: If you prefer flat monthly plans without advanced features and integrations, look into a more inexpensive alternative like Grasshopper. See our detailed RingCentral vs Grasshopper comparison for more information.
- Budget-conscious businesses with low call volumes: RingCentral’s plan and pricing come at higher subscription rates. Consider a more budget-friendly VoIP solution like Phone.com. Discover its services in our Phone.com review.
RingCentral Deciding Factors
Best For | Businesses with a need for communications features that scale with company needs |
Standout Features |
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Pricing Plans (Billed Monthly) |
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Annual or Volume Discounts Available | Both annual and volume discounts are available |
Key Integrations | |
Customer Service | Unlimited chat and phone support at the Premium tier and above |
RingCentral Alternatives
While RingCentral is one of the leading business phone systems, it also has a few disadvantages. Its number of features may be overwhelming for solopreneurs or small teams with basic phone system needs. Meanwhile, businesses with a tight budget are better off with cheaper alternatives because of RingCentral’s pricey subscriptions. It also lacks unlimited international calling, free professionally recorded greetings, and mix-and-match plans.
If you’re looking for a business phone system other than RingCentral, here are the top alternatives:
 |  |  | |
|---|---|---|---|
Best For | Businesses looking for a VoIP service with professionally recorded voice greetings | Companies with high international call volumes | Small businesses with low call volumes looking for a budget-friendly virtual phone system |
Monthly Starting Price | $30.95 per user | $15 per user | $31 |
Learn More |
Not what you’re looking for? Check out our RingCentral alternatives guide and explore which provider is the right choice for your business.
RingCentral VoIP pricing consists of four subscription packages for its all-in-one message, video, and phone (MVP) product. Monthly rates for accounts with one to 20 users start at $32.99 per user. All plans include essential business tools, such as unlimited domestic calls, business SMS, visual voicemail, and team messaging. A 14-day free trial is available for new users.
RingCentral Plans | Core | Advanced | Ultra |
|---|---|---|---|
Best for | Small teams needing phone and messaging capabilities | Small businesses needing a business phone system with video features | Companies needing real-time analytics, CRM (customer relationship management) integrations, and open platform functions |
Monthly Pricing ($/User/Month)* | $30 | $35 | $45 |
Annual Pricing ($/User/Month) | $20 | $25 | $35 |
Toll-free minutes | N/A | 1,000 | 10,000 |
Video Meeting Participants | 100 | 100 | 200 |
Call management features | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Multi-level auto-attendant | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
Call recording | On-demand | Automatic | Automatic |
Real-time analytics | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
*Pricing is based on one to 20 users. Volume discounts are available.
RingCentral Add-ons
Here is the list of RingCentral MVP add-ons for users needing additional virtual numbers, bulk SMS messaging, and RingCentral Rooms license:
- Additional local or toll-free number costs $4.99 per user, monthly
- Vanity numbers require a $30 one-time fee
- International numbers cost $5.99 per user, on a monthly basis
- International toll-free numbers cost $14.99 per user, per month, plus a one-time $25 fee
- High-volume SMS starts at $0.0085 per message sent or received
- A RingCentral Rooms license costs $49 per room, monthly (or $468 per room, annually)
RingCentral Features
RingCentral is a cloud-based business phone system accessible across various devices. It comes with unified communication capabilities that enable you to connect with your teams and clients on whichever communication channel they prefer. Besides its premade app integrations, RingCentral lets you build your own custom integrations through developer tools and application programming interfaces (API).
We awarded RingCentral a perfect score when it comes to its excellent general features. The provider offers a unified platform for all communications needs, including business phone, instant messaging, video meetings, SMS, and internet fax. Its virtual phone system lets you instantly add new phone numbers, offices, devices, and remote teams.
It is an intuitive and user-friendly software for users of all skill levels. It does not require technicians for setup, and many customizations are done from the mobile app, allowing you to configure its settings even on the go. However, since it comes with a wide range of highly customizable features, setting them all up according to your needs may take a while.
With the RingCentral app, users don’t have to be tied to their desk phones when they need to transfer calls, record meetings, and check voicemails. (Source: RingCentral)
Immersive collaboration features are available in its robust video meeting app, such as whiteboard and screen sharing. Its platform integrates with over 300 third-party applications, including the following:
- Salesforce
- Slack
- Microsoft Teams
- Google Chrome
- Zoho CRM
- Zapier
- Zendesk
- ServiceNow
- Skype
- Microsoft 365
Not every feature will be needed by every company, but it’s nice to know that you’re covered should you need a particular functionality. RingCentral performs well in this regard. For example, not everyone needs to create an international footprint, but when they do, RingCentral provides numbers in hundreds of territories and also delivers very reasonable international rates when reaching foreign countries.
Additionally, RingCentral excels in call routing and management. Its IVR system has a simple drag-and-drop interface that makes it easy to customize your customer experience.
Here’s a detailed list of more of the key niche features found with RingCentral:
Administrators have the highest level of permission in a RingCentral account. They have the capability to manage user extensions and configure the company’s phone settings. Here are some of the admin tools offered by RingCentral:
Under RingCentral’s User Template tool, admins are able to configure user details, such as work hours, roles, and regional settings. (Source: RingCentral)
- Multi-level IVR
- Professionally recorded greetings
- Music on hold
- Number porting
- Call monitoring
- Call logs
- Automatic call recording
- Hotdesking
- Caller ID
- Dial-by-name directory
The audit trail enables admins to track system changes made by users and resolve configuration issues, such as failed account login attempts. It provides a searchable account history of your phone system and the changes to the admin settings. User templates apply phone system settings to multiple users simultaneously to reduce manual tasks and streamline administrative routines.
Besides its business phone capabilities, RingCentral delivers a collaboration solution for teams needing a centralized workspace for instant messaging, video meetings, file sharing, and project management. It removes the need to switch between different apps and ensures all your conversations, files, and projects are stored within a single location.
RingCentral lets you collaborate with people inside and outside your organization. (Source: RingCentral)
If you want to start a video meeting, the Team Huddle feature lets you set up a virtual room where participants are able to go in and out anytime. For those wanting to stay updated with their team’s progress, RingCentral’s team chat app comes with a built-in task management tool for assigning tasks and keeping your coworkers updated.
The RingCentral Analytics portal provides a wide range of statistics and reporting options based on meeting usage, account activity, call performance, and the global health of your phone system. Customize your dashboards using various filtering options and drag-and-drop widgets. Both inbound and outbound calls are supported by over 30 prebuilt call metrics, such as average speed of answer, number of refused calls, and cost per call.
RingCentral lets you customize your analytics dashboard using a prebuilt template or drag-and-drop widgets. (Source: RingCentral)
Live reports display trending metrics and usage analysis in a graphical format. For those who need real-time updates of call activity, RingCentral allows admins to configure customized notifications for specific call quality metrics. Users also have the option to automatically send reports to selected recipients via email through the Subscription feature.
Learn more in our guide about RingCentral Analytics to understand how it measures call performance, agent productivity, and overall customer experience.
RingCentral offers extensive coverage of its cloud phone system in over 40 countries. For companies with regional offices or a global consumer base, RingCentral lets you add Global MVP to your account to provide services in international locations. These include access to international SMS, local shipment of devices, global extension-to-extension calling, and service localization in 18 languages.
RingCentral offers local and toll-free numbers in over 100 countries to provide international customers the ability to contact your business easily. (Source: RingCentral)
Create a local presence with local and toll-free numbers in up to 100 global locations. Assign an international virtual number to an auto-attendant or extension to allow customers to connect to your business lines. For video meetings, RingCentral provides international dial-in meeting numbers for 55 countries at no extra cost. International calling plans are available in multiple payment options, such as call credit bundles, pay-as-you-go, and unlimited monthly packages.
Besides its unified communications as a service (UCaaS) platform, RingCentral has a dedicated contact center platform for businesses wanting to streamline their call center operations. Learn more in our RingCentral Contact Center review.
RingCentral’s customer service features didn’t score as high as other criteria. This is partially due to the fact that RingCentral only provides 24/7 unlimited support for customers who subscribe to its plan tiers at Premium and above. Email support is also missing from RingCentral’s support offering.
While you won’t need a high level of technical skill to set up and use your RingCentral system, it still takes a bit to get used to. The interface is fairly intuitive, and RingCentral’s own RingCentral University helps users traverse the system—however, at the same time, the interface is more difficult to set up than competitors like Nextiva or Grasshopper. One of the best features of RingCentral is that it provides a one-hour professional implementation session for users, which does remove some of the strain of setup.
RingCentral scored highly in our expert score thanks to its full-featured design. For example, with both annual and volume discounts, users looking for an inexpensive solution can quickly reduce the seemingly expensive cost of a RingCentral account. Users also appreciate its fast and reliable service (with 99.999% uptime), excellent call quality, and convenient setup process.
Here’s a breakdown of some of the RingCentral VoIP reviews from various internet-based platforms:
- TrustRadius: 7.0 out of 10 based on 257 reviews
- G2: 4 out of 5 based on 649 reviews
- Capterra: 4.2 out of 5 based on 1,036 reviews
- GetApp: 4.2 out of 5 based on 1,000 reviews
- Software Advice: 4.22 out of 5 based on 1,036 reviews
How We Evaluated RingCentral
As a basis for our RingCentral ratings, we compared this platform with other leading VoIP and unified communications as a service (UCaaS) providers. We tested the software ourselves and checked the feedback that verified users posted on reliable review websites. From there, we used several criteria, including pricing, standout features, customer service, and ease of use.
Learn how we evaluated RingCentral by clicking through the tabs below:
20%
Pricing
25%
General Features
20%
Niche Features
10%
Customer Service
10%
Ease of Use
15%
Expert Score
20% of Overall Score
We checked the availability of a free plan and discounts for annual billing and volume purchases. Higher points were awarded for multiple plan options and a base plan costing below $30 per month for each user.
25% of Overall Score
We highly favor providers that offer all the essential business communications features. These include features such as unlimited calling in the U.S. and Canada, video conferencing, business texting, a mobile app, and guaranteed call uptime.
20% of Overall Score
Some features can be a value-add for only some company types. For this criteria, we looked at features that might help companies expand and bring in new customers. This included international calling and number availability, interactive voice response (IVR) systems, and software integrations.
10% of Overall Score
We weighed the specific types of support channels the provider delivers to customers. These include phone, email, chat, and ticketing systems. Additional points are awarded if the available support channels are 24/7.
10% of Overall Score
Not every platform is user-friendly. To weigh these criteria, we checked customer reviews on credible websites. We looked to see if customers experienced learning curves for the platform and also evaluated the overall experience when navigating through various features.
15% of Overall Score
We weighed the provider’s popularity among businesses and whether users see value for the money in its various features. We awarded points for its standout features and ease of use.
*Percentages of overall score
Bottom Line
RingCentral provides a comprehensive communications platform that unifies messages across calls, faxes, voicemails, texts, and emails. Its tiered pricing plans work best for businesses with growing needs. Based on our RingCentral review, while its pricing points are more expensive than its alternatives, it offers valuable capabilities, third-party app integrations, and impressive call management features that match those with high call volumes.
Sign up for a 14-day free trial or request a demo to learn if it suits your business needs.
