Grasshopper vs RingCentral: Price, Features & What’s Best in 2019

Grasshopper and RingCentral are business phone services that offer features such as phone numbers, unlimited domestic calling, text messaging, and more. RingCentral offers a larger feature set that would be appreciated by established organizations while Grasshopper is good for smaller teams that want to enjoy things like a toll-free number and mobile apps.

When to Use Grasshopper

Grasshopper is our top choice for virtual phone services because it is affordable, easy to use, and offers customers the choice of a local or toll-free phone number. The service starts at $26 per user, per month, and comes with unlimited calling, texting, and voicemail. It also comes with mobile apps to make calls from.

Visit Grasshopper

When to Use RingCentral

RingCentral is perfect for businesses that want to enjoy a range of advanced features within a standalone phone service. RingCentral is a voice-over internet-protocol (VoIP) system that offers users unlimited calling and an auto attendant. The service starts at $19.99 per user, per month. Find a better price? RingCentral will match it. Get started today.

Visit RingCentral

Quiz: Which VoIP Provider Is Right for You?

Grasshopper vs RingCentral at a Glance

How We Evaluated Grasshopper & RingCentral

Grasshopper and RingCentral are both internet-based phone services that provide customers with dedicated business phone lines, calling, and short message service (SMS) messaging. We evaluated Grasshopper and RingCentral based on certain aspects such as available phone numbers, international calling, an automated attendant to greet callers, voicemail, and conference calling. We also looked at advanced features such as video calling, visual voicemail, and faxing.

We evaluated Grasshopper and RingCentral based on the following criteria:

• Pricing: Services should be affordable for small businesses to adopt.
• Ease of use: We looked at how easy each service is to use.
• Call management: Both services offer call management features like call forwarding, voicemail, and more.
• Phone numbers: We looked at the types of phone numbers available from each provider, such as local and toll-free.
• Automated attendant: We examined each system’s modules for greeting and routing incoming callers.
• Device support: Services should offer compatibility with mobile devices, desk phones, and other types of phones.
• Collaboration features: We looked at whether each system offers collaboration features such as web messaging, file sharing, and video chat.
• Additional features: We looked at whether each service offers additional features such as visual voicemail, internet faxing, and more.
• Call quality and reliability: Phone systems should offer clear audio quality during calls
• Customer service: We looked at the channels available to customers in the event of the problem.

When comparing the two phone services, RingCentral’s feature set, along with the fact that it works with VoIP desk phones, makes it a great choice for most established organizations that want not just a phone, but a full business communications suite. It is also extraordinarily easy to use, considering how many features it has.

Grasshopper vs RingCentral: Pricing & Features

Grasshopper and RingCentral offer multiple tiers of service designed for different types of users, along with standard features like a free business number, multiple extensions, and texting. RingCentral, which starts at $19.99 per user, per month, offers more features and can work with a VoIP desk phone setup. Grasshopper is more affordable with a starting price of $29 per month but requires an existing phone line to forward calls to and does not offer as many features.

Grasshopper Pricing

Grasshopper offers three different small business pricing plans that all include the same features. The $29 Solo edition supports one number and three extensions, the $49 Partner package has three numbers and six extensions, and the $89 Small Business version supports five numbers and unlimited extensions. This is substantially more affordable than RingCentral.

Grasshopper Features

Grasshopper’s features include unlimited domestic calling, text messaging, voicemail, and access to mobile and desktop apps. You can purchase additional phone numbers through the company’s customer support team for a customized fee, and the service also offers international calling for a per-minute rate based on the country. You can also check out our guide to RingCentral alternatives for more provider options.

Automated Attendant

With every version of the service, Grasshopper offers an automated attendant that can greet and route callers without human intervention. Users can record personalized messages for the automated attendant or hire a professional voiceover artist through the company for $75 per recording. Grasshopper makes it easy to build and deploy these menus, but they are lacking compared to RingCentral’s multilevel attendant, which has more granular controls.

Phone Numbers & Extensions

With each new account, Grasshopper offers a local or toll-free number. Toll-free numbers are beneficial because they allow customers to call your organization at no cost to them. It also makes your company look more established to prospective clients. The service is similar to RingCentral in this regard.

Call Management

Like other business phone services, Grasshopper offers a set of call management tools to handle your call traffic. Tools include call forwarding, call transfer, call block, and call screening. It also comes with call control schedules to correspond to your business hours. It matches RingCentral’s set of management tools.

Advanced Features

Grasshopper does not offer the ability to connect call data with Salesforce and helpdesk systems like the Premium edition of RingCentral. It also lacks the ability to hold video meetings between employees as its competitor does. Still, the service is good for those only seeking basic core phone features.

RingCentral Pricing

RingCentral’s pricing and small business plans range from $19.99 to $34.99 per user, per month, on an annual basis. You can also subscribe on a monthly basis for a few dollars more per month. This is more expensive than Grasshopper because pricing is based on a per-user basis.

RingCentral Tiered Features

*Pricing is on an annual basis.

Essentials

RingCentral’s entry-level Essentials package comes with a full set of tools for calling, texting, and managing voicemail starting at $19.99 per user, per month. It also offers a local or toll-free number with each new account. It is similar to Grasshopper and other small business phone services in this regard.

This tier only offers 100 toll-free minutes, which is lacking compared to other packages. However, it is more than Grasshopper offers, which charges a per-minute rate for all toll-free calls. This package is good for companies looking for a completely standalone phone system with basic features.

Standard

The Standard version of RingCentral costs $24.99 per user, per month, and comes with everything you’ll find in the Essentials plan. However, it also adds more toll-free calling limits as well as a multilevel auto attendant that lets you build complex voice menus for all of your callers. The interface for building these voice menus is among the most robust we’ve seen in a business phone system to date. It is much more powerful than Grasshopper.

This plan also includes video conferencing for up to four people at once. This is helpful if you have remote employees that want to work collaboratively on an assignment. No such functionality is found in Grasshopper, which makes this a great product for managers who want teams to work together.

Premium

RingCentral Premium, which costs $34.99 per user, per month, is designed with larger teams in mind. It comes with video meetings for up to 100 people and 2,500 monthly toll-free minutes. It also offers integrations with Salesforce and Zendesk, so you can share call data with your helpdesk and customer relationship management (CRM) systems.

If you have a team of just 10 people and subscribe to this plan for every employee, this is going to be far more expensive than Grasshopper’s top-shelf Small Business Plan. However, the fact that it offers so many toll-free minutes per month could provide a value for those with a high incoming call volume. It is also good for companies that want to hold large video meetings.

Grasshopper vs RingCentral: Ease of Use

Grasshopper and RingCentral are both internet-based business phone systems. Therefore, they are both intuitive, and users should have no problem making calls with the system. However, Grasshopper’s user interface (UI) is a bit friendlier.

Grasshopper Ease of Use

Grasshopper offers a very simple, inviting interface for calls, texts, and voicemail. Its mobile app looks almost identical to a smartphone’s default modules for dialing numbers and checking voicemail. The fact that there are fewer features to navigate than RingCentral makes it a bit easier to use.

RingCentral Ease of Use

RingCentral provides a wealth of features in a concise overall user experience. Even nontechnical users should have no trouble making calls with the service. However, RingCentral offers more features, and the surplus of extra options available to customers could be overwhelming. Still, the service is intuitive enough for most people.

Grasshopper vs RingCentral: Customer Service

Both companies provide live support to their customers, so you don’t have to worry about being stranded in the event of a problem. Grasshopper offers a knowledge base as well as a phone line where you can be connected to the company’s staff. RingCentral provides similar channels as well as the RingCentral University training program, which gives it a slight edge here.

Grasshopper Customer Service

Grasshopper offers 24/7 phone support for their customers. It also has a knowledge base where you can look up articles regarding the system’s features and troubleshooting common problems. This is helpful, as you can search the guide easily and find the answers to your questions rather than deal with waiting to speak with a support agent.

RingCentral Customer Service

RingCentral offers phone support from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. Pacific time during business days. Like Grasshopper, it also offers a knowledge base for customers to help themselves. The company also provides the RingCentral University program, which offers courses on using all that the service has to offer. This is an extraordinarily beneficial resource for anyone new to using VoIP technology.

Grasshopper vs RingCentral: Customer Reviews

When researching a new phone system, it can be helpful to read opinions from existing customers. Our readers enjoy the features offered by both Grasshopper and RingCentral. With that in mind, RingCentral has a higher overall rating from readers.

Grasshopper Customer Reviews

Our readers like the affordability of Grasshopper as well as the fact that the service is easy to use. However, there are some customers that report that the service is subject to unexplained outages at times. For more impressions, check out our Grasshopper user reviews page.

“My husband and I own a watersports business that has been using Grasshopper for more than 2 years. Besides the two of us, we have three other seasonal employees. Because our business is seasonal, and because our booking agents work from home, Grasshopper allows us flexibility that we don’t get with traditional phone plans.”

― Heather Thomas, Destin Vacation Boat Rentals

RingCentral Customer Reviews

RingCentral’s customers like the platform’s feature set and compatibility with a wide range of devices. They also find video conferencing features to be useful for international communications. There are also some complaints about the company’s customer support channels being unhelpful. Visit our RingCentral user reviews page for more information.

“At our office, we use RingCentral for our telephone communications. In the course of the average day, it works fine, and the sound quality is more or less the same as a standard landline. Customer service has been average. Promised call backs don’t happen. If you call more than once on the same problem, you will get multiple answers. It seems that the customer service people don’t all know the software very well.”

― Richard Williamson, HealthyLynked

How Do RingCentral and Grasshopper Work?

Business phone services like RingCentral and Grasshopper work over the internet, so they require electricity and a reliable high-speed internet connection to make calls. Alternatively, you could also use your mobile phone and make calls over a data network. However, this can be a challenge for rural workers that do not have access to fast internet speeds or large data plans.

You can use RingCentral and Grasshopper on a desktop computer as well as a range of other devices. For example, both providers offer mobile apps that you can download on your personal phone and effectively take your work phone wherever you go. There are also VoIP desk phones available. For more information on VoIP, check out our guide on VoIP technology.

How Are RingCentral and Grasshopper Different?

RingCentral and Grasshopper work in similar ways. They are both internet-based business phone systems, but RingCentral is a VoIP system that works independently of another phone line. On the other hand, Grasshopper is a virtual phone system that works by forwarding calls through an existing line, so you will need to keep an existing line to use the system.

Bottom Line

Grasshopper and RingCentral both provide a strong core set of features for making and receiving calls. They also offer a free local or toll-free number to all customers. Grasshopper is an affordable system that is great for young startups and small teams.

We find that RingCentral is the best choice for businesses because of its advanced feature set and the fact that it can work independently of any existing phone line. The service also offers a range of pricing packages to meet different budgets and business needs. Click the button below to start your 7-day free trial today.

Visit RingCentral