Zoom Phone Review: Features & Alternatives 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.
Marianne is a staff writer at Fit Small Business who covers business phone services, VoIP, and video conferencing tools.
This article is part of a larger series on VoIP.
Zoom Phone is a voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) service offered by one of the leading video conferencing software platforms, Zoom. All plans include a wide range of call management features, but prices differ based on metered and unmetered call plans. Monthly fees start at $10 per user—the cheapest in the market. Based on our Zoom Phone review, it’s excellent for businesses with low call volumes or companies doing business across multiple countries.
Zoom Phone Review: At a Glance
Overall Score:
4.02 / 5
What We Liked
- Affordable starting price
- Metered and unmetered call plans
- Local phone service in 40 countries
- Mix-and-match plans for greater cost savings
What's Missing
- Real-time reporting requires extra fees
- Limited third-party integrations
- Extra charge for toll-free numbers
- Only supports 19 countries for unlimited global calling
- Building local presence in global regions: Zoom’s Pro Global Select plan includes a local number and unlimited domestic calls across 40+ countries.
- Cheap VoIP service: Zoom Phone offers rich VoIP features without the higher costs associated with unlimited calling. Monthly call plans start at only $10 per user, including access to video meetings and team chat.
- Seasonal call volumes: Mix-and-match per-minute and unlimited plans based on individual user requirements.
- Outbound calling campaign: Zoom Phone supports unlimited outbound calling, which benefits telemarketing firms that regularly experience high volumes of outbound calls.
- Third-party integrations: RingCentral, one of our top business phone systems, integrates with 200+ widely used tools for analytics, productivity, and customer support.
- Full-featured unified communications (UC): Nextiva is a small business VoIP service that covers all the essential UC features, including video, SMS, fax, and team collaboration.
- Virtual phone number: eVoice supports multiple toll-free numbers per plan and offers vanity phone numbers at affordable fees. Learn more in our eVoice review.
Zoom Phone Deciding Factors
Although most widely known for video conferencing, Zoom offers a feature-rich cloud phone system for businesses of all sizes. With its metered and unmetered plans, users choose which option suits their call volume requirements. Its highest-tier package supports local phone services across 40 countries, allowing businesses to expand their reach in global territories.
Best For |
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Standout Features |
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Pricing Plans |
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Annual or Volume Discounts Available |
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Integrations |
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Customer Service | 24/7 support via phone, live chat, and email help desk |
Zoom Phone Alternatives
Zoom Phone lacks certain capabilities businesses need, such as team collaboration tools, online fax, vanity numbers, and toll-free minutes. If these are your priorities, consider the following options:
 |  |  | |
|---|---|---|---|
Best For | Home-based solopreneurs looking for a free VoIP provider | Companies wanting unlimited international calls in 48 countries | Businesses needing unlimited extensions and contact center capabilities |
Monthly Starting Price (per User) | Free or $9.99 for the first paid tier | $15 | $27 |
Learn More |
While Zoom Phone offers incredibly cheap plans, this provider fell short when it comes to offering a free trial and discounts. Still, this provider is a compelling choice for businesses looking for cheap per-user fees and mix-and-match options for metered and unlimited call plans.
Zoom Phone pricing plans start at $10 per user, per month. The difference between subscriptions comes down to if you want metered charges, unlimited regional calling, or unmetered domestic calling in one of the 40 countries supported.
Zoom Phone Plans | US & Canada Metered | US & Canada Unlimited | Pro Global Select |
|---|---|---|---|
Best For | Small teams with low call volumes looking for pay-as-you-go pricing | Businesses needing unlimited inbound and outbound calling | Companies doing business across multiple countries |
Monthly Pricing ($/User/Month) | $10 | $15 | $20 |
Annual Pricing ($/User/Month) | $120 | $180 | $240 |
Unlimited Inbound Calling | US and Canada | US and Canada | 40+ countries |
Unlimited Outbound Calling | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
Unlimited Auto-attendant | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
US & Canada Number | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ |
Direct Dial Number | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
Domestic SMS & MMS | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ |
Zoom Phone Add-ons
Zoom Phone offers optional add-on plans to extend business phone functionality. However, there should be at least one licensed user to purchase any of the add-on plans.
- Toll-free numbers: Get toll-free numbers for a monthly fee of $5.
- International calling: Unlimited calling to 19 countries costs $10 per month. This add-on can be purchased with any of the unlimited calling plans.
- Additional phone numbers: Add local, toll-free, or international numbers to your plan for $5 per year.
- Hardware as a service: Access the latest desk phone devices at a monthly starting fee of $5.99 per device.
- Zoom Phone Power Pack: Add real-time analytics, historical reports, team SMS, and desktop user experience for a monthly fee of $25 per user.
- Premier developer support: Get technical support within guaranteed target response times. Contact the sales team for a quote.
Zoom Phone Features
Zoom Phone has an intuitive and modern platform that looks similar to its video conferencing version. Its web portal provides traditional desk phone capabilities, such as call forwarding, transfer, conference, and hold. It also has a full-featured mobile app that lets you seamlessly escalate a phone call to a Zoom Meeting.
Zoom Phone offers a comprehensive set of call features without the need to unlock higher-tier plans. With an uptime service level agreement (SLA) of 100%, Zoom Phone operates without errors or downtime. It also has a full-featured mobile app that lets you manage calls everywhere. Here are the top call management features offered by Zoom Phone:
- Call blocking: Manage your call blocklist to block unwanted calls automatically.
- Call forwarding: Modify call handling rules to route calls to internal users and external phone numbers.
- Call delegation: Also known as shared line appearance, this feature lets you assign phone privileges to another user to make and receive calls on your behalf.
- Call transfer: Use supervised or blind transfer capabilities to send the call to a specific agent or department.
- Auto-attendant: Set up multi-level auto-attendants to efficiently route calls to a queue, voicemail, and extensions. Define it to answer calls with a personalized greeting and route to an interactive voice response (IVR).
Zoom Phone has a streamlined user interface designed for desktop and mobile users. (Source: Zoom Phone)
One thing that sets Zoom Phone apart from other VoIP providers is its service plan structure. All packages share the same features but differ in inbound and outbound call plans, allowing businesses to decide which package suits their call volume. Meanwhile, advanced features like call analytics and unlimited international calls come with extra fees, and integrations are limited to 10 business applications.
Click on each feature below to discover Zoom Phone’s top offerings.
Zoom Phone offers various coaching tools to help supervisors observe active engagements. Access to employee-customer conversations provides insights for agent training and quality assurance. Here are the call monitoring options:
- Listen: Listen to a voice call without the customer being aware.
- Whisper: Speak directly to the agent during an ongoing call without the customer hearing.
- Barge: Enter an ongoing call to engage both agent and caller.
- Takeover: The person listening in will take over the call while the agent is cut off from the line.
Zoom Phone enables customers to reach an auto-receptionist or call queue phone numbers over SMS/MMS. Instead of calling, customers can submit queries or find the right contact via text messaging. To enable this feature, an admin chooses the auto-receptionist or a call queue number to source their messages and set team members to respond to SMS. Admin and members can access conversation history and analytics based on SMS metrics.
Zoom Phone’s team SMS feature allows customers to reach the auto-receptionist and call queue phone numbers via SMS/MMS. (Source: Zoom Phone)
Use real-time analytics and historical reports to identify service issues and areas of improvement. The analytics dashboard includes key metrics, such as service level, average call handling times, call volume counts, and average waiting time. Historical reports offer trendlines and values on service levels, wait times, call volume, call handling, and queue statistics.
Zoom Phone supports data-driven decisions through queue analytics and historical reports. (Source: Zoom Phone)
We awarded Zoom Phone a perfect score for customer service because it offers 24/7 availability on all support channels, including phone, live chat, and email help desk. However, these channels are only accessible to licensed users. Priority response depends on the account type, user type, and account configuration.
Zoom Phone received another perfect score, this time for ease of use. It provides a smooth user experience with the same familiarity as Zoom meetings. The desktop client allows quick access to subsections like history, voicemail, lines, and SMS. The mobile app has the same functionality as the desktop application but on a smaller screen. Everything is incredibly intuitive, allowing new users to use the platform independently without technical assistance.
We gave Zoom Phone a score of 4.13 out of 5 for our expert assessment due to its ease of use, flexible plan options, and affordable per-user fees. While it lacks discounts, Zoom Phone offers excellent value for money as all plans are packed with essential VoIP features. Although it isn’t widely popular among businesses, Zoom Phone received fairly high ratings from new users.
Here are the recent ratings from popular sites that publish Zoom Phone system reviews:
- Gartner: 4.3 out of 5 based on 198 reviews
- Software Advice: 4.6 out of 5 based on 149 reviews
- TrustRadius: 8.8 out of 10 based on 65 reviews
How We Evaluated Zoom Phone
We tested Zoom Phone and checked the feedback from verified users on popular review websites. As the basis for our evaluation, we compared it with other leading VoIP providers in the market. From there, we created a scoring system divided into a set of criteria: Zoom Phone pricing, general features, niche features, customer service, ease of use, and expert score.
Learn how we evaluated Zoom Phone by clicking on 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 for the availability of a free plan, free trial, and discounts for annual billing and volume purchase. We assign additional points if the provider’s base plan costs $30 or less.
25% of Overall Score
We looked at capabilities essential to a VoIP system, such as unlimited calls, audio/video conferencing, and a mobile app. We also considered the type of uptime service level agreement (SLA) it offers. Zoom Phone gets an additional point for the availability of any of these features.
20% of Overall Score
We checked the niche features of Zoom Phone to see the additional value users get by subscribing. In evaluating VoIP providers, we check if they offer overseas calling, international numbers, and an IVR system. We also give additional points if it has robust integrations.
10% of Overall Score
We assess the quality of customer service by checking the number of hours and days the customer support team is reachable. Higher points are given if it operates 24/7. We also looked at the availability of customer support channels, including email, phone, and live chat.
10% of Overall Score
We evaluated Zoom Phone’s user interface based on its usability and the technical skill required to set up and operate its entire platform. We explored its desktop and mobile app and considered the firsthand experience of its users.
15% of Overall Score
We came up with our expert score by comparing Zoom Phone against other leading VoIP providers. We also consulted Zoom Phone reviews to see what others say about its features, ease of use, cost-effectiveness, and popularity.
*Percentages of overall score
Bottom Line
Zoom Phone offers a flexible cloud-based VoIP solution for businesses looking for a cheap phone system provider and those who want to create a local presence outside their domestic market. It has metered and unlimited calling solutions, allowing users to pick plans based on their call volumes. Contact its sales team today to get started.
