Virtual Phone Systems Comparison

Our side-by-side VoIP comparison chart makes it easy to compare the best virtual phone system providers of 2024 with each other. If you’re interested to learn more about a particular VoIP service, then click through to the full review for more details about the company.

Virtual phone systems buying guide

As many businesses and households already have broadband internet installed, moving to a virtual phone system is making more and more sense. However, choosing the right virtual phone system is vital to ensuring you get the best service for your needs at the lowest price possible. Choosing a VoIP system might seem intimidating, so we’ve created this 5-step buying guide to help you make this decision as easy and time-efficient as possible.

1. Define your needs

Virtual phone systems are suitable for both business and personal use, with many VoIP providers offering packages tailored for different-sized companies and households. However, it may be better to define your phone needs first, as virtual phone systems have many features that can be useful or not, depending on your needs.

For example, there are a lot of features included in virtual phone systems packages that come at no extra cost, such as:

• Call forwarding: Automatically forwards calls to another phone number when you can’t pick up the call on the original number.
• Caller ID: Identifies the caller’s number so you know who is calling before picking up the phone.
• Voicemail: Works the same way as a traditional answering machine. However, some systems come with the added benefit of transcribing voicemail messages and emailing them to you.
• Call blocking: Block calls from phone numbers added to the blacklist list by you.
• Softphone: An app that allows you to make calls. It looks and works similar to a cell dialer.

However, some advanced features either come as a paid add-on or are only available on the more expensive plans. Usually, these are more helpful to business users than residential ones, but it’s important you define if you need any of these before subscribing to a plan:

• Customized hold music: Add personalized hold music, which is especially beneficial for businesses.
• Find Me/Follow Me: Allows users to receive calls on different phones. The different phones linked to the system ring sequentially until one is answered.
• Audio/video conferencing: Make large-scale phone calls through audio or video.
• IVR: Interactive Voice Response is an automated phone system that lets incoming callers access information or reach the department they want to speak with via a voice response system of prerecorded messages by pressing specific buttons in their dialer.
• Fax: Some virtual phone systems allow for sending and receiving online faxing without needing a machine.

There’s also a difference in the features and services offered by business VoIP providers and residential VoIP services, so it’s crucial that you’re searching in the right category of providers.

2. Find and compare your matches

Starting your research with the best rankings is great, but you need to go a bit deeper to find the solution that suits your needs. Just because a virtual phone system is all-around good, it doesn’t mean it’s the perfect solution for you.

Comparison tables like the one above are perfect for finding the small differences between providers. However, to really get a thorough idea of what each VoIP system has to offer, we recommend reading comparison articles of the providers you are inclined to get.

3. Read (customer) reviews

When you’re set in a handful of virtual phone systems, it’s time to go into actual reviews of the products. We suggest reading both customer and expert reviews (like the ones you can find at Best Reviews). While there’s no better way to find out whether a virtual phone system provider truly succeeds in providing quality 24/7 US-based customer service than by reading user reviews, customer reviews tend to be more emotional and less neutral. That’s where reviews written by experts come in.

4. Sign up for a trial

Now, you’re probably left with one or two virtual phone system providers that got you interested. So, it’s best to check the service yourself by taking advantage of a free trial or risk-free money-back guarantee. These allow you to test everything for yourself without paying a cent.

5. Make your pick, but don’t forget about discounts!

After your test run(s), you’ll certainly know which service you want to be your new phone partner. However, before you sign up with your new provider, check our coupons section so you don’t miss out on a great deal or offer to save your hard-earned money.