The 6 best business telephone line providers

Traditional landlines are now being phased out, to be completely replaced by VoIP by 2027. That stands for Voiceover Internet Protocol, essentially it just means taking calls using the internet instead of the traditional phone network. So all calls will be made via a virtual landline, instead of a physical copperwire one.

We’ve had our research department conduct extensive analysis on which VoIP provider you should use for your business telephone line. We determined that bOnline Unlimited Calling should be your number one choice: this is because it’s the most cost effective – offering unlimited minutes – and has some nifty calling features as part of the bargain.

There are other providers though that offer different features, and some unique tools, so there might be a better fit for your specific working needs. That’s why we’ve done a roundup of the six best telephone line providers, and boil it down to what they can offer your business.

You can do a quick comparison of providers and what they cost with our table below. If you’re looking for a more sophisticated business telephone system recommendation, that includes handsets, you can look at our best small business phone systems guide here.

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BEST OVERALL
Provider bOnline Unlimited Calling	Provider 8×8 X2	Provider RingCentral Standard	Provider Dialpad Pro	Provider GoTo Connect Phone System	Provider Google Voice
Pricing from £13.95 + VAT per month	Pricing from Bespoke	Pricing from £12.99 per user, per month	Pricing from £20 per user, per month	Pricing from Bespoke quote	Pricing from $16 per user, per month (Google Voice is only priced in US dollars)
User limit Unlimited	User limit Unlimited	User limit Unlimited	User limit Unlimited (requires minimum of three users)	User limit Unlimited	User limit Unlimited
Inclusive minutes Unlimited inbound calls Unlimited UK landline & mobile calls	Inclusive minutes Unlimited domestic minutes and unlimited voice calling to 14 countries	Inclusive minutes 250 inbound minutes and 750 outbound minutes per month	Inclusive minutes Unlimited calling	Inclusive minutes 1,000 minutes shared across account	Inclusive minutes Unlimited domestic minutes and free calls to the US from any country

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1. bOnline Unlimited Calling: best for your first VoIP telephone line

bOnline

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• Starting price from: £7, per user, per month

• Low cost starter plan for micro-businesses
• Big call management features on a small budget
• Salesforce and Hubspot integrations

Summary bOnline is a UK-based telecommunications company that specializes in providing solutions specifically with a small business marketplace in mind. With a focus in low-cost, easy solutions, bOnline make the claim to be "the most awarded business VoIP phone for UK businesses with 1-5 employees".

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What does it cost?

A big reason why we chose bOnline Unlimited Calling as the best VoIP telephone line provider, is because it’s a great value deal. For less than ten pounds per user, per month, you get unlimited calls, which is pretty fantastic. You also get a lot of great features which we go into more detail about below.

Why should I choose this as my telephone line provider?

Here are three reasons why you should consider bOnline:

1. Great for first time users

bOnline Unlimited Calling makes an ideal first VoIP system, not just because it’s good value, but because it’s so fast and easy to set up. If you’re switching over from a traditional landline phone, you don’t need to worry about a complicated set up process. It takes about two minutes, and there’s no installation fees or technical know-how needed.

2. Lots of options to chat

VoIP offers more than just traditional voice calls, and bOnline provides a range of communication methods you can use internally, or to contact your customers. With the Unlimited Calling plan you get a text-based team messaging function, video conferencing, and call conferencing.

3. Control over your calls

You’ll also get the features you’d hope to expect from a business-grade phone system, like call queue (a virtual waiting room for you callers), caller ID and call blocking to help you prevent annoying spam callers. You’ll also get customisable routing: which lets you set your own rules for how incoming calls are managed, giving you a lot of control over your calls.

What are the downsides?

While it’s a perfect cheap-and-cheerful option for first time buyers, it does lack some of the more advanced features that other providers include (such as call flip). If you’re thinking about scalability, you might need a system that can grow along with your business. We’d suggest RingCentral as a more suitable option for scaling upwards.

2. 8×8 X2: best for support and security

8x8

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• Starting price from: Bespoke

• Includes unlimited calling time at no extra cost
• Video calls with up to 500 participants
• Large number of helpdesk and CRM integrations

Summary 8x8 is a California-based provider of VoIP products, and in 2018 they acquired Jitsi and Jitsi Meet. 8x8 brings together, voice, chat, video, API solutions and contact centers into a global could communications platform.

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What does it cost?

This isn’t the cheapest telephone line provider on the roundup, but it does offer some bang for your buck. It has a very solid selection of calling features to help you manage your calls, but it also includes unlimited voice calling to 14 countries.

If you upgrade to the X4 plan this increases to 48 countries. Normally international calls are charged at a higher usage rate, so this could be a strong option for businesses who make a lot of overseas sales calls.

Why should I choose this as my telephone line provider?

Here are three reasons why you should consider 8×8 X2:

1. Peace of mind

8×8 provides some pretty advanced security measures to protect your data. It has an impressive range of compliance certifications, as well as multi-factor authentication, user permissions and password rules to give you extra layers of protection. You also get 24/7 help and support, and 8×8 offer customer success managers which can help your staff with onboarding (though we suspect they might charge extra for this service).

2. A unified app

Along with the international call package, you’ll also get access to 8×8 Work, their combined mobile, desktop and web app. This is a massive benefit of VoIP: you don’t have to worry about paying for expensive handsets if you don’t need them. With 8×8 Work your staff can take calls just through their smartphones or desktop computers (though for call centres and sales floors, we would recommend investing in some headsets for call quality and privacy).

3. Boost your efficiency

8×8 provides all the call handling features you’ll need to smoothly handle high volumes of calls (including call forwarding, hunt group and ring groups) but their plan also provides some more advanced tools, like single sign-on, which can really boost efficiency. X2 also allows you to live stream meetings on YouTube, which is a helpful option to let both staff and external parties view important announcements.

What are the downsides?

8×8 doesn’t publicly list its costs, but if their former listed pricing is anything to go by, we suspect it will be a more expensive option (previously the pricing started at £19 at the lowest). If you’re looking for a more beginner – and wallet – friendly choice, jump up to our number one pick bOnline instead.

3. RingCentral Standard: best for giving customers a smooth experience

RingCentral

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• Starting price from: £12.99, per user, per month

• Great for streamlining your communications at a large scale
• A range of plans that can suit different business needs
• Impressive number of integrations

Summary Based in California, RingCentral provides cloud-based communication and collaboration products and services, including a cloud-based business phone system. Founded in 1999, it has grown to now serve over 400,000 customers worldwide and is available in 46 countries.

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What does it cost?

On the face of things, RingCentral’s pricing is pretty reasonable. We consider it to be the second most reasonably priced telephone line provider (after our favourite, bOnline). However, there is a stipulation to this. It doesn’t provide unlimited calling, which is a common feature amongst other providers at this price point. So that might be dealbreaker for some. Especially call centres who receive massive amounts of inbound calls.

Why should I choose this as my telephone line provider?

Here are three reasons why you should consider RingCentral Standard:

1. Give your customers a positive call experience

RingCentral gives you all the tools you need to make sure that the customers calling in are having a smooth journey. With the standard plan you get tools like multi-level auto attendant; meaning all your calls will be answered automatically with a customised greeting. This helps every caller successfully get to the right person or department.

2. Smoother internal communications

RingCentral will also help improve your communications between colleagues, with options for calendar sharing, team messaging, and video meetings (with up to 100 participants). This can all be done intuitively from the single RingCentral interface. It also supports long meeting durations, of up to 24 hours (you’d hope nobody will be in a meeting for that long, but it’s nice to have the option!)

3. Support your BYOD policy

That’s “bring your own device” for those not in the know. Companies are more frequently asking their staff to use their smartphones for work, to avoid paying for expensive handsets. RingCentral has an excellent mobile app which means your employees can take the VoIP system on the move, and make calls using either Wi-Fi or 3G/4G.

What are the downsides?

The limited number of included minutes is definitely the weakest link in RingCentral’s otherwise strong chain. If you’re looking for a package that includes unlimited calling at no extra cost, both 8×8 and bOnline should be higher up on your shopping list than RingCentral. There’s also no SMS messaging function, but GoTo Connect will have you covered there instead.

4. Dialpad Pro: best for managing high call volumes

Dialpad

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• Starting price from: £12, per user, per month

• Adept at managing high call volumes
• Compatibility with four types of desk phone
• Can intregrate with Salesforce, Hubspot, and Zendesk

Summary Dialpad is aimed at both small and large companies, and is using communications AI to provide unified products. They have a global reach, with 11 offices around the world, and serve 30,000 customers including big names like Xero.

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What does it cost?

Dialpad Pro provides excellent features, but these do come with a slightly higher price tag than most competitors. If you choose to be billed monthly it can be particularly pricey. If you need top-class call management features though, it could be worth splashing out.

Why should I choose this as my telephone line provider?

Here are three reasons why you should consider Dialpad Pro:

1. Expertly manage high call volumes

For our money, Dialpad Pro has the strongest call management out of the bunch. This is due to a particularly strong arsenal of tools to make sure your staff aren’t overwhelmed by inbound calls. If you’re running a small but busy customer service team, you can use the ring groups, call queues, and customisable greeting and routing features to handle calls without hiccups.

2. Keep in contact with your customers and clients with SMS

Dialpad has you covered with a range of methods for internal communication with a multimedia messaging service, team messaging and even SMS. Not only that but it supports external SMS messaging, as well as internal. So you have a great way of directly messaging customers and clients.

3. Supports four types of desk phones

While it’s more common now for VoIP to be used as a desktop or mobile application, there are customer service teams who might prefer to handle high volumes of calls with good-old fashioned, reliable desk phones. Dialpad Pro supports selected Obihai, Polycom, Yealink, Cisco brand phones, and they can offer support supplying and setting them up if you need it.

What are the downsides?

While it does provide a great range of internal communication methods, the video conferencing is capped at ten users. This could be a big spanner in the works for companies who hold large group video calls. 8×8 can support up to 500 participants per meeting, so it will be worth your time looking at their plans instead. There’s also no uptime guarantee at the Pro level, you’ll need to pay for Enterprise, the most expensive tier.

5. GoTo Connect Phone System: best for keeping communication simple

GoTo

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• Starting price from: Bespoke

• Unifies your communication channels
• Makes internal communication between different locations simple
• Compatible with over five brands of desk phone

Summary Based in Boston, Massachusetts, GoTo is a software as a service company that launched its cloud-based phone system and customer engagement software GoTo Connect in 2022.

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What does it cost?

GoTo Connect doesn’t have a set pricing structure for its plans. You’ll have to contact them directly and they’ll provide a bespoke quote. Our recommendation is to then compare the quote against the pricing we’ve given for competitor providers on this list, to help provide some context around the cost.

Why should I choose this as my telephone line provider?

Here are three reasons why you should consider GoTo Connect:

1. Help your colleagues find each other, wherever they’re based

Out of all the telephone line providers on the roundup, we think GoTo Connect comes out on top for communication methods. GoTo Connect’s Cloud Phone System allows your staff to contact each other from anywhere thanks to the web, desktop and mobile apps. The call routing and ring group tools also help direct your staff to the right person, even in different locations.

2. An impressive range of compatible desk phones

A big benefit of switching to GoTo Connect for your business phoneline is the impressively wide range of compatible phone handsets, with over five major brands being supported by the provider. So if you already have a bunch of handsets sitting around, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to use them with your GoTo Connect plan, and save yourself some cash.

3. Options for international calling

GoTo Connect provides an option for free international calling that includes over 50 countries (both making and receiving) which is an excellent feature for businesses making a lot of sales overseas. Just be aware though, this is only included with selected plans, so make sure to check with GoTo Connect that your package includes this.

What are the downsides?

While it’s a great option for companies who’d like a telephone line provider that can help streamline their communication channels, we wouldn’t recommend it for those who want to scale customer-service teams over time. 8×8 provides better options for this. Others who want a more beginner friendly telephone line provider, with clearer cost structures, would prefer bOnline.

6. Google Voice Standard: best if you use Google Workspace

Google Voice

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• Starting price from: $16, per user, per month (Google Voice pricing is only provided in US dollars)

• A low-cost option for Google Workspace users
• Solid spam prevention tools
• Free calls to the US

Summary Google Voice is a VoIP solution provided by Google that was previously only available in the US. Now businesses in the UK can access Google Voice as a paid add-on to Google Workspace.

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What does it cost?

Google Voice is the simple choice if your business already subscribes to Google Workspace. If you don’t have a Workspace account however, this will be a far less appealing option. You need Google Workspace to access Google Voice, which is a paid add-on. So you’ll end up paying for both services.

These are the costs of a Google Workspace subscription:

Why should I choose this as my telephone line provider?

Here are three reasons why you should consider Google Voice:

1. Protects against spam callers

Google Voice provides some pretty strong spam filtering tech, to help your business defend against annoying scam calls. If your operation is being slowed down by bad-faith callers and pesky bots, Google Voice can help put a stop to it.

2. Free calls to the States

A feature that’s mostly relevant to those that have to make a lot of sales calls across the pond, Google Voice allows for free calls to the United States from anywhere in the world. If you’re already making frequent calls to the States, this could save you a tonne in the long run.

3. Strong security

Alongside 8×8, Google Voice has some of the strongest security features out of the telephone line providers on our list. It has a reassuringly large range of compliance certifications, provides password rules (so your staff have to create strong passwords), user-permissions and multi-factor authentication.

What are the downsides?

Aside from the fact you already need Google Workspace to pay for Google Voice (bOnline is a far better budget solution), it’s also not particularly well equipped for dealing with high volumes of incoming calls. Dialpad has a stronger set of features for dealing with call volumes, so call centres should look to that provider instead.

Upgrading your telephone line to a VoIP based provider is a non-negotiable for all current small business owners thanks to the big PSTN switch off. Overall, this will only improve your daily operations, as you’ll be able to bring all your communication channels under one (digital) roof. It can make choosing a provider a little confusing though, but don’t worry, we’re here to help you.

Each provider will offer different features, tools and add-ons that will be tailored to suit different types of businesses. We’ve focused on these in our reviews, but there are some points that will universally apply to almost any business.

Here are the top seven most important areas to think about when choosing a telephone line provider:

1. Audio quality

Having crystal clear audio quality is key to keeping your clients and customers happy. Look for providers that have an uptime guarantee, this is an SLA (service level agreement) that promises a certain standard of connection.

You should also expect HD voice quality as a minimum. A feature worth keeping an eye out for on slightly higher priced tiers is call quality monitoring. Where the provider will track certain metrics to ensure you’re getting a good quality service

2. Minutes

Almost all major VoIP telephone line providers will have an inclusive amount of inbound and outbound minutes in your plan. Most mid-tier plans will have unlimited minutes in the UK. If you exceed these you will be charged usage costs, so make sure your plan includes the amount of minutes you think your users will need.

Customer service teams, for example, will need unlimited inbound calls as a must-have, considering the high volumes of calls they’ll be receiving. You should also keep in mind that international calls will have higher rates. If you make a lot of inbound calls overseas, look at providers that can include this as part of your package, like 8×8 or GoTo Connect.

3. Communication methods

VoIP telephone lines are perfectly suited to the modern business world because they offer far more than just phone calls. With your VoIP plan you’ll also get access to channels like team messaging, video conferencing and SMS. Keep this mind when choosing a provider, as some offer wider ranges of communication options than others.

4. Calling features

We’ve highlighted some of the key features in our reviews, but the absolute basic calling features your VoIP package should include are:

• Voicemail
• Call handling
• Call forwarding
• Call screening

But there are also more sophisticated features that you should also be hoping to get from a business grade telephone line provider, such as:

• A virtual receptionist (which is comprised of customisable greeting and call routing functions)
• Ring groups
• Call queue
• Call flip

5. Contract length

Most VoIP telephone line providers will offer either 12 or 24 month contracts. Running an SME can be an unpredictable affair, especially in the current economy, so our recommendation is to choose a short contract where you can, as you don’t wait to be liable for a contract you’re not going to end up fulfilling.

Most VoIP phoneline providers also give the option for paying monthly or annually. While it might be tempting to go for a monthly payment plan to give yourself flexibility, this can end up being much more costly per user.

6. Scalability

If this is your first time setting up a VoIP based phoneline for your small business, the chances are you’ll be looking at more beginner-friendly, or at least mid-range options. However, you should bear in mind that this won’t be the case forever. If your business grows, you’ll need a VoIP provider that can support you along the way. Look for ones that have plans that can support more users being added and provide advanced features (like analytics and reporting) so you’re not just locked into a basic system.

7. Help and support

While VoIP is considered to be far more reliable than traditional landlines, like all technology it can be prone to mishaps. Make sure you have a telephone line provider that has strong help and support, and prioritise those that offer 24/7 assistance. This will be critical if you run an all-hours business yourself, like a helpdesk.

Our methodology

Our insights department conducted a communication survey, specifically with the aim of better understanding the needs, wants and pain-points of professionals working in small business in the UK.

We used the results of this survey to refine and enhance our methodology, for the express purpose of making sure you’re getting the finest and most accurate phone line provider recommendations within our power.

We have identified the eight most important criteria for a business telephone line provider. We then gave each criteria an appropriate weighting to make sure we’re giving you an accurate ranking.

These eight criteria are:

• Call management: Your business will be dealing with lots of incoming calls, we assess how well the provider can manage these calls based on the features it offers.
• Pricing: We judge the telephone line provider on whether they are offering a cost-effective service or not.
• Hardware integrations: Some business owners still want the option of using handsets and deskphones with their VoIP telephone line, so we assess how many brands are compatible.
• Software integrations: You might need to integrate your business telephone line with other third-party business applications, we research how many it is compatible with.
• Communication channels: We look into how many other communication methods the provider supports beyond just basic voice calling.
• Training features: What features does the provider offer for helping to train your staff on phone etiquette, and how to use the system.
• Security options: We look into how many features are in place to prevent your, and your customers, sensitive information being breached.
• Help and support: The availability, and range, of the customer support offered by the telephone line provider.