Best 5 call centre phone systems

Investing in the right phone system provider for your call centre business means you’ll experience a boost in your efficiency, and should give you more time to focus on your all-important customers. When looking for a new phone system to help support your call centre, there are some key components you need to evaluate.

We consider the three most important criteria to be inbound communications (the features and tools provided to help you manage incoming calls), external connections ( the software platforms you’ll need to integrate into your phone system, like help desk and CRMs), and training features (the functions the provider includes to help onboard and develop your staff).

Of course, when trying to keep overheads down, cost is going to be one of your top considerations as well. To ensure you’re able to understand the up-front and ongoing costs of a phone system, we’ve created this handy cost comparison tool, below:

Swipe right to see more

0 out of 0

• backward
• forward

Provider RingCentral	Provider 8×8	Provider Vonage	Provider GoTo	Provider Dialpad
Pricing from £7.99 per user, per month (paid annually)	Pricing from Bespoke	Pricing from £10 per user, per month	Pricing from Bespoke	Pricing from £12 per user, per month (billed annually)
Free trial	Free trial	Free trial	Free trial	Free trial

Use our free comparison tool to compare prices from the best call centre software providers Compare Costs

RingCentral: best for scalability

RingCentral

Compare costs

• 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.

Show moreless

How much does it cost?

We consider RingCentral to be one of the more affordable options on the list, but one major thing to be aware of is that it doesn’t offer unlimited minutes. The Essential plan comes with no inclusive inbound minutes, whereas Standard is limited to 250 inbound minutes per user. This might be a dealbreaker for some call centres, and many of the other providers on this list (such as 8×8) can offer unlimited calling built into its monthly price.

What makes RingCentral suitable for a call centre?

RingCentral has four phone system plans, so there’s a lot to play with in terms of scalability for your business. With RingCentral Standard, you get the option of on-demand call recording, so your staff can manually record their calls, although if you want a call to record automatically, you’ll need to upgrade to either the Premium or Ultimate plan. With the Standard plan, you also get the multi-level auto-attendant, which means every single call is answered with a customised greeting and sent to the right place. This is great for smaller call centres, where agents aren’t able to answer every inbound call.

We also found that RingCentral performed particularly well when it comes to providing customer support features. It offers 24/7 support, even at the Essentials level, so you’ll have peace of mind around the clock. This is particularly important for all-hours call centres that can’t risk a tech mishap in the early hours.

RingCentral will provide you with some decent call-screening features too, like call blocking and voicemail screening. These are crucial features for call centres that need to block out bad-faith callers so your agents can focus on high-quality leads.

Is there a Contact Centre plan?

RingCentral does offer a specific Contact Centre plan that’s separate from its other phone plans. This is a more expensive option though, starting at £52 per agent, per month. This is an AI-driven solution that includes unlimited domestic inbound and manual outbound minutes. It’s a costly option and will be aimed at slightly larger businesses that need a fully-fledged solution.

8×8: best call centre phone system for agencies or teams with an existing client list

8x8

Compare costs

• 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.

Show moreless

How much does it cost?

8×8 offers a bespoke pricing structure, where you will receive a quote tailored to your business. You’ll need to contact 8×8 directly to get an idea of costs, but if its previously listed pricing is any indication (with plans which originally started from £19 at the cheapest), we suspect it may be a pricier option.

What makes 8×8 suitable for a call centre?

Similar to RingCentral, along with its business phone plans, 8×8 offers a dedicated contact centre software. It’s specifically designed to simplify your operations and it provides AI-powered conversations, so you don’t need an actual agent to answer customer queries. Whilst we think it makes a great out-of-the-box option for businesses that already have a lot of external connections, it might be too costly or advanced for some SMEs.

8×8 also offers the X2 and X4 business phone plans, and we feel the X2 option in particular is the best bet for a small business owner. You might not get the advanced AI features of the contact centre software, but you still get decent tools like a vast array of compatible CRM software. You can connect the big names like Salesforce, Hubspot and Freshdesk too, so you can keep everything under one roof and give your efficiency a boost.

If you go with the X2 plan though, you’ll be missing out on some advanced training features offered by X4 like call whisper and barge. So while 8×8 offers a lot in terms of sophisticated software and integrations, it might not be the best option for smaller call centres that need a simple system to keep costs low. RingCentral might be more your speed.

Is there a Contact Center plan?

As mentioned above, 8×8 provides specific Contact Center software, in addition to the Unified Communications phone plans. This will most likely be a more expensive option, but you’ll need to contact 8×8 directly for an idea of pricing. You can also request to book a demo if you want to try before you buy.

Vonage: best for training tools to get your staff up to speed

Vonage

Compare costs

• Starting price from: £10, per user, per month

• Good low entry price plans for micro and small businesses
• Can integrate with Salesforce and Hubspot
• Solid suite of calling features at a competitive price

Summary A subsidiary of Ericsson, Vonage is headquartered in New Jersey and has been providing VoIP services since 1998. Currently over 100,000 businesses worldwide use Vonage.

Show moreless

How much does it cost?

Vonage provides a decent entry-level pricing option for SMEs with the Express plan costing less than £10 per month. It’s worth keeping in mind, though, that this is charged on a metered basis, so you don’t get inclusive inbound or outbound minutes. You’ll need to upgrade to the mid-range Core or Pro options for unlimited domestic calling, and these plans can be pretty pricey when compared to competitor options.

What makes Vonage suitable for a call centre?

What’s good about Vonage is that it offers a good range of plans and there’s opportunity for scalability. You can start on the cheap, metered Express tier, but then upgrade to the more expensive plans when your call centre starts to grow. The Express plan gives you the basics like caller ID, call blocking and some analytics and reporting. If you want more, though, it’s the Pro plan that comes equipped with call centre-friendly call management tools like on-demand call recording, unlimited call queues, and virtual receptionist functionality.

Vonage Pro will also equip you with all the tools you’ll need to make sure your staff will be trained properly. You’ll get access to call recording, call monitoring, analytics, and even advanced training tools like whisper and barge. Call centres tend to have a rapid turnover of staff, so having a good range of training tools can be vital.

You also have the choice of upgrading to the Max plan, which Vonage refers to as “all the bells and whistles”. More specifically, it’s talking about the Vonage Integration Suite and company-wide call recording function. Max is also the only Vonage plan to support CRM and help desk integrations, which could be pretty crucial for many call centres, so keep this in mind when selecting your phone system. If you want a lower-cost plan that still supports a solid range of integrations, we recommend looking into RingCentral instead.

Is there a Contact Centre plan?

It’s worth noting that in addition to its Unified Communications phone plans, Vonage also offers a suite of Contact Centre products. These are provided on a quote basis only though so there’s no listed pricing. If you want some solid numbers, you’ll need to contact Vonage to get an idea of what you’ll be paying.

GoTo Connect: best for international calling

GoTo Connect

Compare costs

• 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.

Show moreless

How much does it cost?

GoTo Connect doesn’t publicly list its pricing structures, so you’ll need to contact them directly for a bespoke quote. We’d then recommend comparing this quote against the other providers’ pricing plans to get an understanding of value for money.

Regardless of this, though, we have to flag that with all GoTo Connect’s plans, you only get 1,000 free minutes shared across your account, which might limit its suitability for a lot of call centres.

What makes GoTo Connect suitable for a call centre?

GoTo Connect’s Phone System has a pretty standout feature, which is free calling to over 50 countries. This is a great tool for any call centre that’s doing a lot of inbound sales calling overseas. Just be aware though that this is only included on specific plans, so just make sure it’s part of your package!

GoTo Connect comes packed with a lot of great calling features that will help streamline your call centre workflow. For example, it provides smart call routing which allows your calls to be sent to phones in a specific sequence, so you’ll never miss a customer call. It also includes customisable drag-and-drop dial plans, so you can map out call flows.

If your call centre is operating all hours, then you’ll need to know you can get help day or night if your system goes down. Luckily GoTo Connect can provide 24/7 customer support, which could be crucial for businesses with non-traditional working hours.

Is there a Contact Centre plan?

Along with the Phone Systems plan, GoTo Connect also offers the Contact Center plan, an AI-driven software solution. With the Contact Center plan you automatically get everything included in the Phone System and Connect CX plans, along with sophisticated features like AI Chat Analysis and real-time reports.

Dialpad: best for short-term campaigns

Dialpad

Compare costs

• 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.

Show moreless

How much does it cost?

Dialpad isn’t what we’d consider to be a budget option – its entry-level Standard plan is pretty costly at £22 per month, and the Pro tier is just under £30 per month. While it’s not the cheapest option, you do get some first-rate call management features for your cash, and you also get unlimited calling. This is why we consider it a solid option for a short-term campaign, but you may need to look at other options, such as 8×8, for a longer-term solution.

What makes Dialpad suitable for a call centre?

Dialpad excels in call management. We found that it was on par with Vonage for the amount of features it offers. With multi-level auto-attendant, customisable call routing, three-way calling and call forwarding, it offers plenty of tools to help make sure your staff are on top of incoming calls. It also boasts the most options for internal collaboration and communication.

With the Pro plan, you’ll get access to 24/7 live agent support. It’s also important to note that you only get CRM and help desk software integrations with the Pro plan. So if you’re planning on integrating software like Zendesk, Salesforce or HubSpot into your call centre operation then skip the Standard plan and go straight for Pro.

One thing to bear in mind with Dialpad however, is that the Standard and Pro plans don’t come with an uptime guarantee. Only the most expensive Enterprise plan has a guaranteed SLA of 100%. If you want an uptime guarantee, but don’t want to pay for the Enterprise plan, we’d suggest looking at a different provider on our roundup, as they all provide SLA’s at all plan levels.

Is there a Contact Centre plan?

Along with its Business Communications options, Dialpad also offers a separate AI Contact Centre and Sales Centre product. However, this is aimed mostly at larger, more well-established, businesses that want AI support and live coaching. The plans are very expensive, with even the lowest tier starting from £78 per user, per month.

Our methodology

Our Startups team has evaluated the providers using their own independent analysis and expertise, in conjunction with the in-depth and rigorous research that has been carried out by our dedicated insights team.

We’ve focused on the providers we felt best represented the three most important categories we determined for a call centre phone system: inbound communication features, training features, and integrations. This is not a ranking of the best providers, but a selection of those we felt were most relevant, alongside the standout features they provide.