Freedom Voice vs. RingCentral vs. Grasshopper: Business Phone and Cloud Phone Services Reviewed

Freedom Voice

Based in California and in business since 1996, Freedom Voice was the first 800 number provider and has since helped over 200,000 businesses grow. They offer a cloud number virtual phone service that is designed to make any small business look professional.

Freedom Voice Features

Freedom Voice focuses on helping home based business and small business with their cloud based phone system. Their idea is similar to Grasshopper in that customers can have their office phone and have everything forwarded to their mobile devices.

With this system, small business owners can receive voicemails, faxes, messages and the ability to configure their phone service directly to their mobile apps, which includes iPhones and Android phones.

Customers have a choice of choosing available 800 numbers, vanity phone numbers and local phone numbers.

Freedom Voice Pricing Plans

Freedom Voice offers three pricing plans for their Cloud Number plan with the following features:

Each plan has the following including features:

• Virtual auto attendant
• Forward to any phone ability
• Unlimited voicemail boxes
• iPhone and Android apps
• Online console reports
• Online fax send and receive

Freedom Voice plans also has the following additional features:

• Get name and address for 10 cents each
• Record calls for $5 per month
• Read your voicemail for $10 per month.

Freedom Voice Cloud Phone

Freedom Voice includes business quality hosted VoIP phones to use with their service for your business, which gives business owners unlimited calling for one monthly rate. They will ship you the phones and within minuets of plugging them into to a broadband connection, you will have a dial tone.

They offer the following phones:

• Polycom VVX 301 is included with their Suite plan
• Polycom VVX 401 costs $2 per month per month
• Polycom VVX 501 is an extra charge of $5 per month per phone

Freedom Voice Cloud PBX

Freedom Voice Cloud PBX is their cloud based phone system for all businesses that is designed to save you money while you stay focused on growing your business and helping your customers. This system requires no big ticket hardware, and your new phones are professionally installed.

Included are their Freedom Voice mobile apps for both iPhone and Android mobile devices that allows you to easily manage your business calls, voicemail, and faxes from anywhere.

Freedom Voice offers a free 30-day free trial so customers can try out the system without any charges.

Freedom Voice Customer Comments

Freedom Voice has very good customer ratings and comment. On TrustPilot, they have been rated an excellent rating of 9.1 out of 10 with the following comments:

• “It was a very customer-friendly until you added the telephone app for a cell phones which really enhance your service. I only wish there was a way to know when your calls are coming in other than text an email which would you make it much easier to get back to your client”
• “Tech support has always been professional, knowledgeable, completely supportive, and overall excellent. These guys Rock”
• “Customer service is number 1 with Freedom Voice.Their team is patient, highly detailed and work through all issues with care to completion.”
• “Freedom voice is can be a great tool for convenience and Business needs. Thus far it has done what I have anticipated. However, the only drawback is that it cannot fax large documents particular if there is substantial fine print.”

RingCentral

RingCentral has been in business since 2003 and is located in San Mateo, California. Their business is to provide businesses with complex on-premise hardware for communications and cloud based PBX communication systems.

RingCentral Products and Features

RingCentral is a complete phone and voice system for all of business needs. You get phone, fax and text all in one phone system. RingCentral is easily integrated into cloud products like Google, Dropbox and Salesforce.

RingCentral features include:

• Business SMS
• Toll Free Number
• Virtual PBX
• Auto-Receptionist
• Conferencing
• Call Forwarding
• You can also buy VoIP phones through RingCentral

RingCentral has three voice systems you can choose from:

• Office
• Professional
• Fax

RingCentral Office Features and Plans

RingCentral Office is one system and one monthly bill that work across all of your office locations and mobile devices. Each RingCentral Office plan has the following features:

• Toll free, local or vanity phone numbers
• VoIP service and caller ID control
• Departments with call queues
• Unlimited text, mobile devices and texting features
• Voicemail and greetings
• Microsoft Outlook and Office, Google, Box and Dropbox integration
• Call management features
• Cloud PBX
• Unlimited conferencing and internet fax
• Mobile apps for the iPhone, Android and Blackberry

RingCentral Office has three plans to choose from. Each of their RingCentral Office plans includes a 30-day free trial. 

RingCentral Essential Plan

RingCentral has a new plan called the Essentials Plan that allows up to 10 users for $19.99 monthly per user. A few of the features of the Essential Plan include:

• 100 toll free minutes
• Unlimited video and audio meetings with screen sharing on desktop and mobile – 4 people per meeting
• Unlimited phone calls
• Unlimited Business SMS
• Call management and phone system administration
• Phone rental options: desk and conference phones
• Visual voicemail and voicemail-to-email
• Integrations with Microsoft, Google, Box and Dropbox
• Professional Implementation
• 24x7 Customer support
• Mobile apps for iOS and Android 
• High-definition (HD) voice
• Glip for team collaboration
• A 30 day free trial

RingCentral Professional Features and Plans

RingCentral Professional includes the following features:

• You can route calls to yourself or employees
• Customize rules for routing calls and faxes
• Inbound call management
• Receive calls wherever you are on your smartphone with free apps
• An 800 number that lets you set up department extensions
• Keep your existing phone number at no cost
• Use VoIP on the iPhone or Android
• You can use RingCentral on your existing mobile devices such as the iPhone, Blackberry, Android or iPad
• Receive faxes on your mobile devices

RingCentral Professional has three voice system plans to choose from.

RingCentral Fax Features and Plans

RingCentral Fax is their reliable cloud fax system that includes the following features.

• You can send faxes from your smartphone, PC or Mac
• Email notification of arriving faxes
• View faxes on your mobile devices
• Fax documents from GoogleDocs, Box or Dropbox
• Scheduling feature that allows you to send faxes on a selected date and time
• Dedicated fax number

RingCentral Fax has four plans and each plan offers a free trial.

RingCentral Customer Comments

RingCentral has good customer ratings and reviews. They have been rated 4.5 out of 5 stars by Apple iTunes customers, who had the following comments.

• "Great integration for VoIP. Needs to work with car Bluetooth though."
• "Great service great service. Highly recommend !!"
• "The latest update helps streamline several functions. Love the text ability. Can't add pictures to texts, but other than that it is pretty awesome all around. The faxing is easy and useful and the addition of the signal bars on the call screen is very helpful during a call."

RingCentral Coupons

• 30% Off Your First 3 Months at RingCentral

Grasshopper

Grasshopper was co-founded in 2003 by CEO Siamak Taghaddos and David Hauser with the goal of helping entrepreneurs to grow their small business. Grasshopper sells phone systems that let you run your business using your cell phones. They are located in Needham, Mass., and you can call them at 1-800-820-8210.

How Grasshopper Works

Grasshopper is simple to set up and use. To start using the Grasshopper, you will first pick a phone number for your business. After you get the phone number, you can record a customer greeting message, add departments and employees and you're ready to start receiving your business calls, voicemails and faxes.

Grasshopper Features

With Grasshopper, your business will sound professional and be able to stay connected. The Grasshopper virtual phone system has the following features.

• Toll free or a local phone number
• You can also get a vanity phone number
• An unlimited number of phone extensions for departments and employees
• Conference calling
• Unlimited call handling
• Call screening
• Call forwarding to your mobile phone
• Receive voicemails and faxes via email
• Grasshopper now offers a choice of 800, 888, 877, 866 & 855 toll free numbers
• The Grasshopper mobile app allows you to have your Grasshopper caller ID show up. This way, your clients will not know you’re calling from your mobile phone number.
• You do not need expensive hardware to install.
• You can read a transcription of your voicemail in an email notification.
• Music on hold

Grasshopper Plans and Pricing

Grasshopper has four voice system plans. All of their plans currently have free activation and a 30-day money back guarantee.

All plans at this time have waived their $25 activation fee and are now free activation and still include a 30 day money back guarantee.

Grasshopper Customer Comments

Grasshopper has mixed customer comments. If you read their customer comments, make sure you read the most recent, as it seems they did have some problems, which in the past couple of years, they have addressed and fixed.

• "They had one slip up and everyone is mad. Overall had a lot of luck with Grasshopper great people and great support! Handled the situation well."
• "Highly recommend -- the company has been there and provided good service to us for many years. A recent down period was a hardship for many, but the company communicated with users in an outstanding fashion, and I feel this company is now prepared to provide even better, more reliable service in the future"
• “Having a phone number on our site increased conversion of site visitors to sign ups and paid users!”