RingCentral’s fast factsStarting price: $20 per user per month billed annually Key features:
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RingCentral is an industry leader in the business communications space with more than 400,000 customers worldwide. You can depend on its crystal-clear voice, high-quality audio, and exceptional customer support in a powerful platform that’s packed with advanced features.
The biggest drawbacks? The price tag, rigid contracts, and difficult implementation, especially for smaller businesses.
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RingCentral’s pricing
RingCentral provides a comprehensive suite of business communication tools, specializing in VoIP business phone services and contact center solutions. Its offerings are designed to streamline communication and enhance collaboration for businesses.
VoIP business phone service: Starts at $20 per user per month
RingEX is RingCentral’s flagship product, giving growing businesses all the tools they need to communicate with customers and each other. It’s a true hosted PBX, with advanced call administration features and omnichannel capabilities.
There are three RingEX plans:
- Core: Starting at $20 per user per month: For smaller teams that need a unified communication suite.
- Advanced: Starting at $25 per user per month: For automatic call recording, unlimited internet fax, and Salesforce integration.
- Ultra: Starting at $35 per user per month: For unlimited storage, more toll-free minutes, and more powerful reporting.
The prices listed reflect annual subscriptions — monthly subscription pricing is available, but it costs an additional $10 per user per month.
There is a 14-day free trial for up to 20 phone lines so you can test out how RingCentral works for your team before you buy. If you have more than 100 users, you’re eligible for a volume discount on any plan.
RingCentral also has a range of add-ons for items like vanity numbers ($30 set-up fee), international numbers (starting at $5.99 each per month), push to talk ($5 per user per month), and extra local or toll-free numbers ($4.99 per month).
The newest add-on is RingSense AI for RingEX. It offers AI notetaking, translations, text generation, summaries, and conversation insights. These features are included for free (for now), though only RingEx Ultra subscribers will have access to every RingSense AI feature.
Contact center: Starts at $65 per agent per month
RingCX is a complete contact center solution built to handle high-volume communication across multiple channels. RingCentral also offers an enterprise contact center solution with a deeper set of highly customizable tools.
All RingCentral contact center plans include powerful automations, call routing capabilities, outbound dialers, workforce management, real time and post call quality monitoring, and agent engagement tools.
It at $65 per agent per month. The enterprise plan requires a custom quote.
Other RingCentral products
RingCentral is always innovating and adding new business communications tools to its suite of products. Here’s a quick look at at the annual pricing for each of them:
- Video meetings: Starting at $10 per user per month (or free for basic use)
- Webinars: Starting at $30 per organizer per month
- Rooms: Starting at $39 per room per month
- Events: Starting at $1,490 per license per year
- Revenue intelligence: Starting at $60 per user per month
RingCentral’s key features
RingCentral’s business phone system comes with a mix of the basic features you’d expect, plus plenty of advanced features you won’t find from similarly-priced tools on the market.
Unlimited calling in the US and Canada
Every RingCentral phone plan comes with unlimited calling in the US and Canada, which is ideal for any business operating in either location. It includes both inbound and outbound dialing capabilities, plus complimentary toll-free minutes based on your plan.
You’ll also get visual voicemail, caller ID, unlimited audio conferencing, and unlimited video conferencing — all of which come with high-definition voice and AI-powered noise cancellation to drown out background sounds.
The best part about this phone system is that you don’t need any hardware to use it. Just download the RingCentral app on your computer or smartphone, and you can make and receive calls from anywhere.
You’ll get a VoIP phone number or toll-free number included with your plan. But if you need more, it’s easy to add on extra lines or users from your admin dashboard.
Multi-level IVR
IVR (interactive voice response) is considered an advanced phone system feature, and usually only offered as a paid add-on or with higher-priced plans. But that’s not the case with RingCentral–it’s included on every plan.
This feature gives inbound callers the ability to control where they’re routed — ensuring they’re quickly connected to the right department or agent the first time.
RingCentral’s IVR may also eliminate the need for a caller to speak to an agent altogether. It can provide basic information about your company hours, billing, account balances, and more via voice recordings.
All callers have to do is select the number on their keypad that corresponds with the menu options they’re looking for. RingEx makes it fairly easy to configure IVR call flows so that more customers can help themselves with routine tasks, or get to the right agent without an extra transfer. Alternatively, they can use voice commands, and IVR takes care of the rest.
Call and video recording
Every RingCentral phone system comes with on-demand call recording. The feature is turned off by default, but it’s incredibly easy to enable. Once turned on, agents can simply click a button when they’re ready to start or stop recording a call.
If you upgrade to the Advanced or Ultra plan, you’ll benefit from automatic call recordings as well. This is a nice perk if you want to record every call — or you have to for compliance reasons.
Video meeting hosts and participants with admin capabilities will also be able to record meetings, with one year of recordings stored in the cloud.
Team messaging and collaboration
In addition to being an excellent phone system, all RingCentral plans come with team collaboration tools.
This includes team chat, file sharing, unlimited audio conferencing, whiteboards with annotations, collaborative note-taking, and breakout rooms.
You can host video meetings with up to 100 participants on the Core and Advanced plans, and this jumps up to 200 at the Ultra tier.
Having all of these features in the same place as your phone system simplifies things for your team. They won’t have to bounce back and forth between multiple platforms, and it’s easy to quickly ping a teammate while you’re on a call with a customer.
The only thing you might miss on the entry-level plan is fax capabilities. However, you’ll get unlimited faxing with RingCentral’s two higher tiers.
AI meeting insights and live transcriptions
This is another advanced feature that’s typically not an option on other phone systems until you reach a higher tier. But RingCentral offers it with every plan–even the cheapest one.
Powered by AI, RingCentral can automatically generate highlight reels from video calls. These come with searchable summaries as well, so you can quickly jump to a key point without having to scroll through or watch an entire video. It can also create keyword-based clips and topic lists, which are great for post-call organization.
On top of that, it can automatically transcribe what’s being said in real time. It’s like reading captions while you’re watching a movie.
This is ideal for accessibility purposes, but it’s also convenient in situations where you can’t have your volume on or need help breaking down language barriers.
The entire live transcript can be downloaded once the call ends.
RingCentral pros
- Advanced features across the board.
- All-in-one communications suite.
- Works seamlessly across devices.
- Great for remote, in-person, and hybrid environments.
- 99.999% uptime SLA.
- End-to-end encryption.
- 24/7 phone and live chat support.
- Professional implementation support.
- Attentive and fast customer service.
- Active community forum and knowledge base.
RingCentral cons
- Complex setup and implementation.
- Limited toll-free minutes compared to others.
- No faxing on the cheapest plan.
- Rigid, long-term contracts.
Alternatives to RingCentral
Although RingCentral has a ton of powerful features and nearly unlimited scalability, it’s not the perfect choice for everyone. See how it compares to top RingCentral alternatives.
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Nextiva
Nextiva is a close competitor and potentially a better choice if you don’t need the advanced features RingCentral offers. For basic business phone systems, Nextiva is easier to set up, has superior customer service, and has a smoother learning curve.
For more details, read my review of RingCentral vs Nextiva.
Ooma
RingCentral works well for any type of work environment, but Ooma specifically targets in-person office spaces. Its pre-configured devices make it easy to outfit the whole office, even if you don’t have dedicated IT resources on staff.
For more details, read the TechRepublic review of RingCentral vs Ooma.
8×8
8×8 is a relatively ancient business communications company that can help organizations move to the cloud while making use of their existing technology. The company also makes it easy and cost-effective for global teams to manage a high volume of international calls. RingCentral offers solutions in various countries but doesn’t have unlimited international calling options.
Dialpad
Dialpad is continuously adding cutting edge AI capabilities to its phone system and contact center solutions. RingCentral is doing the same, but hasn’t quite caught up. Dialpad’s AI-powered scorecards, real-time agent assist, predictive CSAT scores, and adherence monitoring are some of the most powerful AI applications on the market.
For more details, read the TechRepublic review of RingCentral vs Dialpad.
Methodology
This methodology reflects my hands-on approach to evaluating business phone systems, focusing on the features and qualities that matter most to modern businesses. Here are six of the key factors I use to do my due diligence.
Standard and advanced features
I pay close attention to a broad range of features that cater to modern business needs, not just voice calls. I want to know whether the platform supports additional channels, like video conferencing, team messaging, and live chat. I am also interested in which features come standard, and which only come with premium tier subscriptions.
RingCentral includes many features (and deeper versions of those features) in its basic plans that its competitors only offer as upgrades.
Customer support
I consider how accessible the provider is — whether through phone, email, chat, or a ticketing system — and how knowledgeable and responsive their team is. Support hours also matter, as businesses often need help outside the typical 9-to-5. I factor in user reviews that highlight exceptional (and poor) support experiences, as well.
Third-party integrations
Compatibility with commonly used tools is essential for seamless workflows. I examine how well the platform integrates with popular CRMs, ERPs, SMS tools, online fax solutions, cloud storage platforms, and more.
It’s about ensuring that businesses won’t need to jump through hoops to connect their existing systems.
Security and privacy
Trust and reliability are at the core of my security assessment. I remove from consideration any product that has known security or privacy issues. VoIP security is far too important to do otherwise. I also look for end-user features that make it easier for organizations to maintain security, such as SSO (Single Sign-On), MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication), and role-based access control.
Demo or free trial
Free trials and demos are invaluable in helping businesses make informed decisions. I assess whether providers offer these opportunities to test the software’s capabilities before committing.
I treat this as if I were personally trying the platform, paying attention to ease of use, functionality, and any hidden limitations in the trial period.
Overall cost
Cost is a big factor, and I analyze it from every angle. I look at plan structures, monthly versus annual pricing, hidden fees, add-ons, and installation costs. My goal is to help readers accurately forecast the true cost of various plans for their particular needs — and how that cost compares with other viable alternatives.
