RingCentral vs. Phone.com – Office vs Office

RingCentral or Phone.com: Which Virtual PBX for Your Business Needs?

Updated February 13, 2012 for Phone.com’s new plans and RingCentral’s new pricing.

In this article we will compare RingCentral Office - which is RingCentral’s flagship product line with unlimited minutes and business class phones, to Phone.com’s Enterprise, which also offers unlimited minutes and business class phones.

RingCentral’s Office package not only provides unlimited calling and faxing in the US and Canada, but also gives you 1 local or toll free main company number, 1 local or toll free fax number, and 1 local number per user. Combine all of this with their full feature virtual pbx, and the option to purchase actual business class IP phones from Polycom* and you now have everything necessary for a complete business phone system all in one package.

RingCentral Office is also available in Canada. (unfortunately, so far only in the US and Canada however. Sorry international users.)

Whereas Phone.com’s base Enterprise plan provides 6 phones – in any combination of toll free or local and unlimited monthly minutes for faxing and calling(4 extensions). Just like with RingCentral you also get all of the features of their virtual pbx, and the option to purchase business class IP phones from Polycom, Linksys and Cisco. Phone.com’s Enterprise plan is very customizable, offering you the ability to add phone lines for $3.88/mo or additional unlimited minute extensions for $21.88/mo.

The biggest difference between the way these two plans are set up is they way they configure their pricing. With RingCentral’s Office plans, when you add a user you automatically get a local phone line for that user and an extension with unlimited minutes for anywhere from $24.99/mo to $39.99/mo depending on the plan you select. Whereas with Phone.com’s Enterprise system if you’ve already used all 6 off your lines that come with the base plan, and all 4 of the extensions, then it would cost you $21.88/mo(for the unlimited minute extension) plus $3.88/mo(for the additional phone line) for a total of $25.76. which puts them at the lower end of RingCentral’s pricing to add a user.

Phone.com’s base Enterprise plan starts at $94.88/mo and with 6 phone lines and 4 unlimited minute extensions, would put them in the same range as RingCentral’s most popular 4-19 user plan which costs $29.99/mo/user. RingCentral’s 4 user plan would give you 4 unlimited extensions and 6 phone lines for $119.96/mo.

So how do Phone.com and RingCentral Office really compare when it comes to "office" packages?

Comparison
	Office	Virtual Office
Free Trial	30 Day Risk Free	30 Days
BBB Rating	A+	A due to limited length of time in business
Pricing	$39.99/mo/user 1-3 User $29.99/mo/user 4-19 User $26.99/mo 20-49 User $24.99/mo/user 50+ Users	$94.88/mo 4 Users $25.76/mo to add user
Activation Fees/Shipping Fees	shipping fees for Polycom Phones: $18.95 for 1-3 devices $24.97 for 4-7 devices $29.95 for 8-10 devices	shipping and handling fee of $9.95 per device ordered for their Polycom IP phones.
Included Monthly Minutes	free unlimited in US/Canada 1000 Bonus toll free min/mo	Unlimited local/long distance Unlimited Toll Free
Included Incoming Lines	1 local or toll free main company #, 1 local/toll free fax #, & 1 local # per user	6 with base plan any combo of toll free/local
Included Extensions	unlimited	unlimited
Vanity Number Fee	$30	Free! with Coupon Code: "FreeVanity"
Customer Service	24×7 (out-sourced – improving)	24×7 (in-house – excellent)
Overall Rating

Phone.com –

• Read our full Phone.com Review

With Phone.com’s new Enterprise plan, we are happy to see they now have a packaged plan to compete with both RingCentral and VirtualPBX in the flat rate/office market space. This new offering starts with a base plan that is priced at $94.88/mo and offers 6 phone lines that you can configure in any combination of local and toll free numbers. You also get 4 unlimited minute extensions (similar to RingCentral a RingCentral 4-user plan). This prices them out very competitively with both RingCentral($119.96/mo) and VirtualPBX($95.96/mo).

Phone.com’s pricing model is slightly different from RingCentral’s and that really is the biggest difference between these two providers, when it comes to these plans. With Phone.com you get a base plan for the $94.88/mo and then if you want to add a phone line it will cost you $3.88/mo and to add an unlimited minutes extension it will cost you $21.88/mo. Whereas with RingCentral you add “users” for anywhere from $39.99/mo to $24.99/mo and you get both the phone line and the unlimited minutes extension. However, if you compare the price of phone.com’s method -$25.76 – to RingCentral’s pricing, Phone.com may end up being cheaper depending upon the RingCentral plan you select.

Another key difference is that with Phone.com you get unlimited minutes on both your local/long distance calls, as well as your toll free calls. Both RingCentral and VirtualPBX limit your toll free minutes to 1,000 per month.

Phone. provides the ability to purchase business class IP phones from Polycom, Cisco and Linksys.

Phone.com Enterprise Key Features –

• Unlimited Local/Long Distance and Toll Free Calling
• Up to 6 phone lines in any combination of local/toll free
• 4 unlimited minute extensions(additional can be added)
• no activation, setup fees or contracts
• 4 business class IP phones to choose from, that arrive pre configured with phone numbers and extensions
• mobile app’s
• fully featured virtual pbx

RingCentral –

• Read our full RingCentral Review

RingCentral Office provides the benefits of unlimited calling and faxing in the US and Canada, with a pricing system that is based on number of users rather than minutes. Each plan includes 1 local or toll free main company number, 1 local or toll free fax number, and 1 local number per user, and unlimited minutes with a base plan starting at $39.99/mo for 1 to 3 users. Plans go up from there to 50 plus users for $24.99/mo per user.

RingCentral Office Key Features –

• Unlimited Calling and Faxing in the US and Canada
• BONUS 1000 toll-free minutes/mo
• Each plan comes bundled with a toll free main company number, toll free or local fax number and a local number per user
• no activation, setup fees or contracts
• 4 business class Polycom IP phones to choose from, that arrive pre configured with phone numbers and extensions
• an optional Polycom Conference phone

Bottom Line –

We’ve outlined the key differences above, and it really does come down to the way these two approach their pricing and packaging. Their virtual pbx features are fairly similar and their customer support ratings have become similar as well. Phone.com has suffered from a sudden growth that has definitely put strains on their customer support team and they will be the first to admit they are working on improving that. Phone.com’s customer support is US based whereas RingCentral’s is not – may be worth noting.

Which merchant you go with, will really come down to personal preference and particular features that you may be looking for that one provider may offer that the other may not(such as international numbers – phone.com does, ringcentral does NOT). Also, if you are heavy into international calling, be sure to check international rates for both merchants. However, both merchants are now offering solid plans in this space and you would not go wrong with either of them, in our opinion.

Visit Phone.com to learn more about Phone.com’s Enterprise Plans.

Visit RingCentral to learn more about RingCentral Office Plans.