RingCentral vs. Phone.com – Office vs Office

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

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 Virtual Office with the option to purchase physical business class IP phones and unlimited minutes.

The biggest difference between these two plans is that RingCentral has specifically created a separate set of "office" plans specifically designed for businesses with unlimited calling and faxing within the US and Canada.

But they’ve gone beyond just the unlimited calling and faxing and created a "package" that provides 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 actual business class IP phones from Polycom* and you now have everything necessary for a complete business phone system all in one package.

They also just announced the rollout of RingCentral Office to Canada!

Whereas Phone.com markets their standard Virtual Office plans with the option to purchase business class IP phones and convert any user/line to unlimited minutes for a monthly fee of $24.88. One drawback with Phone.com’s unlimited minutes option however, is that you then lose the option of unlimited extensions with that user/line. With RingCentral you are limited to 10 virtual extensions on their lowest 1 user RingCentral Office plan, but the other RingCentral Office Plans still come with unlimited extensions.

When it comes to the actual virtual PBX functionality and features you won’t see a huge difference between these two providers. If anything we have seen more new features coming out of Phone.com, and on a quicker release schedule than from RingCentral. For instance Phone.com readily embraces mobile apps with releases for both the iPhone and Android, and whereas as of the writing of this article, we are still waiting for RingCentral to embrace Android.

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
Better Business Bureau Rating	A+	A due to limited length of time in business
Pricing	$49.99/mo 1 User $99.96/mo 4 User $229.90/mo 10 User	$39.76/mo 1 User $114.40/mo 4 User $263.68/mo 10 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	300: 1 600: 2 1000: 3 2500: 3
Included Extensions	1 User – 10 extensions 4 User – unlimited 10 User – unlimited	with unlimited minutes you lose unlimited extensions but it’s unclear how many extensions you have
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 you can also purchase Polycom IP phones and switch any or all lines/users on any Virtual Office plan over to unlimited minutes(as long as they use or purchase an ATA device or IP phone). The main difference however, is that you will not only pay the plan price but also an additional $24.88/mo for each user you choose to convert to unlimited minutes. You will then lose the option of unlimited extensions for those users as well.

Phone.com is normally our number 1 pick, however when it comes these "office" type packages, we are not as impressed with what they currently have to offer. We feel that simply offering the option of unlimited minutes for $24.88/mo is more of an after thought in response to competition, than a true packaged offering that pulls all of the needs of a busy office into focus. We have heard rumblings that we may see changes coming from Phone.com with regards to their physical phone("office") packages. We hope this is the case. We’d like to see a true offering from them in this area. We will let you know as soon as we hear anything more.

We would like to list key features for Phone.com’s offering here, but in reality what they have to offer in this regards is no different than their Virtual Office, with the ability to purchase business class IP phones, the addition of unlimited minutes for an added cost, and the loss of unlimited extensions. One thing to be noted here however, is that their unlimited minutes gives you both local/long distance unlimited minutes and toll free unlimited minutes. Both RingCentral and VirtualPBX limit your toll free minutes to 1,000 per month.

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 $49.99/mo for 1 user. Plans go up from there to a 4-user plan for $24.99/mo per user to a 10-user plan for $22.99/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 –

Phone.com’s Virtual Office plans are priced competitively and packed with features that either hold their own to RingCentral or easily beat out RingCentral(such as Phone.com’s Global Virtual number and Mobile Apps). This is when you compare Virtual Office strictly to RingCentral Mobile.

Currently where these two merchants differ is in their approach to putting their "offering" together. RingCentral’s is just much easier to understand what you are getting. Their plans are pre bundled and you select the RingCentral Office plan that best suites your needs. With Phone.com it’s a bit more confusing because you have to pick and choose via their Virtual Office plans and an ale carte selection method. You select the Virtual Office plan first, then the number of unlimited minutes/users you want, then the number of phones you want(remember with Phone.com you must have an ATA or IP phone to utilize unlimited minutes).

RingCentral instead, took the approach of creating a whole new set of plans specifically designed for the "office" market, with unlimited calling and faxing within North America, per user pricing, and a minimum of 3 phone lines including local phone numbers for each user.

The one upside we do give to Phone.com, is that their unlimited minutes actually provides unlimited minutes on both the local/long distance side as well as the toll free side. They do not distinguish their unlimited minutes. With RingCentral you will only get 1,000 toll free minutes a month. (This is true for VirtualPBX also). So kudos’ goes to Phone.com on this point.

In this case, we feel that RingCentral has hit the mark with their RingCentral Office plans, making them a better option for those busy offices within the US and Canada who want a bundled package with unlimited calling and faxing. These plans are competively priced and make it affordable for any small business owner to get a toll free number, a dedicated fax number, and a local number per employee, and never have to worry about running out of minutes.

Visit RingCentral to learn more about RingCentral Office Plans.