Best Conference Call Services

Connecting with employees and coworkers locally and worldwide has never been more important. After researching and testing dozens of conference call services on the market, we narrowed them down to the top options out there and identified Nextiva as our best for most users. It offers generous conference attendee limits and a host of other great VoIP features at a reasonable price.

The Best Conference Call Services for Most

When it comes to conference call software, you want a provider that doesn’t get in the way and allows you to do everything you need. Nextiva gives you that and plenty more, making it best for most businesses. 

Even on its cheapest plan, Nextiva allows for up to 40 audio-only call participants and up to 250 video conference attendees. Conduct meetings and collaborate freely while also holding the potential for large product demos, webinars, and virtual events. You also get screen and file sharing for video conferences and the HD quality you’d expect from one of the leaders in the VoIP communication space.

The 8 Best Conference Call Service Options to Consider:

1. Nextiva – Best conference call service for most (For a limited time get 25% off, plus a free phone, when you sign up!)
2. RingCentral – Best standalone conferencing solution
3. GoToMeeting – Best for keeping your remote team cohesive
4. Grasshopper – Best mobile virtual phone system
5. ClickMeeting – Best for webinars and conference calls
6. Zoom – Best for hosting video conference calls
7. Vast Conference – Best for instant conference calls
8. FreeConferenceCall.com – Best free conference call service

When It Makes Sense to Invest Into Conference Call Services

With modern work becoming more remote and dispersed, conference calling is growing in importance. And, today, it’s every bit as easy to get a solution that supports both voice and video group calls.

It doesn’t have to be limited to team huddles, either. The quality of video and voice conferencing is high enough that you should be able to lean on a provider for client-facing presentations, sales calls, and all-hands updates that loop in stakeholders and workers alike.

Even if you have a traditional office setting with your entire team on-site, conference calls can facilitate collaboration with vendors, clients, customers, and partners who aren’t in the office with you.

Premium conference calling services exist for communication at scale, typically for business use. So if you need to hop on a call with just a few people or want to make calls on a personal level, you don’t need a complete conference call service.

Platforms like Slack, Skype, Google Meet, and even traditional three-way calling work just fine for these types of situations.

However, a full-scale conference call service is smart if you’re a remote team, need to support more than a handful of participants, or want access to advanced features like internal communication, video conferencing, and call recording.

That’s why we’ve plunged into the wide world of conferencing solutions. Let’s show you what we’ve found out about the best options available today.

#1 – Nextiva — The Best Conference Call Service for Most

VoIP and video calling have made conference calls an essential part of any business. Nowadays, the needs from conference calling solutions are more varied and dynamic—chances are, you want one solution that works as well for your small team huddles as it does for departmental or company-wide meetings.

That’s where Nextiva comes in.

With Nextiva, you get a full-fledged voice and video calling solution with faxing and team messaging on every plan, plus texting and more in premium packages.

Conferencing is baked into this all-purpose communication solution. With Nextiva’s Professional plan, you can hold unlimited conference calls—both voice and video. The only limit is the number of participants, which is capped at 40 for standard conference calls and a generous 250 for video conferencing.

That’s enough for a lot of businesses and organizations. For between $11.95 and $26.95 per user per month, you get all of this:

• Unlimited 1:1 voice and video calling
• Unlimited conferencing
• Unlimited faxing
• Text messaging
• Mobile and desktop app
• Toll-free and local numbers

Pricing changes based on the number of users you have—fewer users means a higher bill and vice versa.

Your small teams and department huddles can be enhanced, too, by the easy collaboration in Nextiva video calls. Share screens and files with a click, making it a cinch to get everybody working together no matter where they’re located.

Need to accommodate more people? The Enterprise plan is just $10 more than Professional and allows for an unlimited number of participants.

The possibilities really open up there. Not only can you get any number of your organization’s members on a call together, but you can utilize Nextiva for internal or public-facing virtual events, classes, webinars, and workshops.

For most users, you’re looking at around $20 per user per month for a full-fledged communication and conferencing solution. Budget-minded orgs can keep their Nextiva plans on the cheap side while growth-minded ones can get everything they need and still have a bill that’s easy to swallow.

Get started at Nextiva today.

#2 – RingCentral — The Best Standalone Conferencing Solution

RingCentral is one of the most popular communication tools on the market. Regardless of what types of conference calls you need to make and the features you need, RingCentral is flexible enough to match your needs.

Aside from its robust selection of business communication tools in one package, there’s also a standalone conference call plan that’s perfect if that’s all you need.

You can save a ton of money going this route if you don’t need internal messaging and phone services.

The no-risk option of RingCentral’s free plan means you can test drive it for up to 100 participants. Most providers give you a free trial period, but RingCentral gives you incredible value for free forever—you can try it for as long as you want to to see if it’s a good fit for you and your team.

If you need more participants or advanced features, the Pro+ plan is $11.99 per user. With it, you can host meetings with up to 200 participants, store up to 100 hours of video recordings, and access advanced analytics.

The good news is that you only need one or two people with the paid plan—managers can upgrade to Pro+ to host longer meetings with more participants while everyone else stays on the free plan.

However, if you’re looking for an all-inclusive communications platform, RingCentral Business Communications, the all-in-one communications platform, is the way to go.

RingCentral Business Communications includes all the conference call features above plus the added benefit of additional communication and collaboration tools, like a complete phone system, Slack and Microsoft Office integrations, document sharing functionality, and CRM integrations on the higher tiers.

You can even integrate with custom, industry-specific tools to improve collaboration and streamline communications across your business.

The Core Plan is the cheapest paid plan that includes audio and video conferencing, starting at $20 per user per month. It comes with tons of extra features, including:

• Free business phone numbers
• Unlimited domestic calling
• SMS text messaging
• Unlimited audio conferencing (up to 1,000 participants)
• Video conferencing (up to 100 participants)
• 24-hour max meeting duration
• HD video and voice
• Call recording

RingCentral is an excellent choice if you need to host conference calls with fewer than 100 participants (which you can do completely for free) or need an all-in-one suite of business communication tools.

Get started for free today!

#3 – GoToMeeting — The Best for Keeping Your Remote Team Cohesive

Remote work and the software that makes it possible are growing trends. When you want to keep your team tight-knit but the team is scattered like dandelions in a field, you need a way to keep them together and on the same page while giving them the chance to interact face to face.

GoToMeeting is one of the easiest ways to facilitate remote collaboration.

It makes working with remote teams super easy. Even if you’ve never used conference call software before, GoToMeeting takes just a few minutes to get up and running. And you don’t need any technical support or infrastructure to start using it.

Hosting and joining calls takes just a few clicks, making it easy for everyone (including those who aren’t tech-savvy).

The flexibility of a remote work environment as a totally virtual business is now part of everyday life. GoToMeeting has focused almost solely on improving and maintaining an infrastructure that can support this kind of collaboration that lets your entire team work together smoothly.

With GoToMeeting, you can host audio and video meetings from any device, including Mac, PC, iOS, and Android—allowing your team to start, join, and facilitate with any device.

Meetings can have up to 25 active webcams visible at once and all plans include unlimited cloud recording so you never have to worry about taking notes.

Furthermore, GoToMeeting has all the features you need to run successful conference calls, including:

• SSO login
• Calendar integrations
• Meeting transcription
• Video to slide and slide to PDF
• Screenshare and drawing
• Note taking features
• Diagnostic reports

You can even give computer and mouse control to participants during a video call, which makes remote team collaboration easier than ever.

It’ll also help for training or troubleshooting, too.

One of GoToMeeting’s newest features is a Slack integration that lets you launch a new meeting directly within Slack so you don’t have to worry about switching between tabs or setting up a new room. Simply click once to start a new meeting with everyone you’re chatting with.

Another new feature is risk-based authentication which automatically detects malicious or suspicious behavior and blocks those participants.

Whether it’s someone joining from an unknown device or a location mismatch, you can rest easy knowing your accounts are secure.

Both new features are available on every plan, too.

On higher tiers, there’s also a smart assistant that uses machine learning to automatically capture action items from meetings and create a list of meeting highlights for everyone to review.

But the best part? GoToMeeting is affordable. Pricing is billed on a per-organizer basis, with paid plans including:

• Professional — $12 per month
• Business — $16 per month
• Enterprise — Custom rates

The Professional and Business plans accommodate up to 150 and 250 participants, respectively. And the Enterprise solution can host conference calls with up to 3,000 participants

Try GoToMeeting free for 14 days. 

#4 – Grasshopper — The Best Mobile Virtual Phone System

Grasshopper isn’t a traditional conference call software, but it still deserves a spot in our top picks because of its versatility. Rather than being solely for conference calling, it’s a virtual phone system for small businesses.

The mobile app lets you turn your personal phone into a business phone with a separate phone number and voicemail system to help you separate personal calls from business activity. It’s not perfect for everyone, but it’s a great way to bundle conference call essentials with a virtual phone system if that’s something you need.

All you have to do is select your new phone number, choose your plan, download the app, and connect your existing personal phone number. It takes less than five minutes to set up and is one of the simplest options on our list.

With Grasshopper, you get unlimited conference calls with up to ten participants. However, you have to manually call each person you want to add rather than having them call you. It’s less traditional and less straightforward than other conference calling tools, but it gets the job done.

On top of that, all Grasshopper plans include:

• A free vanity or local phone number
• Custom greetings, phone extensions, and call handling
• Call forwarding and business SMS messaging
• Voicemail transcription services
• Call forwarding and transfers
• Incoming call control
• Detailed call reports
• Virtual faxing

Another handy feature we love is the ability to set up automated text message follow-ups if you aren’t able to answer. You can program the system to text your caller and let them know what to expect from you in the few days—we like to include info on when they’ll hear back from us and a short thank you message.

It’s a great way to stay at the top of their mind, even if you don’t answer or get back to them right away.

Paid plans start at just $28 per month for one number and three extensions, making it one of the more affordable choices on our list.

Pricing goes up to $46 per month for three numbers and six extensions. And the top tier is $80 per month with five numbers and unlimited extensions. you can try it free for seven days before investing to see if it’s right for you.

With that said, if you don’t need these extra virtual phone system features, you’re better off using a more traditional conference calling service, like GoToMeeting or RingCentral.

#5 – ClickMeeting — The Best Conference Call Service for Hosting Webinars

Webinars are a great way to share your knowledge with others inside your company, customers, potential customers, and the community.

However, hosting webinars is a lot different than hosting a regular video call.

ClickMeeting offers the best of both worlds with the option to host webinars and internal calls all with the same platform. Its features span both types of video conferencing. And despite its high price tag, it can be cheaper than purchasing two separate tools to cover both use cases.

For conference calls, you can only have up to 25 participants regardless of the plan you choose. This is very limited compared to other conference call service providers.

If you expect more participants in your meetings, you’ll need to choose another provider on this list for meetings.

But if most of your meetings have fewer than 25 participants (as most do) or you have a different tool for internal calls, ClickMeeting gives you access to a wide variety of advanced webinar and video features, including:

• Unlimited meetings and webinars
• Up to four cameras during webinars
• HD voice and video quality
• Screen sharing, control, and presentation mode
• Whiteboards, polls, surveys, and private chat
• Real-time chat translation
• CTA buttons and landing pages
• Custom branding

And you can even sell webinar seats to add a new revenue stream to your business. The software includes everything you need to set up, schedule, and run premium webinars.

As you can see, a lot of these features are overkill for standard internal conference calling.

But, if you want to host live webinars and host internal conference calls, ClickMeeting is our top recommendation.

Paid plans start at $25 per month paid annually, making it one of the more expensive options on this list. But you can try it free for 30 days to see if it’s a good fit before paying a penny.

#6 – Zoom — The Best For Video Conferencing

Zoom has quickly become a global leader in the communications space. The company saw a surge in new users as the COVID-19 pandemic forced people in all industries to work from home. 

While most conference call services have a video conferencing feature, Zoom specializes in this category. 

Zoom boasts a well-known customer list with brands like Ticketmaster, Slack, Pandora, Dropbox, GoDaddy, Uber, Western Union, Caesars Entertainment, and more. 

The platform supports up to 1,000 video participants and 10,000 viewers. It’s affordable, easy to use, and built to scale.

Laptop and desktop users don’t have to install any software to join or start a call, making it one of the simplest conferencing tools on the market.

All users have to do is click a link and accept the Zoom browser client.

With that said, it only works with Firefox, Chrome, Edge, and the most recent release of Safari, so mobile users will have to download an app to use it on their phones.

Some of Zoom’s standout features include:

• Collaboration-enabled conference rooms
• Cross-platform messaging
• File sharing
• Video webinars
• Calendar sync
• Recordings and transcripts
• Mobile meetings

Zoom starts at $149 per year per host. This supports meetings with up to 100 participants. Business plans support meetings with up to 300 participants and start at $199.90 per year per host. 

The one drawback of Zoom is its security. There have been issues reported of hackers disrupting meetings. But the company says they’ve addressed those concerns to prevent this from happening. 

You can use Zoom for free with 40-minute meetings and up to 100 participants. 

#7 – Vast Conference — Best For Instant Calling

Vast Conference is perfect for spontaneous conference calls. You can start a conference call anywhere, anytime, without having to pre-schedule.

Plus, every Vast Conference user gets their own unique number. And starting meetings is a breeze. To start one, simply dial the number and enter your access code. 

While Vast Conference is ideal for instant meetings, the service also supports pre-scheduling meetings as well.

And you can take advantage of operator-assisted calls, too.

If you opt for operator-assisted calls, Vast Conference uses professional and courteous operators who welcome and identify your callers, making it an ideal solution for calls with a lot of people.

And they offer various collaboration tools, including screen sharing, conference recording, document sharing, and file transfers. 

HD video and audio comes built-in to every plan, so you don’t have to worry about poor call quality disrupting your meetings even at the lowest tier.

If you need to host conference calls with participants across the globe, Vast Conference supports international calls with 70+ countries. So, you don’t have to worry about international fees or disrupted connections.

Here’s a quick glance at the Vast Conference plans and pricing:

• Essentials — $11.99 per user per month (up to 10 participants)
• Standard — $15.99 per user per month (up to 100 participants)
• Professional — $31.99 per user per month (up to 250 participants)
• Enterprise — Custom pricing (up to 500 participants)

Overall, Vast Conference can accommodate conference calls of all sizes. The Enterprise plan doesn’t host quite as many callers as other platforms on the market. But most users probably won’t reach that number of participants.

Plus, you can try Vast Conference free for 14 days. 

#8 – FreeConferenceCall.com — Best Free Service

As the name implies, FreeConferenceCall.com is 100% free. They’ve been providing free conference calling services for nearly 20 years. 

The platform was built for nonprofits, students, and charities. It’s run on the basis that everyone should have access to free audio and video conferences. But with that said, anyone can use it.

Some of the top highlights, features, and benefits of FreeConfereneCall.com include:

• Up to 1,000 participants
• Screen sharing
• Recordings
• Drawing tools
• Switch presenters
• Private chat
• Mobile app
• Call history
• Call detail reports
• Custom meeting walls
• Global access

Since its inception, the platform has facilitated more than two billion calls worldwide. It’s not quite as advanced as the solutions tailored toward businesses, but it’s still very good.

While the service is free, they do accept donations. The average contributor donates $6 per month, but you can pay whatever you want. Alternatively, you can always keep it free forever.

Methodology For Choosing The Best Conference Call Service

Finding the best conference call service can be tough if you don’t know what to look for. But there is a certain methodology that you should follow as you’re shopping around.

Here’s a closer look at the criteria we evaluated while narrowing down the winners on our list. I’ll explain why these factors matter in greater detail below—then you can weigh everything according to your personal needs. 

Flexibility With Every Call Type You Need 

If you want to survive in today’s digital world of business, you need to be flexible. Oftentimes, businesses will need to make both video or audio conference calls based on a client’s situation or accessibility needs. 

In that case, having a conference call service provider that gives you multiple call formats is critical. 

This also goes for features that help you schedule meetings with ease or collaborate with larger groups through clear HD video and audio. 

Imagine not having reliable video and audio when trying to close a deal with a client—the call is pixelated and lagging and you’re missing every other word the client says. This is unprofessional and won’t increase confidence in your brand to do a great job with future projects. 

Business is global and moving more towards internet-based communication, internal messaging, and file sharing. More deals are closed over webinars and conference calls than ever before. 

It’s extremely important you pay attention to the flexibility and additional functionalities your conference call provider offers. 

Mobile Device Integration

Think about this for a moment—isn’t the greatest value of conference calling the ability to communicate with teams, clients, business partners, and organizations from anywhere?  

What good is the ability to connect with others around the world if you can’t use it on any device? 

Business never stops. When you need to help a team member dive deep into solving a problem,  you want it to be easy and available to you. Several providers on this list give you this peace of mind. And, let’s face it, sitting on a park bench meeting with a client is much better than being chained to a laptop in the office. 

For example, video conferencing with Zoom lets you use your mobile phone or tablet to take business meetings in the most unexpected places. 

Reliable application integration, too, is a must. The key word is reliable. 

There are several providers that offer mobile apps, however they are mediocre at best. The calls are choppy and the video quality is less than favorable. We even found providers that say they offer CRM and project management integration, but they were not fully functional.

So when you are selecting your service provider, you need to test, test, and test again. Use your trial period to use and critique the most important features you need for your business.

And if we’re being honest here (as we always are at Crazy Egg) every thriving business will need to have a quality option for mobile conference calling and collaboration. That’s the way modern business works. In fact, it could be the reason you sign the largest contract of your career… or find yourself steaming mad that you didn’t close the deal.

Avoid The Meeting Size Surprise

Though we seem to be coming out of the toughest year we have had and our world is getting back to normal, we all can agree business online has grown—and will continue to—as we have become comfortable with working remotely. 

Some businesses don’t even have an office, just employees spread around the world working together from remote locations. Even massive organizations lean heavily on some amount of remote workers. 

When you are considering your conference call provider, you want to know with no doubts that it can handle the demand of 100, 200, or even 6,000 participants at a time with no surprises. 

If audio calls, and video conference calls are important in your business, say to deliver a quarterly brief to your entire business staff, or a state of the union on major changes to your brand you don’t want the size of your meeting to be the reason your presentation is derailed. 

The providers on this list give you the options for hundreds if not thousands of participants on the call with zero concern about quality or performance. Look at the participant thresholds in their pricing packages, so you can choose a plan that accommodates you but doesn’t charge you for more than you need. 

Instant Call Collaboration That You Won’t Fumble

Visual aids always help us learn and, when you are on a conference call, the ability to draw on screen or share a file instantly enhances the quality of what you’re communicating. 

These help with teaching call participants a concept, giving them a clear visual of what you mean, and increasing the engagement and interaction on the call.

A feature like Q&A polls gives you instant feedback about how people are understanding your presentation. You can make collaboration a walk in the park with live chat and in-call meeting scheduling. 

When you have features that allow you to record calls and even transcribe them, you can share them with clients and give them something to refer back to later.

This kind of collaboration mixes conference calling services with project management practices, giving your business the extra edge you need.

Summary

For most users, Nextiva and RingCentral are our top choices. The quality, features, and pricing are ideal for the majority of businesses and personal use cases. 

However, there are a lot of other great options to choose from.

So, make sure to follow the methodology and recommendations we talked about to find the best conference call services, depending on what you need.