Vonage and RingCentral are both business communication platforms with strong calling capabilities.
We recommend RingCentral as the better option for most businesses due to its advanced features, superior user interface, and better unified communications capabilities.
That said, Vonage is a bargain for startups that just need a main company line with a separate business phone number included in the same plan. You can make and receive calls from your existing smartphone while easily switching between your personal calls, company line, and your own business number.
Vonage and RingCentral Compared to Their Closest Competitors
Nextiva is our favorite business phone system, ranking just ahead of RingCentral based on our review criteria. It’s a great choice for any business size, including small businesses that don’t want to skimp on features or quality. While not quite as advanced as RingCentral, it’s easier to deploy and costs less. If you’re considering Vonage for anything other than basic calling, you won’t regret paying a little bit extra for Nextiva as a more well-rounded communication platform with far more capabilities.
RingCentral is a much better value with more advanced features and better scalability, making it a stronger choice for midsize and large organizations. If you have 100-999 employees, RingCentral has everything you need to support inbound and outbound calling while doubling as a robust team collaboration tool. It’s built to scale, and it’s one of the most feature-packed platforms on the market.
Vonage stands out as a decent entry-level business phone system for entrepreneurs and small teams. It’s affordable if you don’t need advanced features and plan to manage most of your call handling from your smartphone or computer. You’ll get unlimited calling capabilities with every plan, and when you’re ready to grow, you can upgrade to a tier that comes with team messaging, video conferencing, and other features that would normally come standard from similar providers.
Check out our full reviews of the best call center software and best business phone systems to learn more about our top picks in this space.
Vonage and RingCentral Similarities
Unlimited domestic calling: Both providers offer unlimited domestic calling with every plan. RingCentral’s unlimited calling actually extends beyond the US and includes Canada. Texting is included from both RingCentral and Vonage as well, although Vonage’s is unlimited while RingCentral charges based on usage for texts when you max out your monthly allotment.
Free number porting: If you have an existing business phone number and you’re looking to change providers, you can switch to RingCentral or Vonage hassle-free without losing that number. With free number porting services, they’ll make sure you have a seamless transition to your new provider. Just make sure you don’t cancel your current carrier plan until the port has been officially completed.
BYOD compatible: Neither platform requires you to purchase extra hardware to use the service. They both work really well for BYOD work environments, where remote and hybrid workers use their own smartphones and computers for business communication. The platforms are both secure and designed to support BYOD offices.
Reliable uptime and call quality: RingCentral and Vonage both have a 99.999% uptime guarantee. These are trustworthy and reliable providers that will be there when your business needs them. They both deliver crystal-clear calling, so you won’t experience any communication issues with your callers going through a VoIP network as opposed to a traditional landline.
Faxing costs extra: Internet fax is not a standard feature offered by either of these platforms. To get this with Vonage, you’ll need to pay an extra $14.99 per user per month for the faxing add-on. For RingCentral, faxing is only offered with the mid-tier plan Advanced or Ultra packages.
Where RingCentral Shines
Team collaboration: Beyond its powerful calling capabilities, RingCentral is a complete team collaboration platform. Every plan comes with shared lines, team messaging, file sharing, unlimited audio conferencing, video conferencing, AI-powered meeting insights, whiteboarding, collaborative notes, breakout rooms, and more.
Vonage only offers team messaging and video conferencing when you upgrade to a higher tier, and that’s really all you’re getting in terms of collaborative features.
Voicemail transcription: Every RingCentral user gets visual voicemail, voicemail transcriptions, and the option to forward voicemails to your email. Vonage offers voicemail transcriptions that can be forwarded to your email as well, but not until you reach its highest-level plan tier.
This is normally considered a basic feature, which may seem strange to mention when RingCentral has so many advanced capabilities. But it’s a simple way to highlight how RingCentral shines above Vonage in so many areas.
Advanced call handling: Exact capabilities vary slightly depending on which plan you sign up for, but either way, RingCentral is powerful enough to handle a high volume of inbound calls without having to get a full-blown contact center plan.
It comes with call queues, advanced routing rules, multi-level auto attendant, and IVR. There’s also a receptionist and admin console, and you can upgrade to get advanced call monitoring capabilities—including live whispering and barging.
Vonage has a basic virtual receptionist, and that’s about it.
Call recording: On-demand call recording and video recording comes standard with every RingCentral plan. If you upgrade beyond the entry-level tier, you can also enable automatic call recording. This is great for team training, compliance, and quickly catching up on missed meetings. You can store up to 100,000 recordings per account, and then download them for access later on.
Vonage doesn’t offer call recording until you reach the highest plan tier or purchase it as a paid add-on. And automatic call recording through Vonage isn’t an option at all.
Powerful integrations: RingCentral has more than 300 pre-built integrations with third-party business apps. So whether you want to centralize data or make calls within another platform, RingCentral doesn’t hold you back—and there’s a really good chance that whatever tools you’re currently using are available to integrate. This is one of the many reasons why RingCentral is so scalable.
While RingCentral has the integration edge over most of its competitors, it really blows away Vonage, which only offers about 20 pre-built integrations.
Customer support: RingCentral’s knowledgeable and friendly customer support team is available via phone or live chat 24/7. Nights, weekends, holidays—you can always get support when you need it.
Vonage’s support hours are limited, with live chat only available Monday to Friday from 9 am to 9 pm EDT. Phone support is also limited, with Vonage reps available 16 hours daily Monday to Friday and 12 hours on weekends. They do have an “emergency on-call after hours” support line, but that’s not quite the same as RingCentral’s always-available 24/7 support.
Where RingCentral Falls Short
Fewer video meeting participants: Every RingCentral plan supports video conferencing, but you’re limited to just 100 participants at the first two tiers. While Vonage doesn’t offer video conferencing with its entry-level plan, its mid-tier package includes video conferencing for up to 200 users at a price that’s less than RingCentral. This won’t matter if you never have video meetings that large, but you’ll need to upgrade to RingCentral’s highest-level plan to host video calls with 200 participants.
Pricier call center: For high-volume call centers, you may need something a bit more powerful than RingCentral’s base phone system. Contact center plans from RingCentral start at $65 per user per month, which is actually a pretty decent price compared to what else is on the market. But Vonage has a lite call center plan that starts at just $24.98 per user, making it more appealing to smaller teams that don’t need advanced features.
Rigid IVR: RingCentral doesn’t have the best IVR (interactive voice response) feature on the market. It’s not as flexible and customizable as other solutions, and you’ll need to purchase a more expensive plan to access callback options. Vonage also has a basic auto attendant that’s nothing spectacular, but we expect more from a robust platform like RingCentral.
For a deeper dive into RingCentral’s benefits, drawbacks, features, and pricing, check out our RingCentral review.
Where Vonage Shines
Simplicity and mobility: We wouldn’t call Vonage a bare-bones phone system, but it’s definitely toward the basic end of the spectrum. This is a good thing for many business users who don’t need lots of advanced features. RingCentral may be too advanced for people who just want the basics. Whereas Vonage’s simplicity and low entry-level price point make it a great option for people who just want an easy way to make and receive business calls on the go.
You’ll have access to unlimited calling and texting from anywhere with the Vonage mobile app. And for instances when you’re working on your computer, you can access your phone system from there as well.
Main business line included: Vonage is a straightforward way to separate your business calls from personal calls on a single device. While other platforms offer the same, one unique standout of Vonage is that you’re actually getting two lines for the price of one.
Every business account comes with a main company number included—even for solo users. So an entrepreneur can sign up for Vonage and get a company line in the same package with their own separate business line, and then easily manage calls between both. Vonage also lets you send texts from your main company number, which isn’t something you’ll see offered from every provider.
Affordability: Vonage starts at just $13.99 per month, which is notably less than RingCentral’s $20 monthly starting rate. While RingCentral is definitely more feature-packed, Vonage is still a solid option for budget-conscious business users that wouldn’t otherwise be using advanced features.
All-in, Vonage is actually one of the best bargains in this space. You probably won’t find a better deal from such a reliable provider. But if you start buying Vonage add-ons, the rate definitely becomes less appealing.
Volume discounts for small teams: Vonage starts discounting its rates as soon as you hit five lines and then discounts them even more when you reach 20 lines. While we don’t typically recommend Vonage at scale, it’s nice to see that you’re still getting a better rate by expanding your team. You can get the entry-level plan for just $10.49 per user per month for 20 lines, which is nearly half the price of RingCentral for the same amount of users.
RingCentral offers volume discounts, too. But not until you reach 50 or more users.
Developer APIs: If you need something a bit more customized or advanced, Vonage has a wide range of communication APIs that you can use to take an otherwise basic phone system to the next level. There are four APIs that you can use—Voice API, Video API, SMS API, and Verify API. Each one allows developers to build custom communication platforms to transform the way you communicate with your audiences.
For example, the Voice API can be used to embed calling capabilities into your website or mobile app. Healthcare companies could use the Video API to provide HIPAA-compliant digital appointments into a web app. You could combine your calling and texting capabilities with Vonage’s Verify API to authenticate users trying to access an app.
These advanced capabilities do require development resources, but they’re really powerful if your team knows how to get the most out of them.
Where Vonage Falls Short
Expensive toll-free numbers: Vonage charges $39.99 per month for a toll-free number, which includes unlimited minutes. This may seem like a good deal at first but it’s significantly more expensive than RingCentral’s toll-free numbers that cost just $14.99 per month. RingCentral also gives you the option to select a toll-free number for each user, instead of a local number, for free with your subscription—and they give you toll-free minutes included with your plan. Instead of paying $39.99 for Vonage (on top of your base subscription), you could get a more robust plan from RingCentral that includes a toll-free number with 10,000 pooled minutes per month.
Outdated interface: Compared to RingCentral, Vonage’s interface feels dated and convoluted. There’s a lot going on and it doesn’t feel as modern as it could. While it’s not a huge deal, many users find it distracting and don’t enjoy using it.
Limited integrations: You can integrate over 20 different third-party apps and business tools with Vonage. That’s low compared to most platforms in this category, but it’s really low compared to RingCentral, which offers over 300 out-of-the-box integrations. Vonage does have communication APIs that you can use to create something custom, but that’s a whole different approach to managing your phone system that requires development resources and technical know-how.
Not built to scale: Vonage’s base business communications product is not designed for large teams. Even basic features like team messaging and video conferencing aren’t available at the entry-level tier. And when you get to Vonage’s top-level plan, you get things like voicemail transcriptions and on-demand call recording—two things RingCentral offers to everyone at a cheaper rate. If you’re willing to pay those rates, you can get a much more powerful phone system from a provider like RingCentral that supports hundreds of users.
Pricey add-ons: At first, Vonage seems like a pretty good deal. But as you start to look a bit closer at the feature availability, you’ll quickly realize that they charge extra for things that would otherwise be included with alternatives like RingCentral. Vonage charges an extra $14.99 per month for call queues, $4.99 per month for on-demand call recording, $14.99 per month for internet fax, and $4.99 to integrate with Salesforce. That’s about $40 in add-ons alone that you could get included with a comparable RingCentral plan for $25 all-in.
Read our complete Vonage review for a more in-depth breakdown of its pros, cons, features, and pricing.
Vonage vs RingCentral: The Final Verdict
RingCentral is the better option for most businesses. While it’s more expensive than Vonage, you’re getting a complete unified communications suite that’s built to scale. We recommend RingCentral for nearly any business scenario where your team needs anything beyond basic calling capabilities.
Both platforms are reliable and secure, but even small teams will likely outgrow Vonage pretty quickly. That said, Vonage has an appealing price for those of you who just want to get a business line and manage calls from your existing smartphone. It’s also worth considering if you have highly custom needs and want to use Vonage’s communication APIs to embed calling or messaging capabilities into an app.
These are just two of many great communication tools on the market. So don’t worry if it sounds like neither option is what you’re looking for.
Check out our reviews of the best call center software and best business phone systems to compare alternatives in this space.
