Business VOIP Providers: Grasshopper vs RingCentral

Increasingly more companies are opting for VoIP phone services for their business phone needs. As such, there are now so many options available in terms of different service providers that companies can pick the provider with the best offerings for their unique business structure and needs. 

Two prominent cloud-based phone service providers are RingCentral and Grasshopper. One prominent difference between these two service providers are that RingCentral is a virtual IP-PBX while Grasshopper is a PSTN overlay. This means that Grasshopper makes use of the public phone system to relay calls while RingCentral is a pure Cloud play when interacting with the public phone system. 

While the two VoIP service providers have some similarities in terms of features and offerings, companies are likely to find that RingCentral for Google provides enterprise features and options that are lacking in Grasshopper's phone service.  

RingCentral

RingCentral is based in California and has been providing business phone service since 2003. Companies of a wide variety of sizes working in many different industries can take advantage of RingCentral services for not only their business phone communication needs, but also for faxing, voicemail, virtual conferencing, and more. 

With 300,000 clients, RingCentral has numerous plans to choose from and offers either a toll free number or a local number with each of its plans. RingCentral offers a cloud PBX solution that can be integrated with a wide variety of programs like Microsoft Outlook, Google, Dropbox, and more. Staff members can use smartphone apps on their iPhone, Blackberry, or Android device to access their business phone numbers remotely. Other services that can be used with RingCentral include texting, caller ID control, Internet faxing, and voicemail. 

Grasshopper

Grasshopper is headquartered in Needham, MA. The company offers business phone services to over 100,000 entrepreneurs and is especially known for being an ideal solution for smaller operations involving only a single proprietor or startups that are still growing. Grasshopper caters to growing startups by offering plans that can have features added on over time so that the plan can grow with the company. Like RingCentral, Grasshopper offers faxing capabilities and provides toll free, local, or vanity phone numbers to clients. Grasshopper offers conference calling, call screening, and unlimited extensions.

Calls can be forwarded to mobile phones, and smartphone apps are offered that make Grasshopper compatible with BYOD policies. With unlimited call handling, Grasshopper plans don't require costly hardware. With Grasshopper service, companies can set music to sound on calls on hold and get transcriptions of calls and messages over email. 

The Differences

Many companies opt for RingCentral for Google because they can try out the service with a free 30-day trial before committing to anything. The least expensive plan offered by Grasshopper is $12 a month for one user and 6¢ per minute. RingCentral offers a standard plan that's $24.99 per month per user and comes with unlimited calling. 

Companies deciding between RingCentral and Grasshopper need to investigate deeply into the different plan features to determine the best option. However, one factor that might prove decisive for many companies is the fact that Grasshopper does not offer outgoing fax services. Companies needing both incoming and outgoing Internet fax services will definitely want to work with RingCentral.

In addition, many enterprise companies might find RingCentral for Google far more robust than Grasshopper if they are heavily reliant on a feature rich PBX. RingCentral can not only be integrated with Google Apps, but can also integrate with a variety of other programs including Microsoft Office Suite program and Dropbox.