Vonage Review

Pros & Cons

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Vonage Overview—Flexibility for Small Businesses

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Vonage provides small businesses with a highly versatile and customizable cloud-based phone system.

It offers three core service plans to meet different needs, starting at just $14.99 per user per month. Each plan includes unlimited calling, texting, and team messaging, too. You can rely solely on desktop and mobile apps, or integrate VoIP desk phones.

With an array of over 20 add-ons, from faxing to call monitoring and recording, you can customize every plan to match your needs.

Vonage also makes implementation easy through preconfigured phones, simple setup instructions, and intuitive admin tools. With unlimited 24/7 live chat support, you’ll never feel alone.

For small businesses wanting an affordable, flexible system with robust calling features and integrations, Vonage is a top choice.

Vonage Pricing

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Vonage offers three business phone plans, ranging in price from $14.99 to $39.99 per line per month. The differences between the plans primarily come down to how you plan to take calls and the features you need.

The entry-level gives you crystal clear phone calls facilitated through desktop and mobile apps. This works well if you need bare bones calling capabilities or plan to rely primarily on mobile devices.

However, you won’t be able to use desk phones. If that’s something you need, you’ll need to choose the middle tier or higher. The middle tier adds CRM integrations, a multi-level auto attendant, and video conferencing capabilities.

And the top tier adds Vonage’s most popular paid add-ons to your system at no extra cost.

If you have more than five users, you’ll be eligible for slight volume discounts, but the best deal kicks in if you have more than 20 lines.

Vonage also has a handy online tool to help you decide which plan’s best for you. All you have to do is answer a few questions about the number of users, how you plan to take calls, and which features you need. From there, it’ll recommend the ideal plan and give you a quote based on the number of users.

Aside from the different phone plans, there’s a range of add-ons you can purchase, some of which are included for free on the most expensive plan. This gives you the flexibility to customize your system based on the functionality you need, rather than having to upgrade to a higher tier to unlock more features. Some of the available add-ons include:

• An AI-powered virtual assistant
• Automated call recording for $49.99 per month
• Unlimited toll-free minutes for $49.99 per month
• A conference bridge for $14.99 per month
• Faxing for $14.99 per month
• Call queueing, on-demand recording, a virtual mailbox, and more

The final pricing factor to consider is hardware. Vonage’s desk phones range from $59.99 to $284.99 depending on the model. You can also add additional local numbers for $9.99 per month, a toll-free number for $39.99 per month, and local numbers for $4.99 per month.

Ease of Use

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Transitioning to a cloud-based phone system may seem daunting. But with Vonage, it’s incredibly easy.

First off, the provider handles everything behind-the-scenes, from infrastructure to updates and ongoing maintenance. You don’t have to worry about servers, hardware, or technical complexities.

But it gets even better. Vonage guides you through every implementation step in a simple, streamlined manner. Between step-by-step tutorials, videos, diagrams, and thorough documentation, you’ll have all the resources you need to get up and running smoothly.

As such, there’s no need to figure things out alone or have prior technical know-how.

Should you choose to purchase recommended devices from Vonage, they come preconfigured out of the box. All you have to do is plug them in and you’re good to go.

Across the board, Vonage for businesses prioritizes user-friendliness. The web portal, desktop app, and mobile app are all designed with an intuitive interface. Admins, receptionists, and employees alike will find them easy to use.

If you ever run into issues, Vonage’s thorough documentation library, step-by-step tutorials, and live customer service ensure you’ll never feel lost.

Call Management Features

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The entry-level plan provides must-have basics like an admin portal to manage settings and users, a virtual receptionist to professionally greet callers, call blocking, presence indicators, call forwarding, and call flip to seamlessly switch between desktop and mobile.

You’ll also enjoy click to dial for easy outbound calling, customizable hold music, shared lines, simultaneous ringing, and voicemail to email.

It covers all of the basics you’ll need for a comprehensive deviceless solutions.

The next tier lets you integrate existing VoIP phones or purchase new ones directly from Vonage. With your devices, you’ll get all the same features as the cheaper plan, but you’ll also benefit from multi-level auto attendants that help route callers to the right people.

Of course, you can customize your setup with additional add-ons, like call queuing, call monitoring, unlimited toll-free minutes, faxing, call recording, a business inbox, virtual extensions, and more.

At the top tier, you gain access to Vonage’s most popular add-ons at no extra cost, including:

• Call monitoring tools
• On-demand call recording with 15 hours of storage
• Call groups to distribute incoming calls

Overall, Vonage equips you with the core functionality needed for smart call management. Whether you need basics like voicemail and call flip at the entry level or advanced enhancements like call queues and monitoring for large organizations, Vonage is customizable to match your needs.

Communication Tools

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With Vonage, you get unlimited calling, texting, and team messaging on every plan, even the cheapest one. there are no per-minute or overage charges to worry about.

You’ll enjoy crystal clear phone calls and seamless team communication at an affordable price point.

If you need video conferencing tools, you’ll need to upgrade to one of the top two tiers. Doing so lets you host video calls and meetings with up to 100 participants with lag-free clarity, screen sharing, recordings, and more collaborative tools.

Whether you’re talking to customers, potential clients, or coworkers, you get all the features you need.

Vonage doesn’t include faxing in any of its plans, but you can add unlimited online faxing for $14.99 per month if you need it. With the add-on, you’ll be able to send and receive secure faxes via email with no clunky machines required.

Hardware Options

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Vonage systems are compatible with both preferred brands and devices from other major manufacturers. This gives you flexibility while also keeping things simple.

Let’s start with the desk phones themselves. Vonage prefers select devices from Grandstream, Polycom, and Yealink. If you already have any of these, chances are high they’ll work seamlessly with your new cloud system. Plus, you’ll get detailed instructions on how to set them up.

The company even offers a limited selection of desk phones. You can choose from seven different models from Polycom and Yealink. Despite the limited options, there’s still a good range for different needs.

There are also two expandable modules you can add to increase the functionality of your preferred devices.

Beyond the desk phones, Vonage supports IP conference room phones from Yealink and Poly. As such, you’ll be able to build out your entire phone system using existing and new devices. Of course, you can always rely on the desktop and mobile apps for softphones instead.

There isn’t a massive range of devices available for purchase, but that can make it easier to choose the right options for you without having to compare dozens of similar devices across different brands.

Integrations

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Vonage integrates with just over 20 different business tools.

Many of the top apps small businesses use today are available as part of Vonage’s core plans, including free integrations with Zoho, ConnectWise, Clio, Zendesk, Office 365, HubSpot, and G Suite.

For other leading CRM, ERP, and workforce management tools like NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce, SugarCRM, and Bullhorn, Vonage offers integrations starting at just $4.99 per month extra on its most basic plan, and includes them at no added cost on its middle and top tier offerings.

This means you can experience the power of Vonage’s business phone system together with your favorite business apps in one unified solution.

Other platforms restrict access to integrations on the entry-level plan, so it’s nice that you have the option of purchasing them without having to upgrade to a higher tier.

Vonage also has an incredibly robust API Platform. With specialized APIs for voice, video, messaging, and verifications, you can build entirely custom integrations to support your unique workflows, no matter what tools you use to run your business.

Customer Support

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When running a business, having reliable customer support for your phone system is non-negotiable. You simply can’t afford downtime or complications, and need immediate assistance when issues arise.

Vonage includes unlimited 24/7 live chat support with every plan. You can also access support via phone from 8am to 12am EDT on weekdays, and 9am to 9pm on weekends. For urgent after hours issues, there’s even an emergency on-call phone support option too.

Before connecting with a live agent via chat, you may have to go through some automated screening questions from a chatbot. Chatbots can be hit or miss, and Vonage’s is no exception. We wish we could skip it to get to a human faster. However, once handed off to a live chat agent, they’re quick to respond and incredibly helpful.

Vonage support reps have the power to take actions for you right in chat, rather than just telling you the steps to fix issues yourself. They strike a great balance between proactivity and teaching you how to handle similar issues in the future.

Overall, the support team seems to genuinely care and will go above and beyond to keep your business communications running smoothly.

For self-service help, Vonage has an extensive knowledgebase that’s well-organized and up to date. It’s full of detailed instructions, best practices, and fixes for common questions about features, setup, and troubleshooting.

There’s also a community forum, but it’s not as active as others we’ve seen.

Final Thoughts

With three affordable plans, unlimited communication channels across the board, deep customizability, and easy setup, Vonage provides small businesses an adaptable cloud phone system.

Whether you need basic calling capabilities or advanced call management tools, Vonage lets you tailor the right solution. Supported by first-rate customer service, it eliminates the headaches of traditional on-premise systems or rigid cloud solutions.