Our Expert Opinion
I found Zoom super intuitive to set up and use. It was easy to make and receive calls, manage voicemail and customize call distribution features for my business phone system. However, compared to the other VoIP services I’ve tried, Zoom lacks some useful customer service functionality and insights.
User-Friendly App Interface
Zoom’s display is simple and spacious, with easy access to core tools and menu items: dial pad and call logs, voicemail, SMS text and team chat channels. The voicemail logs and message conversations are organized and quick to sort through, and I love that you can search conversation histories by keyword.
Zoom Phone’s learning curve was equally manageable on the desktop and mobile apps. When I received an inbound call on mobile, my iPhone distinguished business calls from my personal calls. If you’re an individual or business looking for simplicity while retaining key business features, I’d recommend Zoom Phone.
The Zoom Phone desktop app display is simple and easy to manage.
Manageable AI Tools
While some alternative VoIP systems can feel overwhelming with AI and call center capabilities, Zoom Phone’s AI tools are integrated subtly. You get AI transcription for voicemails and calls, with automatic to-do lists and summaries of your conversations. However, I appreciated that these AI options only pop up when you click on the conversation or voicemail, so they don’t get in the way when you want to keep things simple.
Zoom Phone’s AI Companion provides a summary and transcript for all calls.
Dynamic Routing Features
Considering Zoom Phone’s low monthly cost, I was impressed by the intricacy of its call routing features, which are effective for businesses of any size. You get unlimited interactive voice response (IVR) menus, ring groups and call queues—features that many alternatives reserve for high-tier plans that cost twice as much.
It was a breeze to choose, assign and bundle phone numbers into ring groups to create departments within my company. The IVR drop-down menus let me build a call routing system to automatically handle inbound calls.
I’d recommend Zoom Phone for small to medium-sized companies with simple or complex call routing needs. Even those with minimal VoIP experience can set up a call handling system using the platform’s core tools.
Zoom Phone’s IVR, queue and ring group setup tools are simple to set up.
Missing Some Customer Service Tools
While Zoom’s IVR menus and queues work well to distribute calls to departments and organize callers on hold, Zoom lacks several features that help you provide top-level customer service, especially if you have high inbound call volumes.
The platform doesn’t offer skills-based routing, which helps connect callers with the agent best-suited to provide support. Zoom Phone also lacks automated queue callbacks, which enable customers to hang up and retain their place in line when the queue is too long.
These aren’t essential customer service features, but I consider them “nice-to-have” features, and I missed them while using Zoom. Aircall and Ringover are good choices for these features, but they charge a higher monthly rate.
Solid Team Collaboration, But No Video Meetings
Zoom Meetings is one of my favorite video meeting platforms, but it’s not included with regular Zoom Phone plans—only the higher-tier Zoom Workplace plans.
When I tested Zoom Phone without the video meetings, it felt like a major aspect of team collaboration was missing. Paired with the fact that Zoom lacks real-time analytics, the interface felt disappointingly simple at times. Many other VoIP phone systems are unified communications as a service (UCaaS) platforms that bundle video and team chat, so by comparison, Zoom’s team collaboration channel offering felt meager.
If you want to unify internal video meetings with your business phone system, Zoom Phone’s highest-tier Business Plus plan is still an excellent value at $22.49 monthly per user.
Zoom’s team chat display works great for team collaboration, functioning similarly to Slack.
What Sets Zoom Phone Apart?
The main things that separate Zoom Phone from other business phone systems are its excellent value and ease of use. While other VoIP providers offer call queues, IVR, ring groups and AI call transcription, they usually charge $25 or more for these features. For example, RingCentral offers these routing features at $30 monthly per user, and Dialpad offers them at $27. Zoom manages to include a great breadth of advanced tools at a lower cost than most competitors’ cheapest tier.
Another nice thing about Zoom’s pricing is that it doesn’t raise your monthly bill for a month-to-month contract. Most alternatives increase your monthly rate if you don’t commit to a full year, but Zoom’s rates are consistent for monthly and annual commitments.
Finally, Zoom Phone’s Global Select plan is the most cost-effective VoIP option for companies seeking to make a high volume of international calls, or those based outside the U.S. Most other VoIP systems charge per minute for international calling, and the ones that enable multi-country unlimited calling areas—such as GoTo Connect and 8×8—generally cost around 25% or 50% more than Zoom.
Featured Partners
1
Zoom
$10 per user per month, $15 unlimited calling
U.S. and Canada
Unlimited in the U.S. and Canada
2
Intermedia Unite
$27.99 per user
Voice, SMS, Team chat, Video meetings
33 countries, including the U.S., Canada, U.K., Hong Kong, Italy and India
3
Vonage
$19.95 per user, per month
Yes
Yes
Zoom Phone Key Features
Zoom Phone’s software centers around unlimited calling across the U.S. and Canada, plus domestic SMS. The platform bundles call routing features, team chat for collaboration, and call monitoring to help supervisors keep an eye on agent performance.
Here’s a closer look at Zoom Phone’s features:
Desktop, Mobile and Web Apps
Zoom Phone’s app is accessible on desktop, mobile and web-based applications. You can make and receive calls, send texts, participate in team chat channels and manage your missed calls on any of these touchpoints.
The desktop app is my favorite because it’s big and spacious, providing enough room to manage multiple conversations simultaneously across channels. The AI features are also integrated best with the desktop app, though the mobile app is user-friendly and a good choice when you’re on the go.
Zoom Phone lets you access call logs, team chats and AI features from mobile.
Unlimited Calling and SMS
Zoom Phone lets you make and receive unlimited VoIP calls across the U.S. and Canada. Each user on your account can choose a virtual phone number from a U.S. area code or port in a business phone number you already use.
While most VoIP providers offer this same unlimited calling area, Zoom stands out from alternatives with its unlimited texting—a feature offered by a minority of VoIP services. If you plan to text customers, such as for customer service or order updates, Zoom Phone’s $15 price point beats every VoIP competitor aside from Google Voice.
Zoom Phone lets you send unlimited SMS with AI summarization.
Team Chat
While video meetings are a paid add-on, all Zoom Phone plans include internal team chat built right into the dashboard. The chat interface feels like a slightly stripped-down version of Slack, offering the ability to create channels for 1:1 or group conversations. You can share files and organize them in folders, and teammates can respond to each other with emojis.
If you currently pay for Slack or something like it, Zoom Phone’s team chat may allow you to drop that subscription. However, it lacks some of Slack’s advanced features for workflows and huddles.
Call Routing Features
Call routing features—such as IVR menus, ring groups and call queues—enable you to organize and automate how your phone system handles inbound calls. These tools improve your customer support and save time for agents. While some alternatives reserve these features for higher-tier plans, Zoom Phone plans include unlimited access to them.
Here are Zoom Phone’s call routing capabilities:
- Multi-level IVR menus: Interactive voice response (IVR) lets you design an automated menu to greet callers and provide options of which user, department or message they’d like to reach. This 24/7 service provides a professional customer-facing appearance and can support callers outside of business hours.
- Ring groups: Ring groups let you bunch agent phone numbers together to share inbound call responsibility. You can choose the ring order for the group’s users, including options to ring everyone simultaneously or in a round-robin style. This feature can help you group agents by department or location.
- Call queues: Call queues organize overflow callers on hold when agents are busy. The callers wait, with hold music or a message, and agents can see how many customers are in the queue. This feature helps agents manage large call volumes and keeps more callers on the line.
AI Features
Zoom Phone includes several useful AI features as part of its “AI Companion” feature. These capabilities are integrated into the active-call interface, agent dashboard and agent call log display. Once again, Zoom has included advanced features that most competitors reserve for higher-tier plans, all at about half the cost of other VoIP platforms.
These are Zoom’s AI features:
- Call transcription: Each call is transcribed in real-time, providing live captions for the agent to keep up with call details. Transcriptions are logged afterward and keyword-searchable, enabling agents and supervisors to review conversations in greater detail.
- Post-call summaries: Call transcripts are analyzed and summarized afterward, making it easy for agents and managers to quickly revisit previous interactions.
- Voicemail prioritization: Voicemail prioritization allows you to indicate which voicemail topics are most important. Zoom then analyzes your voicemail transcripts and moves the ones with the most urgent and relevant topics to the top of the list, helping you prioritize your most important missed calls.
- Voicemail task extraction: The AI Companion analyzes your call transcripts and generates a to-do list based on the message’s details. This feature, along with the transcription itself, allows agents to handle voicemails without having to listen to them all.
Beyond SMS and call summaries, Zoom’s AI Companion extracts tasks from voicemails to help agents skim through missed calls.
Integrations
Zoom connects with nine third-party software systems—including Salesforce, Google, Slack, Microsoft and contact center software. Each integration syncs functionality and data between the apps, such as automatically updating customer CRM call histories in Salesforce or sending Slack messages from the Zoom chat window.
Zoom’s integration library is relatively small, as some alternatives support 200+ integrations. However, most VoIP systems reserve the Salesforce integration for mid- or high-tier plans, while Zoom’s full suite of integrations is included with all plans. If Salesforce is a critical part of your customer service or sales strategy, Zoom Phone offers the cheapest Salesforce integration you’ll find from a business phone system.
Zoom Phone’s Salesforce integration lets you sync data between the platforms and handle calls from within Salesforce.
Zoom Phone Pricing and Value
| Metered | Regional Unlimited | Global Select | Pro Plus | Business Plus | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly Price | $10 per user | $15 per user | $20 per user | $21.99 per user | $26.99 per user |
| Unlimited Calling Area | Per-minute calling in the U.S., Canada and international | U.S. and Canada | 40+ countries | U.S. and Canada | U.S. and Canada |
| SMS Texting | Unlimited in the U.S. and Canada | Unlimited in the U.S. and Canada | Unlimited in the U.S. and Canada | Unlimited in the U.S. and Canada | Unlimited in the U.S. and Canada |
| Team Chat | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Video Meetings | 100 participants | 300 participants | |||
| Unlimited IVR, Call Queues, Ring Groups | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| AI Companion | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Zoom Phone has five plans, and I consider all of them a great value except for the Business Plus plan, which is just a so-so value.
I’d only recommend the Metered plan to companies with ultra-low monthly call volumes, because the per-minute pricing adds up quickly. However, it includes the full suite of phone system features, so it’s a good option if you make just a handful of daily calls.
I recommend the Regional Unlimited, Global Select and Pro Plus plans as exceptionally cost-effective. At $15 per user, the Regional Unlimited’s full suite of call routing tools and unlimited texting are roughly 50% cheaper than competitors’ plans offering the same capabilities. The only cheaper alternative is Google Voice, but Zoom’s features are more robust.
If you want to make frequent calls outside the U.S., the Global Select plan’s 40+ country unlimited calling area is substantially cheaper than other phone systems that support such a large unlimited calling area.
Finally, if you want video meetings bundled with your phone service, the Pro Plus plan—which bundles Zoom Workplace—is a steal. It’s a well-rounded unified communications (UCaaS) software that combines Zoom’s famous video meetings with its feature-rich phone system. Other popular UCaaS platforms, like RingCentral and Dialpad, are roughly $6 costlier per-user with a month-to-month commitment.
Featured Partners
1
Zoom
$10 per user per month, $15 unlimited calling
U.S. and Canada
Unlimited in the U.S. and Canada
2
Intermedia Unite
$27.99 per user
Voice, SMS, Team chat, Video meetings
33 countries, including the U.S., Canada, U.K., Hong Kong, Italy and India
3
Vonage
$19.95 per user, per month
Yes
Yes
Is Zoom Phone Right for Your Business?
I consider Zoom Phone the best overall value of any VoIP phone system. It’s one of the cheapest VoIP options on the market, especially considering its unlimited calling, texting and solid call routing features.
I’d recommend Zoom Phone for companies of any size prioritizing low cost without compromising essential business phone features. It’s also a good option if you plan to text customers from your business numbers or if you have high international call volumes.
I recommend Zoom Phone for:
- Companies prioritizing low cost and value, regardless of company size
- Teams looking for internal collaboration with video and chat
- Those seeking something simple and easy to use
I do not recommend Zoom Phone for:
- Analytics. Zoom Phone doesn’t have analytics capabilities. Instead, Aircall and RingCentral are good options for KPIs and customizable analytics dashboards.
- Third-party integrations. Aside from the nine software integrations that Zoom has, it’s not a good option for third-party connectivity. RingCentral and Aircall offer much larger integration libraries.
- Advanced call center features. While Zoom Phone is a well-rounded phone system, competitors like Aircall, CloudTalk and Ringover have more advanced features for sophisticated customer service and sales needs.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is Zoom Phone?
Zoom Phone is Zoom’s VoIP phone system, enabling unlimited calling and SMS across the U.S. and Canada. The platform includes team chat and advanced call routing tools like IVR menus and call queues.
How do I get a Zoom phone number?
You can get a virtual number when you sign up for a Zoom Phone subscription, with additional numbers available for purchase for paid users. Zoom Phone offers toll-free and local DID phone numbers from area codes across the U.S.
Is Zoom Phone worth it?
Generally, yes. Zoom Phone is one of the best values available for a VoIP phone system. Due to its variety of team collaboration channels and call routing tools, paired with its ultra-low starting cost, Zoom Phone is cost-effective.
