Setting up a business phone costs an average of $1,184 for a small team of three.
But what if I told you associated hidden costs are draining your pocket with money lost to disjointed workflows and time spent doing manual work—like logging and pulling out lead info from your CRM?
The thing is: you’d be fine and dandy as long as the business phone provider you choose seamlessly integrates with your CRM.
But sadly, that’s not always the case, leading to you paying money that you could be spending elsewhere to grow your business.
So what’s a cost-effective solution? One that’s 40-50 percent less expensive and offers the most bang for your buck? A business phone built into your CRM.
Let’s pull out the calculator and walk you through how much setting up a business phone costs for a small business, how costs add up, and how you can save with calling built into the Close CRM.
The Cost of a Traditional Third-Party Business Phone
Before we do the math, get this: business phones can either be powered through ultra-traditional copper wires and desk phones (called analog PBX) or through your internet connection (called VoIP phones or Voice over Internet Protocol, aka softphones).
You could also use a mix of the two, called on-premise PBX (Private Branch Exchange) phones, which use your internet connection to fuel calls but use desk phones as their power source.
The first kind, with all snaking copper wires, can cost an estimated $1,000 for a 3-person team, with hardware costs contributing about $690 (central PBX box for roughly $600 and a 3-line headset for some $90) and installation costs adding $405.
Plus, regular maintenance can quickly suck up about the same amount as installation costs.
The second kind, comparatively friendlier on your pocket and supportive of remote teams since you don’t need any hardware, costs around $1,184 per year for a 3-person team.
The last type, on-premise PBX, can take up some $1,000 per user in hardware and setup costs, totaling $3000 for a team of three.
But since we’re focused on small, scaling businesses, we know a VoIP phone would be a far better choice than the ultra-traditional options that don’t support remote teams and don’t offer any messaging or internal collaboration features (after all, they rely on desk phones from the 90s).
So that’s where we’re going to focus our numbers—starting with a breakdown of what virtual business phone set-up costs from some of the well-known names in the market:
| Provider | Annual Cost |
|---|---|
| Nextiva | $1,583 |
| OpenPhone | $991 |
| MightyCall | $1,243 |
| Grasshopper | $919 |
Nextiva
A basic business phone with Nextiva that sets up a team of three for calling within the US and Canada costs roughly $1,223 after you tally up:
- $30 per user per month for their Core plan that allows inbound and outbound calling, 100 monthly SMS per user, and call routing to the main menu
- $100, a rough estimate of their CRM integration setup and implementation (not including usage costs—yep, those are separate)
- $19 one-time, mandatory SMS registration fees with your cell carrier and The Campaign Registry (called A2P 10DLC registration) and an average monthly $2 messaging fees (the exact depends on your business classification)
But I hate to break it to you: this really is a conservative estimate. 😬
Because features worth their weight in gold for small businesses reliant on calling (think: call queuing to manage high call volume and a phone menu that takes customers to the people they want to speak with) only come in Engage and Power plans. Those cost $40 and $60 per user per month, respectively.
So if you were to go with, let’s say the $40 plan for the advanced IVR (phone menu) feature, your total would add up to an annual bill of $1,583 (including SMS registration and rough CRM implementation costs) for a 3-person team.
Despite paying a fair amount, Nextiva tacks an unbeknownst fee to your bill as usage charges for the phone menu. Users also say they’ve had to pay for text messaging for months before their number was approved. Yikes.
Plus, mobile app issues are common—with one user sharing they’ve missed one too many calls because the app hanging up.
But here’s the real kicker: routing calls to the right people with the necessary skill set to handle them on time isn’t included in any of the plans—it’s actually an add-on. Talk about monthly phone bills shooting through the roof!
OpenPhone
With OpenPhone, a business phone can cost anywhere between $871 to $991.
Basically, the $15-per-month Starter plan gets you rolling with a new group number, unlimited calling in the US and Canada, and voicemail transcripts.
But that plan only works best when looking for a sit-in-the-corner-for-occasional-calls phone since it's missing two key things: a CRM integration and a phone menu to streamline and automate all that calling.
Thankfully, you can get these features along with call analytics, auto call recording, and call summaries with OpenPhone’s Business plan—$23 per user per month.
Now add SMS registration fees to this and you’d wound up to some $871 per year for a three-person team—not including international calling.
Costs go up further if you decide to get, let’s say, two additional numbers on top of the phone number OpenPhone gives. In this case, each new number is available for $5. This takes the total cost to $991.
Sounds too reasonable to be true? Yeah, that’s because where OpenPhone’s pricing is a cushion to your budget compared to Nextiva’s, its limited feature set is a blow to your outbound sales strategy.
For instance, there’s no in-call mute button. No features like call listening, whispering, or barging that help sales teams save sinking deals and train your reps on closing more deals.
Automatic call distribution features and dialers that boost rep productivity are also missing—making it challenging to manage a high call volume.
And while OpenPhone offers integrations to Slack, HubSpot, and Zapier, it doesn’t natively connect with other tools in your sales stack. For instance, there are no native integrations to Close or Pipedrive. Not only can this limited CRM connectivity quickly become frustrating, but it can also slow you down when you try to trace information on leads and customers you’re on calls with.
To top it all, there are reports of downtime issues paired with a slow-to-respond support team.
MightyCall
With MightyCall, a business phone costs about $583 for a three-person team when you take their entry-level plan ($15 per user per month) and include SMS registration and messaging fees.
This base plan has most of the basic features: a phone menu, custom call greetings, call notes, voicemail, and call routing to relevant team members, alongside unlimited calling in the US and Canada.
The only catch? The plan is missing vital call monitoring and analytics features like real-time analytics, call listening, and similar. Thankfully, the plan just up the base one gets you these features for $23 per user per month.
But if you’re looking to unlock some serious-level productivity, the Power plan for $30 per user per month is a good one. This is mainly thanks to the preview and progressive dialers it includes. The former shows you lead info for outbound calls, and the latter makes calls to a lead list on autopilot for reps.
So, if we do some quick math now, we get an annual bill of roughly $1,123 with MightyCall for a three-person team on the Power plan.
As with OpenPhone, extra phone numbers cost $5, so when you add two, your costs go to $1,243
As for calling outside the US, charges are usage-based, but first, you’ll need to purchase an international phone number for an additional $10.
However, Unlike other business providers, MightyCall sets a minimum user count of three seats to get the plans we’ve discussed above.
Other downsides? Some difficulties in transferring and forwarding voicemails, occasional dropped calls and systems, and problems with updating call and message notifications in real-time.
8x8
8x8’s pricing is gated, but broadly, there are five plans you can choose from—each containing a specific set of features.
For instance, the X4 and X6 plans give you essential features such as call listen, whisper, and barge, a phone menu, analytics, and skills-based call directing to relevant folks on your team.
However, you only get CRM integrations in the X7 plan.
What’s notable, though, is that all 8x8 give you unlimited users and unlimited calls to a specific number of countries (depending on your chosen plan).
However, a review notes that 8x8 caters more to mid-size and enterprise-level companies than small businesses. There’s no free trial available, and call transfer issues are common.
Grasshopper
A business phone setup with Grasshopper costs about $703 annually for unlimited users on their plan for small businesses ($55 per month) including SMS registration and messaging fees (roughly $43 annually)
This total crawls up to $919 if you add two premium numbers ($9 per additional phone number per month).
This gives you features like automated call routing, phone menu, and call transfers with international calling available as a premium add-on.
But where these features can help you get started with calling, they are less than ideal for growing small sales teams since vital features like call monitoring and barging are missing.
Grasshopper also doesn’t show caller ID and call quality is doable at best. What’s also noteworthy is that Grasshopper is only available in the US and Canada.
6 Factors that Affect Cost
The business phone cost estimates we’ve shared above are really just that: estimates. Because the actual bill depends on your team size, the plan you select, and more.
Let’s take a closer look at these factors:
1. Number of Phone Lines You Need
You could be a solo champ, a three-Musketeers team, or any number of folks. Whatever the headcount, you’ll have to pay to get phone licenses for all members who’ll be calling.
Per your needs, you’ll also want to get them phone numbers for an additional $5 per user (with most of the providers above except Grasshopper, which charges $9 per new number). Alternatively, stick with the assigned business number(s) that rings for everyone on the team when someone calls.
2. The Ideal Feature Set For You
If you don’t use calling and text messaging as part of your lead nurturing strategy and don’t have many incoming customer calls too, you can easily make do with a basic plan.
But if you’re handling a high call volume, you’ll want features that help you manage, even automate, the call volume. For instance, features that let you define who to direct specific calls to.
Your feature stack will be significantly different if you have a team to coach. In that case, you’ll need call whisper, listen, and barge among other features to train them to close more deals.
3. The Time You Plan to Spend on the Phone
This is very similar to how your personal phone bill adds up. The only difference is, business phones don’t offer call packages—they tally your usage (number of calls made and their duration) to put a figure on the bill.
4. The International Calls You’ll Do
Different providers offer different international calling rates.
Some, like MightyCall, give you an international number for an additional $10. Others like 8x8 offer unlimited calling (based on fair usage, of course) to specific countries.
So before you decide on which provider to go with, sit with this thought: which countries do I/my team need to be calling, and how roughly how many calls would that be?
5. Extra (Read: Real Time-Saving) Features You’d Want
These could include AI call transcripts and summaries, for instance—often available as add-ons.
Other times, providers charge additional essential features that make you think this feature is my basic human right. For example, Nextiva offers skill-based call routing as an add-on (ouch!).
6. The Length of Your Contract
As is common in the SaaS sphere, year-long contracts offer discounted pricing versus monthly plans.
On the surface level, this is good news—because, for one: you get reduced pricing and two: who needs to change their business phone software every other money anyway?
Except, some providers offer even longer contracts for fatter discounts but increase the minimum commitment length. Here’s where things can get ugly, especially if you end up contracting with a virtual phone that you end up unsatisfied with down the length.
There’s also a third option here: a business phone solution that doesn’t bind you to a long-term contract but also doesn’t offer a free trial. You’ll want to divvy up money for a paid test month.
How Much Does it Cost to Use Close as Your Business Phone?
Although we nearly covered every factor impacting your business phone costs, there’s still one, rather unquantifiable factor: limited or poor CRM connectivity.
Meaning, a lagging relationship between your CRM and virtual calling software can quickly add up costs in lost productivity—even lost deals. This often happens as you:
- Spend an inordinate amount of time trying to track information on the lead you’re on call with
- Are unable to trace that specific info bite that would’ve impressed the person you’re speaking with and helped close the deal
- Ask customers to repeat themselves for the third time after they’ve already shared their case with two members of your team before you
In fact, here at Close—long before we built business phone into our CRM— we struggled with all this and more: lost call context, disjointed workflows, an unhealthy amount of tab switching, and way more time spent creating workarounds than closing deals.
But since moving to calling from our CRM (yes, we’re our customers too!), we’ve long said goodbye to these challenges.
In fact, this solution:
- Makes call routing using lead data from your CRM a breeze
- Centralizes all call context in one place (since you’ll be calling from inside your CRM)
- Automatically logs all incoming and outgoing calls in your CRM (no manual work needed)
The team at TRU Colors even doubled their call rate by simplifying their stack:
“Our call rates have nearly doubled because my reps have simplicity and a smoother workflow. Leads are warmer, which makes sales easier. All because of our CRM.” — Chandler Hatch, CRO, TRU Colors.
But let me guess: you’re thinking costs, right? Don’t you worry, because a business phone in the Close CRM is 40-50% less expensive than your average business phone provider.
Find it hard to believe? Let’s pull out that calculator again:
Basic Business Phone Costs with Close
Close’s entry plan, costing $49 per user per month ($1,807 annually for a 3-person team and including SMS registration and messaging fees), gives you all the basic features you’d need:
- A Close-issued business number for worldwide calling (call charges based on usage)
- Built-in texting to a dozen countries, including the US, UK, Australia, and Canada
- Call forwarding to redirect calls to another phone number in case you aren’t around your CRM
- Calendar, Google, Zapier, and other integrations to your sales stack
- Power Dialer to call through lists of leads on auto-pilot
Want to shop premium lines for specific team members or departments on top of the group (business) number the base plan gives you? In Close, you can get them for $19 per number per month.
Premium numbers also get you:
- A custom greeting for a personalized touch with callers
- Lead-based call routing (Close pulls lead info to automatically route to the right person]
- Phone menu or IVR that users can interact with to connect to folks they want to speak with
So if you need, say, two numbers, they’ll add $456 to your annual costs ($38 per month).
The grand total? $2,263 per year.
Now, when you put this figure beside the traditional setup, you’ll see that a third-party business phone provider integrated with another CRM costs almost 3 times as much as a business phone inside your CRM.
Here’s how:
- Third-party VoIP costs: $1,184 per year (average of the figures calculated above)
- Average cost of a mid-tier CRM for three people: $3,672 per year ($102 per user per month)
This gives us $4,856 per year for a disjointed workflow for a three-person team, whereas, a business phone in Close costs only $2,263 per year—a whopping difference of $2,593 (!).
Now Let’s Make Some Calls (and Gauge Your Close Phone Bill)
All calls in Close are charged based on usage, on a per-minute basis according to Twilio's ”Pay-as-you-go” Voice pricing (call duration and its costs rounded off to the nearest minute and cent in your bill).
With that pricing front and center, let’s say you make some 30 local calls (within the US and Canada), about 3 minutes long each, and five, 2-minute long international calls.
This would be $0.0140 per minute for local outbound calls, which is $0.04 per call or $1.2 for 30 local calls.
As for international calls, rates vary according to the country you’re calling. So for five, 2-minute calls to the UK (for example), each call would be charged at $0.0040 per min. This would take the total to $0.5 for five calls ($0.01 per 2-minute call to the UK).
Your total usage bill for a month? $1.25.
When you add it to the monthly business phone cost of $187, your total phone bill with Close would be $188.25 (about $2,259 yearly if phone usage remains mostly the same).
But that’s not even the best part. Because there are several ways calling from your CRM can save you more money. Top of them being: instead of calling every other cold number, dedicate your call budget to only speaking with nurtured leads (to do so, you’ll want to first make such a calling list by adding leads matching a specific criteria to Smart View).
Another cost-effective tip? Set a monthly call usage limit to stick with a set calling budget.
Or set a usage limit with an auto recharge amount and Close will automatically top up your account with a pre-defined amount.
Next, Let’s Tally up the Costs for an Advanced Business Phone for Teams
Looking for the real deal—one that gives you revenue-unlocking features—we’d recommend the Enterprise plan. It gives you:
- Call recordings (other plans give you recordings but retain them for 7 or 30 days)
- Call coaching features (call listen, whisper, and barge to train your team on closing more deals—even saving sinking ones in time)
- Ability to drop pre-recorded voicemail when the person you’re calling doesn’t pick up
There’s also a Predictive Dialer in this plan that auto dials through a list of leads, connecting you with only ones that answer their phone. This way, there’s next to no time wasted between calls and no listening to voicemails and busy signals—that’s sales automation at its best. 🎉
As for costs, the Enterprise plan is $139 per user per month. With three users and two premium lines, this would add up to $5,503 yearly—not including call usage charges.
With VoIP providers, you don’t typically get these advanced features—except for with MightyCall. Its Enterprise plan costs the same as Close’s, but the VoIP provider requires you to bring on a minimum of five users to access the plan. This takes setup costs to $3,163 for the business phone provider only.
No wonder the UGURUS team that once had a hard time making 100 calls a day, now easily makes 200-250 calls simultaneously using Close’s in-built calling.
What Would Close Phone Costs Look Like with Essential Add-Ons
If you and your team do lots of sales calls, you’ll benefit a ton (as we do!) from searchable call transcriptions and summaries that come with the $50 per month, Call Assistant add-on.
For one, these transcripts quickly get you up to speed with previous call activity—leaving you fully prepared for the next call. Or if you’re passing on the lead to another rep, call summaries facilitate an efficient handoff.
And two, you can use call transcripts to analyze team performance and identify deal-closing (or deal-breaking) trends to level up your team performance as well as sales strategy.
Let Your Budget, Team, and Customers Thank You with a Business Phone Built into Your CRM
Business calling with Close is way more wallet-friendly than getting a third-party virtual phone and connecting it with your CRM.
The benefits don’t just stop there. With this modern solution to calling, you get simple phone menus coupled with smart lead-based routing that streamlines the entire call experience, both for your team and customers.
Your pipeline grows. Your budget enjoys a sigh of relief. And your team loves the setup for all its simplicity.
Picturing how all this would look for you? Get a free 14-day trial today, no strings attached, to test it out in real-time.
