Are you a small business owner who’s looking for a better phone solution? Dialpad’s unified communications platform lets you make phone calls, have video meetings, and send SMS/MMS + team messages—all from one beautiful app. Sign up for a free 14-day trial to try it out!
When you’re a solopreneur or very small business, you might be able to get away with using a consumer app like WhatsApp or even a very basic small business phone service like Grasshopper.
But one of the biggest differences between these tools and more robust business VoIP systems is that the latter comes with more advanced phone features like built-in analytics, unified communications, and other functionality—things that are essential to businesses once they reach a certain size.
Yes, the fact that some of these tools are “free” is a big incentive, but unified communications (UCaaS) solutions can be very cost-effective because they can consolidate a lot of tools into one. Instead of paying for one video conferencing app and another messaging app and another phone app, you’d only have to pay for—and manage—one solution.
With Dialpad, you get a ton of advanced features in one beautiful, intuitively designed package.
With Dialpad, you can handle all your internal and external communications in one easy-to-use platform. Make phone calls, have video meetings, send SMS/MMS text messages, and more from the desktop or mobile app.
If you have a support or sales team, or any other type of call center team, Dialpad’s contact center platform lets your agents take inbound and incoming calls and messages. It’s fully integrated too, which means agents can handle external communications and call management and internal communications with teammates in one app.
Manage all your day-to-day account settings with a few clicks from your online dashboard. Add another business phone number, change your hold music or call waiting settings, and more—no IT help needed.
Dialpad has a desktop app and mobile app, and they work across iOS, Android, PC, and Mac. Or, just log in on the web browser and use it there—no downloads needed. Your clients and prospects also don’t need to download anything to join your conference calls or video meetings.
One unique thing about Dialpad: its proprietary AI, which is built right into the platform. It gives you automatic call transcriptions that you can turn on and off (if you want a record of online meetings or conference calls) and even sends you an automated post-call summary email with follow-up items!
Dialpad doesn’t just transcribe voice calls, it transcribes your voicemail messages too—in real time. In back-to-back meetings and can’t listen to your voicemail messages? Just open up the app to read them instead.
With Dialpad, you get advanced features beyond what any small business phone solution can give you—at a budget-friendly price. Try it for free with a 14-day trial! It takes just a few minutes to get started and you'll be set up with a virtual phone number too.
The phone system has helped our team with efficient external prospecting and provides a one stop shop for internal communications.
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Whether you’re a small business or not, call recordings can be very useful for training and development, or just to keep a record of team meetings for employees in other time zones. With Dialpad, you can toggle call recording on and off right from your meeting screen. (Fun fact: Dialpad has unlimited call recording.)
Let’s face it. Busy small business owners can’t take every single call. Dialpad lets you set up a maximum of five call forwarding phone numbers so that any calls you miss will get automatically forwarded to a colleague, another department, or even your mobile device.
With its unique split cloud architecture and global voice network, Dialpad is designed to give you HD phone calls around the world.
Make work calls from your cell phone—while protecting your personal phone number. Just choose which business number you want to display from the dropdown in the Dialpad app when you’re about to make a call or send a text!
Using a CRM like HubSpot or Salesforce, or everyday tools like Google Workspace or Microsoft 365? Dialpad has a wide range of CRM integrations and also integrations with other software to automate data entry and let you dial someone from say, Salesforce or Zendesk directly without toggling between different windows. (Plus there’s an API if you want to build a custom integration.)
With Dialpad, you can make changes to your call routing right from—you guessed it—your online dashboard. Set up your auto attendant or virtual receptionist, adjust your queues, do it all on your own with just a few clicks. There’s even a built-in dashboard that shows you how much your IVR call routing options are being used by callers, so you can continuously refine that experience.
$20 USD if billed monthly
1 License Minimum
All Standard plan features, plus:
All Pro plan features, plus:
Most business VoIP solutions charge a monthly fee per user, rather than a minutes-based fee, sort of like a mobile phone contract. Dialpad’s pricing, for instance, starts at only $15 per user per month, and gives you unlimited calls in your country, the US, and Canada, unlimited text messaging in the US and Canada, and a lot more. (Need international calling? Dialpad has low rates for that too.)
Almost every remote or hybrid business needs a good small business VoIP solution. Instead of landlines and office phones, solutions like Dialpad give you VoIP features and a whole lot more, including video calling, call logs, and analytics—without third-party add-ons or extra fees.
Want to hire someone in another country or city? With Dialpad, you don’t need to ship them a desk phone or even a mobile phone unless that’s your company policy. You can set them up on Dialpad remotely, and once you’ve got a license for them (all done online), they can start calling, messaging, and meeting virtually from the mobile app. From setting up their voicemail, to adding call forwarding phone numbers, your distributed team will be able to do everything they need to get started on their own.
“Dialpad can do voicemails, it can do faxes, it can do so many different things. I use Dialpad for pretty much all of my communications. The fact that if somebody calls and it’ll pop up on my cell phone even if I’m not in front of my computer has been a huge help.”
”As you’re setting up any UCaaS solution or business phone service, you need to take into account the number of users you’ll have. This directly affects your pricing and which plans you might consider—and note that the number of users may not directly correlate to the number of actual people in your business! (Maybe not everyone will need access to your business phone system.)
It may seem obvious, but this is crucial if you have employees in the office, since you’ll be making phone calls and doing video conferencing over Wi-Fi. If you’re going to be out and about, then you’ll need a good data plan so that you can have an Internet connection while you’re away from the office.
Dialpad and T-Mobile actually have a package that gives you access to T-Mobile’s lightning-fast 5G network and Dialpad’s unified communications platform, at a small-business-friendly price.
Pricing structures are pretty much the same for most VoIP service providers and UCaaS solutions. You’ll generally have the choice of paying by month or paying annually (the prices are usually cheaper for annual plans). Think of these like phone plans, except they cover a bunch of other business communications features too.
Another tip when it comes to pricing: Pay attention to the fine print. Do they include customer support? Or is that an add-on with a separate fee? What about calling minutes? Some providers like Dialpad include unlimited calling for a set price, but others may charge by the minute. How much are toll-free numbers? Those are just a few things to look for, beyond the initial price tag.
When it comes down to it, the main things to look for will be the specific functionality that your industry or small business needs.
If your needs are very basic (e.g. you just need a voice calling feature and desk phone support), you may find that a cheaper, more basic VoIP service provider has all the features you need.
For growing small businesses though, they may also need to communicate with teammates, clients, and prospects in other ways like screen sharing, video calling, and SMS messaging:
Don’t just focus on what your business needs are currently. Think of the next five years. Moving from one business phone system to another can be a huge process and it’s not something you typically want to do too frequently, so try to think ahead and anticipate how your business needs might evolve. It’ll save you from extra work later on.
Once you’ve determined a price you’re comfortable with and narrowed down your shortlist, it’s time to get some demos or sign up for free trials.
There’s no “best VoIP phone service” that’s the best for every single business and often the best way to figure out what’s best for your particular needs is to get your hands dirty.
In general, a unified communications platform is probably a better investment for small businesses—the prices are very comparable, and you get a lot more functionality when it comes to communication channels and other advanced features like AI.
If you’re ready to take the leap, it’s time to start researching which UCaaS solution or business VoIP services provider would be the best fit for your company.
Remember to compare features between basic to paid packages and choose a provider with high-quality customer support—questions or issues will inevitably come up at some point, and you don’t want to be stuck with just an online FAQ page and no way to contact their customer support team.
From inbound and outbound calls to messaging and more, Dialpad gives you all your communications in one place. Book a product tour to see how easy it is to use and set up!
VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol. Today, VoIP has become a kind of shorthand for internet communication systems that work over an Internet connection.
A VoIP phone system allows you to have voice calls and sometimes send SMS text messages through a desktop app or mobile device (like your trusty cell phone or tablet) instead of through a traditional landline or analog desk phone.
Some unified communications providers let you do video conferencing and team messaging as well, in addition to making phone calls, which is why more and more businesses are moving toward this type of platform instead of a more traditional business VoIP phone service.