OpenPhone review September 2024: Features, call quality, integrations and more 

While it’s not explicitly a unified communications solution, OpenPhone delivers on the virtual phone front. Calls made on the platform are unlimited in the United States and Canada, and there are very reasonable rates for other global territories.

OpenPhone

Base price:	Starting at $19 per month
Features:	Unlimited calling and texting in the U.S. and Canada, group calling, phone menus, call recording, and analytics
Best add-ons:	Additional numbers for $5 per month, automated Zapier messages, and metered international calling
Noteworthy integrations:	Zapier, HubSpot, Salesforce, Google Contacts, Slack, and Gong

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at Expert Market

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Contacts are shared across the organization
• Customer interactions are shared in one place
• Voicemail transcription is available in every plan

Cons

• The Starter plan has limited features
• No video conferencing
• OpenPhone doesn’t support IP phones

Who is OpenPhone good for?

OpenPhone is a provider that’s intended more for smaller businesses or solopreneurs in need of a phone system. When starting out with the first tier of service, you’re provided with unlimited calling and texting within the U.S. and Canada and a free local or national number. This makes the provider a good solution for a business person who is looking for a way to separate their personal number from their business one. 
With these potential number selections, that same solopreneur can determine how they want to present their business. Do they want to target a more targeted population by using a local number, or do they wish to appear more national by employing a toll-free direct inward dial (DID) number to their customers? The ability to add additional numbers for $5 per month delivers both options for a business, which is very useful. 

Who shouldn’t use OpenPhone?

Suffice it to say, OpenPhone doesn’t accommodate the communications needs of larger businesses looking to grow their communications profiles past telephony. With this provider, you’re only getting VoIP-based telephony, so if you need video conferencing, you’ll have to use another provider, such as Zoom or Google, for the service. Consider that providers, such as Nextiva or RingCentral, grant access to VoIP service, have virtual number selections, and still have integrated team chat and video conferencing, and you’ll see where OpenPhone might not be the strongest fit for some organizations.
Additionally, for those looking to create a traditional office setting with IP desk phones, OpenPhone isn’t a good solution as it doesn’t support these kinds of devices. Similarly, you won’t be able to use an analog telephone adapter (ATA) to use traditional landline phones with the provider. Instead, users are limited to softphone options available through a smartphone or a desktop/laptop PC.

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at Expert Market

OpenPhone service plan overview

OpenPhone has three plans that provide increasing features for growing companies. Each plan has a seven-day trial, and there’s also an option to pay monthly or yearly for the Starter and Business plans, which reduces the price by 21% and 30%, respectively. The Enterprise plan has custom contracts and pricing, which might provide value for companies with larger workforces.

Best OpenPhone VoIP plan for small businesses: Business

While the Starter plan is a useful plan for smaller companies, the features inherent in the second-tier Business plan are just more beneficial. With the Starter plan, you mostly get basic calling features with a voicemail transcription function. With Business, OpenPhone includes features, such as its phone menus, which are interactive voice response (IVR) systems that help route customers to the right department. Other useful business features include call transfers, group calling, auto-call recording, and analytics. 

This is also the first tier with integrations. Notably, with the Business plan, you’ll have integration with Salesforce, which means that you can use either the OpenPhone platform to make calls or you can make OpenPhone calls through Salesforce. This ensures that any information that you’ve loaded into this customer relationship management (CRM) system is available and on-screen during inbound and outbound calls. 

At this tier, OpenPhone also integrates with Zapier, which provides 5,000-plus tools that help streamline business communications easily. Zapier also enables automatic short message service (SMS) transmission. For example, when a customer sends a payment, Zapier integration will allow you to send payment confirmation texts. Finally, the Business plan is also the tier where analytics are available. With OpenPhone’s analytics, you can evaluate the number of calls and messages, the unique conversations happening on the system, and the average and overall time spent on calls.

Other services OpenPhone offers 

OpenPhone is a communications solution geared almost exclusively to telephony- and SMS-based communication. Still, outside of this simple calling and texting structure, the provider does have some useful functionality that helps a business manage its communications. Here are a few to consider:

• Call and text management: For each number, OpenPhone groups all interactions so that team members can view past interactions. 
• Shared inbox: Each number has a dedicated inbox that groups all conversations and past voicemails in one place. This also includes call recordings and transcriptions, which promote visibility and better customer experiences.
• Threads: For each interaction, team members can comment and mention colleagues. There’s also direct messaging when two agents wish to collaborate on a call.
• Number management: Numbers are added, removed, assigned, or reassigned easily. Additionally, team member number access is managed easily through the OpenPhone platform.

The OpenPhone platform and customer support 

The first aspect of OpenPhone that’s most notable is its clean and crisp user interface (UI) on the softphone app. Overall, whether you’re using the web app, desktop app, or one of the smartphone apps, you’ll find the platform is very easy to navigate and manage calls and call histories. Directly within the platform, you can view the calls made on each number, get new numbers, and add and remove teammates from specific numbers. Right within the left pane of the interface, you can see everyone assigned to specific numbers as well as number settings, which makes the platform one of the best I’ve experienced insofar as usability.

Despite this, one of the major downsides of OpenPhone’s service is its relatively bare bones customer support. If you need help, you’ll need to use its web resources, which are ticket-based ― there’s no phone number to call and reach a customer service representative. At the Enterprise tier, there is an account manager who might be able to help you manage issues, but in the first two tiers, you’ll find that customer support isn’t as strong as it should be.

Is OpenPhone secure?

The provider protects user information by using both 256-bit AES encryption and transport layer security (TLS) protection using WebSockets. Effectively, AES protects the data packets used in the VoIP service as they are stored either on servers or redundant databases, and TLS encrypts and protects the packages as they are transmitted from endpoint to endpoint. This at-rest and in-transit encryption ensures that data is secure at all points. To further this, OpenPhone performs daily backups of its databases and retains data for as long as needed.

OpenPhone user reviews

For the most part, customer reviews for OpenPhone are positive. On sites including G2 and GetApp, the provider typically ranks above four stars. Most users state that the system is reliable and there’s little service disruption, even though OpenPhone does not have a financially backed service level agreement (SLA) for uptime. Some potential drawbacks experienced by users are the lack of a “mute” button for calls and the system occasionally experiencing some bugs.

Compare OpenPhone alternatives

OpenPhone: Starter	Grasshopper: True Solo	Google Voice: Starter
Monthly starting price	Monthly starting price	Monthly starting price
$19	$18	$10
Unlimited domestic calling and texting?	Unlimited domestic calling and texting?	Unlimited domestic calling and texting?
Yes	Yes	Yes
International calling supported?	International calling supported?	International calling supported?
Yes, for a fee	Yes, for a fee	Yes, limited countries
View offer at Expert Market	View offer at Top10	View offer at Top10

Is OpenPhone right for you?

OpenPhone is one of the better virtual phone systems, and there are enough features for small teams to manage calls and customers efficiently. While we wouldn’t recommend the provider to larger companies with more robust communications needs that extend past cloud telephony, we do find it to be a more than adequate provider for solopreneurs. 

Are you not sure if this is a good provider for your small business? Fortunately, OpenPhone does have a seven-day free trial. It’s important to understand that it will require a credit card to sign up, but it will notify you when there’s a single day left on the trial’s run. 

Frequently asked questions