RingCentral vs Grasshopper (2025): Which Business Phone System Is Right for You?

What These Two Products Actually Are

RingCentral, founded in 1999, is one of the largest cloud communications companies in the US. It is a unified communications platform -- calls, video, SMS, team messaging, and integrations in one product. When businesses talk about replacing a traditional PBX or moving their phone system to the cloud, RingCentral is usually in the conversation.

Grasshopper is something different. Founded in 2003 and now owned by GoTo after LogMeIn acquired it in 2018, Grasshopper is a virtual phone number service. You get a business number, an automated attendant, and call forwarding to your existing mobile phone. No desk phone. No video. It is a thin layer on top of whatever carrier you already have.

Comparing these two is a little like comparing a full HR software suite to a simple time-tracking app. They both touch the same general area, but they solve different problems at different price points for different business sizes.

Pricing Breakdown

RingCentral

RingCentral uses per-user pricing billed annually:

• Core: $20/user/month -- unlimited US/Canada calling, SMS, team messaging, video meetings up to 100 participants
• Advanced: $25/user/month -- adds call recording, advanced call management, CRM integrations
• Ultra: $35/user/month -- adds unlimited storage and advanced analytics

There is no minimum user count on Core, which means a solo user can technically get RingCentral at $20 per month. In practice, the features that justify that cost are team features -- shared lines, call transfer, call queues, admin controls. One person using it alone pays for a lot they will not use.

Grasshopper

Grasshopper uses flat monthly fees, not per-user charges:

• Solo: $14/month -- 1 number, 3 extensions
• Partner: $25/month -- 3 numbers, 6 extensions
• Small Business: $55/month -- 5 numbers, unlimited extensions

A solo freelancer pays $14 per month regardless of how many extensions answer calls on that number. That flat-rate structure is Grasshopper's biggest advantage for very small operations. Adding extensions costs nothing extra.

Side-by-Side Comparison

What RingCentral Does Well

RingCentral's main strength is breadth. It replaces your entire office phone infrastructure -- no hardware to manage on-site, no PBX to maintain. Call queues, auto-attendants, hold music, call transfers, conference bridges -- all of it is on the Core plan.

The integration library is useful for teams in practice, not just on a feature list. The Advanced plan connects natively to Salesforce, HubSpot, Zendesk, Microsoft 365, and Google Workspace. For a sales team that wants call logs pushed automatically to a CRM, that matters.

Video meetings are included, not sold as an add-on. The Core plan supports up to 100 participants. If your team does regular video calls and you want everything in one billing relationship, that simplification has real operational value.

Call recording on Advanced and above is required for any regulated industry or team that needs to review calls for training or compliance. Grasshopper does not have this feature at any price point.

What Grasshopper Does Well

Grasshopper is cheap and fast for what it does. A freelance consultant, a one-person service business, or a new LLC that wants to stop handing out a personal cell number can be running in under 30 minutes. Pick a number, forward it to your phone, record a voicemail greeting. Done.

The flat pricing is different from how most phone systems work. Extensions do not cost extra. A virtual assistant or a second family member answering calls through a shared number pays nothing beyond the base plan. For a two-person operation, that matters.

Voicemail transcription works well and shows up via email. Call screening -- hearing who is calling before you pick up -- is a small feature, but it matters more than it sounds when your personal phone doubles as your business phone.

Grasshopper does not try to be more than it is. No configuration menus to dig through, no admin console to learn. Fast to set up, easy to maintain when you have no IT support.

Where Each Falls Short

RingCentral's weak spot is complexity. The admin console has a lot of options, and if no one on your team has configured phone systems before, initial setup takes real time. Customer support quality also varies by plan -- lower-tier plans rely heavily on self-service documentation.

Grasshopper's limitation is ceiling. As soon as you need call recording, CRM sync, or any real integration, you have outgrown it. There is no upgrade path within Grasshopper that fixes those gaps. You switch to a different product entirely.

Neither platform has strong built-in analytics beyond basic call volume. If you want reporting on hold times or call outcomes tied to business results, you need a third-party layer regardless of which you pick.

Which Should You Pick?

If you are a freelancer, consultant, or one-person shop: Grasshopper at $14 per month is the answer. Get a business number, stop sharing your personal cell, and move on. Do not pay RingCentral's per-seat pricing for features you will not use.

If you have a team of two or more people who all need to make and receive business calls: RingCentral Core at $20 per user per month is the right starting point. The per-user cost pays for itself quickly when everyone has a real extension, call transfers work, and you can review calls for training.

If you are comparing Grasshopper's Small Business plan at $55 per month against RingCentral Core for a small team, run the math. Five users on RingCentral Core is $100 per month. For the extra $45, you get video meetings, call recording (on Advanced), CRM integrations, and a platform that scales without a forced migration later. Grasshopper starts to look expensive relative to what you get once you have more than a few people.

The one scenario where Grasshopper clearly wins is the very early-stage business that only needs a business number and voicemail -- no video, no integrations, no team features. It is faster and cheaper there. Just know that you will likely switch later, and budget for that transition.

What Neither Phone System Connects Automatically

Both RingCentral and Grasshopper handle call routing and voicemail. Neither wires automatically to the rest of your business.

A missed call from a known contact in your CRM does not create a follow-up task. A call from a new lead does not add a record to your pipeline. A completed call with a client does not update their job status in your field service software. A voicemail from a prospect who filled out your website form two days ago does not trigger the right response sequence.

Those connections require automation built on top of whichever phone system you choose. The phone system routes the call. The automation layer decides what happens because of that call.

Most businesses figure this out six months in. The phone system works fine. The problem is that nothing downstream knows what happened on the call unless someone manually updates it -- and they often do not.

At Aplos AI, we build those integration layers: connecting your phone system data to your CRM, ticketing tools, or scheduling software. If that sounds like the problem you have, the audit below is the right next step.