Key takeaways
As VoIP phone services, Ooma and Vonage are two of the most feature-rich vendors on the market despite being known for their home VoIP solutions. In addition to business cloud telephony, each also has messaging and video conferencing capabilities that help establish them as strong unified communications (UC) providers as well.
Our Ooma vs. Vonage head-to-head comparison is designed to help you understand each provider’s strengths and weaknesses so that you can determine which would work best for your business.
In this article…
Ooma vs Vonage: Overview
| Ooma | Vonage | |
|---|---|---|
| Number of paid business phone plans | 3 | 3 |
| Virtual phone number types | 3 | 3 |
| Uptime service level agreement (SLA) percentage | 99.999% | 99.999% |
| Volume pricing | ||
| Annual pricing | ||
| Video conferencing | ||
| Instant messaging | ||
| Learn more | Visit Ooma | Visit Vonage |
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Are Ooma or Vonage not right for your business? Check out our comprehensive Best VoIP for Small Business Buyer’s Guide for more options.
Ooma
Pros
Cons
Vonage
Pros
Cons
Ooma versus Vonage: A detailed comparison
| Ooma | Vonage | |
|---|---|---|
| Auto-attendant | ||
| Virtual phone numbers | ||
| Video conferencing | ||
| Integrations | ||
| 99.99%+ uptime guarantee | ||
| Phone support | ||
| HIPAA compliance | ||
| Chat support | ||
| Local numbers | ||
| Toll-free numbers | ||
| Vanity numbers | ||
| International numbers |
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Read more: VoIP Security Guide: Tips, Risks & Encryption
Pricing
Pricing for VoIP/UCaaS solutions, with a few exceptions, usually comes down to a per-user, per-month pricing structure. Many providers also opt to create up to three plans with various baked-in features to make them more attractive for businesses as they scale. This is the case in the battle of Vonage vs Ooma—each has three plans with increasing features. Here’s a breakdown:
| Ooma | Vonage | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly price (Tier 1) | $19.95 (Essentials) | $19.99 (Mobile) |
| Monthly price (Tier 2) | $24.95 (Pro) | $29.99 (Premium) |
| Monthly price (Tier 3) | $29.95 (Pro Plus) | $39.99 (Advanced) |
| Annual pricing? | ||
| Volume discounts? | ||
| Free trial | ||
| Activation fees per user | $29.95 |
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Vonage. Here’s why:
Ooma and Vonage have similar pricing structures. To put it into perspective, Ooma Office, which is the business VoIP/UCaaS offering from Ooma and Vonage Business Communications, is only about four cents apart in price. While it seems like Ooma wins with a price of $19.95 per month compared to Vonage’s $19.99, it’s important to note that Vonage has annual pricing, which reduces the price by 30% per user. This happens in all subsequent plans.
Couple this with available volume pricing, and Vonage comes out to be a much cheaper option, especially as the company grows. There’s also no activation fee per user with Vonage. While Vonage could provide potential customers with a free trial, this doesn’t sway the needle too far in Ooma’s direction, even though they grant a month of the service on a free trial.
Call management features
VoIP systems are known for their call management features, and the high number of these is why the VoIP vs landline debate often results in VoIP coming out significantly ahead of the older technology. For this reason, a vendor lives and dies by the number of call management features it offers, and both Ooma and Vonage deliver the tools you need to properly manage inbound calls. Here’s a breakdown of call management features that are bundled with each provider without a la carte pricing:
| Ooma | Vonage | |
|---|---|---|
| Auto-attendants | ||
| Call hold | ||
| Call waiting | ||
| Call flip | ||
| Call forwarding | ||
| Call screening | ||
| Call announce | ||
| Virtual mailbox | ||
| Ring groups | ||
| Call tagging | ||
| Call queues | ||
| Call park | ||
| Extension monitoring | ||
| Call recording |
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Ooma. Here’s why:
Although many call management features are available with a Vonage subscription, many are also available with add-on pricing. On-demand call recording, virtual mailboxes, ring groups, and call queues all come with an extra charge. With Ooma, these are folded neatly into their plan structure, which helps this vendor come out ahead for call management.
Read more: VoIP vs. Landline: Here’s the Difference for Businesses
Video conferencing
In a VoIP/UCaaS platform, having built-in support for video conferencing is very useful. Rather than swap applications from your VoIP provider to an external platform like Zoom, a provider with both calling and video within the same user experience helps streamline communication processes. These two vendors offer a relatively similar experience when it comes to video conferencing:
| Ooma | Vonage | |
|---|---|---|
| Online whiteboards | ||
| Screen sharing | ||
| Number of participants | 100 | 100 |
| Meeting recording | ||
| Google Calendar integration | ||
| Microsoft Calendar integration | ||
| Chat | ||
| Participant mute | ||
| Emojis | ||
| HIPAA compliance | ||
| Waiting room |
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Vonage. Here’s why:
Another close one. While both providers have a similar 100-attendee video conferencing cap, Vonage is compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996. This protects users’ confidential health information, which is useful for companies managing this type of data. Additionally, Vonage also has a few useful features that are not present with Ooma’s video conferencing. These include emojis and live waiting rooms.
International support
Ooma and Vonage are both strong options for businesses looking to do business overseas. From a calling perspective, Ooma and Vonage grant very reasonable rates to many countries. For example, calling Australia only costs about $0.038 per minute with Ooma.
With Vonage, the basic international calling comes in two options: Tier 1 and Tier 2. With the first tier, you’re granted a bundle of 1,000 minutes for $50 per month. This scales upward toward 100,000 minutes, which costs $4,120 for the same period. Tier 2, on the other hand, expands the range of supported countries for the monthly price of $110 for 1,000 minutes. This also scales up to 100,000 minutes for a monthly price of $9,680 per month.
Vonage’s two plans provide calling access to 85 countries, while Ooma’s Ooma World Plus plan grants unlimited calling to over 70 countries.
| Vonage | Ooma | |
|---|---|---|
|
Rated international calling |
Yes (bundles in 85 countries) |
Yes (230+ countries) |
|
Unlimited international calling |
No |
Yes (73 countries) |
|
International numbers |
Yes |
No |
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It’s a tie. Here’s why:
While both providers have plans for international calling designed to save customers money, Vonage is the only one offering international numbers. This allows your overseas customers to reach your company without incurring long-distance fees. Both providers deliver exceptional rates for calling overseas, and purchasing a bundle with preset calling minutes is convenient for many types of businesses that might make irregular calls to those locations.
Still, Ooma might be more valuable if you consistently need to call any of the countries on Ooma’s unlimited international calling list. Additionally, not having to commit to any minutes and being able to simply be charged for what you call is also very useful. There’s a much larger selection of countries available through Ooma, but not having international numbers makes it so the two competitors are fairly equal when it comes to international support.
Integrations
In a business phone system, integrations help add connectivity to various third-party applications. For example, Salesforce integration means that a company is able to use its VoIP system to dial directly from within the Salesforce application and vice versa. Integrations are one of the prime reasons why VoIP systems tend to be better options for businesses, especially when considering VoIP vs cellular or standard landlines. Simply put, these connections are easy ways to incorporate additional software into your communications stack.
Read more: VoIP vs. Cellular: What’s the Difference?
Here are a few of the integrations that are available with Vonage vs Ooma:
| Ooma | Vonage | |
|---|---|---|
| Salesforce | ||
| Freshdesk | ||
| Microsoft Dynamics | ||
| Zoho | ||
| HubSpot | ||
| Google Workspace | ||
| Microsoft 365 | ||
| Slack | ||
| Zapier |
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Vonage. Here’s why:
If we’re looking at overall connectivity, neither Vonage nor Ooma is incredibly strong. Both integrate with key customer relationship management (CRM) solutions like Salesforce, but when looking at the integration options in their entirety, Vonage only has about 21 integrations, and Ooma has about five when adding the CRM options it has with its Google Workspace connectivity.
Still, the numbers don’t lie — Vonage just has more integrations than Ooma. On a side note, one of the better providers for this kind of connectivity is RingCentral. In total, this vendor connects with more than 300 third-party solutions.
Ease of use
A VoIP system sometimes has a learning curve. This is because setting up phone menus, allocating numbers, and taking deep dives into analytics might take some practice, lengthening the adaptation process. For ease of use, both Vonage and Ooma are relatively easy platforms for new users to adopt, especially considering that both companies have home-based alternative plans that target the average consumer.
You won’t need a dedicated IT team for configuration with either Vonage or Ooma. Vonage’s main functions are presented along the left side of the screen and are very easy to understand. Ooma virtually walks you through the entire process, and specific functionalities are also presented in a list along the left side.
| Ooma | Vonage | |
|---|---|---|
| Guided setup | ||
| Design aesthetic | Drop-downs | Drop-downs and tiles |
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Ooma. Here’s why:
When it comes to setup, Ooma is one of the best VoIP solutions for small businesses for user-friendliness. This is because of the auto-configuration tool that they incorporate to greatly reduce the configuration of the system. For example, in most cases, users will only need about 15 minutes to get dialing through their Ooma Office system. Additionally, since Ooma is kind of built on the analog telephone adapter (ATA), it’s very easy to connect analog phones to the system.
The Express Setup Assistant is designed to help new users quickly set up auto-attendants, add users, and also assist in configuring basic line settings for a given business. Additionally, Ooma provides a very simplified interface in mobile, desktop, and browser-based apps. While it might be slightly more dated-looking than Vonage’s svelte interface, with features like a dedicated “Make a call” button on all screens, it just wins out when it comes to simplicity.
Ooma vs Vonage: How to pick
The best way to decide which of these VoIP/UCaaS solutions works for your needs is to look at the finer features of each. For example, Ooma is far more attuned to companies with legacy phone technology looking to adopt VoIP. Landline systems are able to be incorporated into an Ooma phone system, so it could be a better option for those looking to hit the ground running.
Conversely, Vonage is a better option for those looking to embrace unified communications. Vonage’s video conferencing is stronger than Ooma’s; it has a very competitive team messaging app called VBC Team Messaging that works very similarly to Slack, and its business inbox incorporates not only SMS and MMS but also Facebook Messenger.
Frequent international callers will find that Ooma is a better option thanks to unlimited international calling, but the opposite user will find that Vonage’s bundle packs for the same kind of calling make the process simple. When it comes to VoIP security, both are encrypted and have been audited by third parties to ensure reliability. This is critically important for VoIP systems because they are internet-based.
While Vonage has edged out Ooma in our head-to-head, both are exceptional options for businesses looking to incorporate VoIP business phones into their communications.
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