Thinking of going with Evoice or Grasshopper for your next virtual phone line provider? In this article, we dive into which is cheaper, and which is more reliable, and which virtual phone number solution is best for small business use. By the end of this article, you’ll have a really good idea which provider is right for you, and be able to decide which is best for your needs and budget. As always, if you have any questions, there is a comment section at the end of this article so you can get help with decisions, plan options, etc… If you have a technical question, I can get a rep to take care of you as well.

Who has a Cheaper VoIP Option, EVOICE OR GRASSHOPPER?

The topic of discussion again today is affordable VoIP services, specifically number forwarding services. We will be criticizing, comparing, and analyzing the prices and the features that GrassHopper and Evoice both want to give their eager customers! There is quite a few options out there for small businesses, and we have compared many; however, Evoice is definitely a new contender in this realm, so let’s see what they have to offer us.

Related Reading:

• The 3 Cheapest Virtual Business Phone Line Services
• Affordable VoIP Business Line Providers For Small Business
• The 3 Best Toll Free 1-800 Phone Line Services On The Planet

EVOICE PROS AND CONS

Evoice is a VoIP company who offers great payment options without those pesky contracts. This means you won’t have to continue using this service if you end up not liking it, unlike most of the traditional services that will end up punishing you for quitting their contract before you specified end date. On the very first landing page of Evoice’s website they start giving you their amazing features right away. They start with letting consumers know they offer transcription services, professional greetings, an auto attendant, and even local and toll free phone numbers for your small business. When you sign up with Evoice there is no need to be worried about paying for expensive hardware either, why? Because Evoice doesn’t require you to purchase any extra hardware in order to get your account up and running!

Evoice will even give business owners the option of an auto receptionist, but if your company is of a much bigger size, then they can even hire professionals to answer your calls for you. That is a pretty awesome feature, but it is probably not in the scope of what we are trying to pay attention to here; however, that is still a very splendid idea.

Additionally, the features that Evoice offers doesn’t stop there, and for the money it is actually pretty reasonable so far, but we will get to pricing later I promise. As a customer of Evoice you can expect to have the options of being able to conference call, manage your settings through your iPhone, or Android device, multiple extensions for your growing business, fax, and even get your voicemails transcribed into audio files or text. Evoice is really trying to hit all of the big money features people are looking for, and I think they are doing it quite well.

Finally, if you choose Evoice you can expect to have customer service year around, and being able to talk to someone twenty four hours a day.

Evoice Complaints From Reviews & Comparisons

So, before getting into the conversation of price, let’s check out some of the cons of using Evoice. This company offers a few premium features and if you don’t pay attention to them they will actually increase your monthly bill for additional costs per month. Some of these premium features include business texting, call recording, a live receptionist, international numbers, and web and video conferencing. I would think call recording would be a standard feature that would come with the actual service itself, rather than being something extra you have to pay for. Evoice won’t release the actual monthly price increases on any of these premium services either. Instead, they ask you to contact their support team or login to your Evoice account to see the actual increase in your monthly bill. On their pricing page they do offer four different plans for your small business to choose from and we will start with the cheapest and work our way up to the most expensive plan. The cheapest plan they offer gives you three hundred minutes, two extension lines, and six additional numbers for about thirteen dollars a month. The second plan is about thirty dollars a month and gives you the option of having fifteen numbers, one thousand minutes, and five extensions. Their third option will provide you with two thousand minutes, ten extensions, and thirty numbers for a total of fifty dollars a month. The final option Evoice gives its customers is the eighty dollar a month plan that comes with four thousand minutes, fifteen extensions, and forty five additional numbers.

Related Reading:

• Grasshopper VS RingCentral
• Phone.com VS Grasshopper VS Google Voice VS Ring Central
• VoIP VS Landline: Which Is Better For Small Businesses
• Google Voice VS OOMA VS Majic Jack VS Obi (and the best affordable alternative)

However, you must remember that you will probably paying much more than the suggested monthly payments if you need any kind of call recording, business texting, or custom phone numbers. Evoice also has other services it tries to force upon the consumer like online backup, email marketing, outsourcing your email, and a service to send and receive faxes from anywhere. Some of these features listed are supposed to come with the service as well so I don’t know why they have separate links to other companies hosting these services. Evoice also claims to let users benefit from cloud technology; however, in order to receive these said benefits you have to go through an affiliate company called J2 Global which provides the above services that were just mentioned. If you are a VoIP company why would you have your customers paying for another company’s cloud services to back up your data? This seems like Evoice is trying to send their consumers in different directions in order to pad their own pockets. Think about this for a minute, if you are paying them for their VoIP, wouldn’t you just want them to keep your business lines up and running? Why do you need another company to backup your data, or help you with additional faxing features? I believe they said they offer faxing options.

GRASSHOPPER PROS AND CONS

Grasshopper is another great VoIP service who allows you to have all of the functionality of a traditional phone service without the catch of a long term contract just as Evoice does. They offer year around support and they are open all hours of the day which is can be very helpful as well as adding convenience in case problems arise with your system. If you decide to choose Grasshopper as your VoIP service for your small business you can expect to have your own toll free number that can be customized to your liking, and you will also be able to have your own custom greeting as well.

Furthermore, you can also expect to have the convenience of adding extension lines for your other departments. Other pros of this service include being able to select your own local number, or port an existing number. Also, if you choose you can have a music on hold feature for when customers call and they have to be put on hold. GrassHopper does have a professional sound studio in case you want that professional quality greeting for your customers. This feature is especially nice because they give you the choice of selecting different voices for your business, and they also can record greetings in several different languages for you. However, if you think this is a job specifically for you they do offer you the awesome chance at using their professional voice studio.

Moving on, we can expect you to receive unlimited call handling, call forwarding, and of course the ability to make conference calls. We can also expect Grasshopper to provide you with voicemail to e-mail or fax transcription, a store hours and directions greeting, and with Grasshopper you also don’t need to worry about any hardware installation, because everything is done virtually and they will connect your mobile devices to their system and they will also connect your current office phones. Another nice thing about Grasshopper is that if you do happen to sign up you will not be charged an activation fee or any other kind of setup fees.

Grasshopper Complaints From Reviews & Comparisons

Like most companies, Grasshopper does have a few cons to their service platform as well. For starters, this company isn’t really for the everyday small business. Many of its features seem to be geared towards well established companies and they have one of the highest per minute rates around. If you go over your minutes while being a customer of Grasshopper you can expect to pay a whopping six cents per minute for every minute. The monthly payment plans they offer start out at twelve dollars a month, but that plan doesn’t show you exactly how many minutes you do get other than the fact you will be charged the premium six cents per minute, and that almost seems like there is some hidden fees attached somewhere. So, the first Grasshopper plan is definitely a big con. The second plan they offer is twenty four dollars a month and you only receive five hundred minutes per month which again, is not a whole lot; but, it might work for some small businesses. If we look at the third option, they are willing to throw in two toll free and local numbers for no extra cost, but this also comes with a forty nine dollar a month price tag; however, you get two thousand minutes with this option. The final option Grasshopper offers is one hundred and ninety nine dollars per month and you will receive up to three local or toll free numbers as well as unlimited extensions and unlimited use of their voice studio along with ten thousand minutes per month. I should also note with each of these plans you are granted unlimited extension lines, but for I don’t see how that correlates with most small businesses.

Who is Cheaper, And Which Is The Best Option For Most People?

Okay, lets break everything down. On paper, and this is just comparing the plans themselves, it would seem that Evoice ultimately offers the cheaper pricing plans. That being said, we can’t really be entirely sure because they refused to list their additional monthly costs for their premium services. Also, if you are a small business why would you need more than a couple of phone numbers? Is it really logical to buy a plan that allows you up to forty five different phone numbers? What good is all those numbers if you have to pay extra fees for every additional line you want a recording on? In this situation I would ultimately pick Grasshopper as the best option. They might have a little higher monthly payment option up front, but you have a good idea what you will be spending each month for their services, and they offer very reasonable features. Evoice could be a very good choice, but they seem to be gearing their services for large enterprises and corporations. As I previously mentioned, why does a small business owner need forty five different phone numbers and a service to outsource their email, or additional faxing features? You can get a free email account from a multiple number of companies, and Evoice is supposed to provide you with the option of faxing. I even went back and double checked, and yes under their included features it has FAXING highlighted as a service you don’t need to pay extra for. This is either bad marketing on their part, or these other companies that are linked to their website are paying them extra for advertisement.

Stay safe guys and choose Grasshopper for this one. I know up front the pricing sounds ridiculous, but it is clearly the best pricing option in this case.

Additional Resources:

• How To Setup Your Business Phone Number In Less Than 30 Minutes (no contract)
• How To Get A Toll Free 1800 Number For Your Business On The Cheap
• The 3 Most Affordable (and reliable) Virtual Business Phone Providers

The post Evoice VS Grasshopper: Which Is Cheaper & Better? appeared first on CleverLeverage.com.