Zoom Phone can keep costs down because it’s primarily for voice communication. If you don’t add a plan to a Zoom Phone number, you can reach other extensions within your system, but otherwise pay the highest per-minute costs. For calls in the US and Canada, those rates are, respectively, $0.0318 per minute and $0.0355 per minute. The rates for other countries are generally higher.

The base calling plan is Zoom Phone US and Canada Metered Calling ($10 per user per month). It also charges you on a per-minute rate, though less than if you had no plan. For example, rates for the US and Canada decrease, respectively, to $0.0205 and $0.0229 per minute. You get AI-based post-call summaries, basic call center features (barging, monitoring, takeover, and whispering), call recording, three-way calling, unlimited auto attendants/IVR, and voicemail transcription. Just keep in mind that AI features related to sentiment analysis (insights like who talked the most or asked the most questions) cost extra.

(Credit: Zoom/PCMag)

Otherwise, this plan includes chat, fax, and SMS/MMS features, though the latter two incur metered costs. You can view the rates for calls, faxes, and SMS/MMS messaging here. You don’t get the premium Zoom Meetings experience as part of your subscription, just the free features. That means video calls can last up to 40 minutes and include up to 100 participants.

The next step up is the US and Canada Regional Unlimited plan ($15 per user per month). It unlocks unlimited calling in the US and Canada, and gets you 50 fax pages to send or receive within the two countries (you pay the per-page rate after you hit this limit). Zoom Phone also offers Global Select plans ($20 per user per month) for expanded international calling or for certain regions, such as Asia or South America.

If you want both Zoom Phone US & CA Unlimited and Zoom Workplace Pro, you can get the Pro Plus plan ($18.32 per user per month, billed annually). The calling features are the same, but the upgraded version of Workplace unlocks 5GB of cloud storage, additional Zoom AI Companion features, meetings of up to 30 hours, and more. Finally, the Business Plus tier ($22.49 per user per month, billed annually) unlocks 300-person meetings and unlimited faxing in the US and Canada. Both of these combined plans are an excellent value.

For comparison, RingEX’s Core plan ($20 per user per month, billed annually) supports unlimited domestic calling (international calls incur a per-minute rate), video meetings for up to 100 people, and text messaging. You also get AI features, such as real-time call transcriptions and video meeting summaries. Similarly, Unite’s Pro tier includes 50GB of storage per user, an AI Assistant, business texting, one-to-one and team messaging, unlimited AI-enabled video meetings with up to 100 participants, and unlimited domestic and international calling. 8×8 Work’s voice-only X1 plan ($15 per user per month, billed annually) matches up well with the calling features of Zoom Phone’s base plans, but doesn’t have any of the extras or as strong upgrade options.