Which One is Best for Your Business?

Nextiva and RingCentral are two of the best VoIP phone systems on the market. Both VoIP solutions are reputable, reliable and provide similar business communications solutions, which makes it tough to choose between these options.

I typically recommend Nextiva just ahead of RingCentral for most businesses because it’s a better value and easier to use for smaller teams; however, RingCentral is still an excellent pick, especially for larger companies with advanced needs. Read on to see if Nextiva or RingCentral is right for you in this head-to-head comparison.

Nextiva vs. RingCentral: Comparison table

Bottom line: It’s a close call, but Nextiva wins because it’s the ideal blend of price, features and usability, making it a better overall fit for most businesses.

Learn how I evaluated Nextiva vs. RingCentral, and check out my recommended VoIP service providers below.

Nextiva vs. RingCentral: Pricing

Nextiva and RingCentral both offer three business communication plans with additional features, capabilities and benefits at each tier. And both VoIP solutions have the same billing structure — rates are based on per user per month, with discounts if you commit annually.

Both of these providers make it easy to scale. You can start with an entry-level plan and then upgrade when you’re ready or need to unlock more advanced features.

Nextiva pricing

• Essential plan: Starts at $18.95 per user per month when billed annually.
• Professional plan: Starts at $22.95 per user per month when billed annually.
• Enterprise plan: Starts at $32.95 per user per month when billed annually.
• Free demo available.

RingCentral pricing

• Core plan: Starts at $20 per user per month when billed annually.
• Advanced plan: Starts at $25 per user per month when billed annually.
• Ultra plan: Starts at $35 per user per month when billed annually.
• RingCentral offers volume discounts when you hit 100 users.
• Free 14-day trial and demo available.

Winner: Nextiva. It’s close, but Nextiva has the edge because of its lower price for similar features and better value for smaller teams.

Nextiva vs. RingCentral: Feature comparison

RingCentral has more advanced features than Nextiva. That said, Nextiva offers some basic features at its lower plan tiers that you don’t get from RingCentral unless you’re on a more expensive plan.

With either provider, you’re getting the following features included with a base plan:

• Unlimited calling in the U.S. and Canada.
• Video calling.
• Team chat.
• Free local or toll-free number.
• Video conference recording.
• Voicemail.
• Auto attendant.
• Mobile and desktop apps.

Overall, there’s about a 90% overlap of all available features between each platform, but there are some slight differences in how they’re offered and for what price.

Internet faxing

Nextiva offers unlimited internet faxing on every plan, whereas RingCentral omits this feature from its entry-level package.

Toll-free minutes

You’ll get either 1,500, 3,000 or 12,500 toll-free minutes with your Nextiva subscription, depending on the plan tier. RingCentral only gives you 100 toll-free minutes included as a base feature, and 1,000 or 10,000 toll-free minutes at the next two levels.

Call recording and voicemail transcriptions

Call recording and voicemail transcriptions are only available on Nextiva’s most expensive plan. These features come standard with every RingCentral subscription.

Texting capabilities

If you want texting capabilities, you’ll need to upgrade at least one tier above Nextiva’s entry-level’s base plan. RingCentral has SMS/MMS messaging with every subscription, but the included messages per user are more limited compared to Nextiva’s texting limits at a similarly priced plan.

Advanced features

For those of you looking for advanced features, RingCentral has plans that come with AI-powered meeting insights, live transcriptions, live call monitoring, whisper and barge and advanced call queues. You’ll need to pay or upgrade to access some of these features, but you won’t find them from Nextiva.

Winner: Nextiva. While RingCentral has more advanced capabilities, Nextiva delivers an incredible value with its toll-free minutes, internet faxing and texting — all things that many businesses prioritize over advanced call handling.

Nextiva vs. RingCentral: Performance and uptime

Nextiva and RingCentral deliver 99.999% uptime rates; this means the systems are essentially always up and running, with maybe a few minutes max of downtime per year.

These providers are both transparent about their performance. You can always access service status pages to see if systems are running smoothly, and there’s a complete audit log that tracks outage incidents.

Here’s a quick summary from RingCentral that tracks its uptime over the past year.

Aside from running smoothly and being available, both of these VoIP providers deliver crystal-clear audio and video. The platforms are just as good whether you’re using the web app, desktop app or mobile app, and there’s virtually no difference in quality when comparing the calls side-by-side.

Every once in a while, you may experience static or a dropped call, but this happens with every provider, and even landlines are susceptible.

Winner: Tie. Nextiva and RingCentral both deliver industry-leading performance and uptime.

Nextiva vs. RingCentral: Security

Nextiva tackles security from all angles. On a physical level, all data centers are monitored 24/7/365. Servers are stored in climate-controlled warehouses with five biometrics checkpoints and guard stations to restrict access.

Calls are protected using TLS and SRTP encryption from all endpoints, and Nextiva regularly conducts third-party penetration tests to identify any potential vulnerabilities.

In addition, Nextiva has several compliance certificates that are recognized worldwide, including ISO/IEC 27001, SOC 2, PCI DSS and HIPAA.

RingCentral’s security is equally robust — for instance, it uses TLS and SRTP to encrypt communication. RingCentral uses STIR/SHAKEN standards to mitigate robocalls, and the platform is compliant with RAY BAUM and Kari’s Law. Like Nextiva, RingCentral is compliant with SOC 2 and HIPAA. It’s also SOC 3 compliant and certified with HITRUST CSF.

You can use SSO and multifactor authentication to prevent unauthorized user access to your RingCentral platform and meetings.

Winner: Tie. Nextiva and RingCentral are both extremely secure, and you can trust both of them to protect your calls, messages and data.

Nextiva vs. RingCentral: Support

Nextiva and RingCentral provide 24/7 support via phone, live chat and email. You can also access self-help materials online through the providers’ knowledge bases.

Both platforms have an overwhelming number of positive reviews online related to customer support — all mentioning the speed, helpfulness and knowledge of support reps. That said, there are some negative remarks for both providers, but those seem to be one-off instances rather than a pattern to be concerned about.

RingCentral does provide more support and assistance than Nextiva during the initial implementation of the platform; however, RingCentral is more complex, so this seems to be offered out of necessity. Nextiva is easy enough to deploy without the extra support.

Winner: Tie. You’ll get 24/7 support from a friendly and knowledgeable rep from either provider through your preferred communication channel of phone or live chat.

Nextiva vs. RingCentral: Recent improvements

One reason why Nextiva and RingCentral are both so popular and well liked is that they regularly take steps to improve the platforms. Whether it’s a new feature, plan enhancement or upgrade to an existing product, you can expect at least a handful of improvements released by each of these providers on a monthly or quarterly basis.

Nextiva’s improvements

Nextiva regularly makes usability updates to its NextivaONE and NextOS apps. The most recent updates focused on administrators, making it easier to bulk edit existing users and navigate the software. Anyone can also now add locations and time zones to contacts.

Earlier this year, Nextiva added another caller ID verification that labels all incoming calls as verified or unverified. This simple feature can help protect teams from spam and spoofing.

RingCentral’s improvements

RingCentral recently rolled out RingCentral events and even more recently added a ton of built-in AI capabilities. The platform can handle large-scale online, hybrid and in-person events with up to 100,00 attendees.

RingCX rolled out in November of 2023 for most locations. Recently, they added real-time agent guidance, making coaching and training easier than ever.

Beyond that, RingCentral has been putting a ton of emphasis on adding AI capabilities to all of its products. For example, new AI-powered coaching, scoring, and sales insights were added to RingSense for Sales.

Winner: RingCentral. While both providers make regular updates, RingCentral is focusing more on bringing AI-powered capabilities to its platform.

Should your business use Nextiva or RingCentral?

Nextiva and RingCentral are neck-and-neck in nearly every category; for instance, both solutions have strong performance, uptime and support.

RingCentral has made more significant leaps with its new feature releases, particularly related to AI and productivity. And while RingCentral has more advanced features overall, Nextiva still has the edge in terms of overall feature value based on its prices and what’s included with each plan.

You can’t go wrong with either of these providers, but Nextiva is my top recommendation in this space; Nextiva has a slight edge over RingCentral because it’s a better fit for most businesses. If you have a larger company and need advanced call-handling capabilities, you should consider RingCentral instead.

Methodology

I test business communication tools and VoIP providers based on the following factors:

• Standard and advanced features: I make sure the basics are included with every plan (unlimited calling, messaging, voicemail, etc.) and then look to see what advanced features are offered and if they’re available without paying extra.
• Customer support: Anything less than 24/7 support drops a notch in my book, but I also assess support channels and whether questions or problems actually get resolved in a timely manner.
• Third-party integrations: The best VoIP providers integrate with other business tools like CRMs, ERPs, faxing tools and cloud storage systems.
• Security and privacy: Redundancy architecture, advanced encryption, server locations, data center audits, multifactor authentication and advanced account management features are all taken into consideration.
• Uptime percentage: Is there anything in the platform’s technical infrastructure that could lead to unplanned outages, delays, service interruptions or downtime?
• Demo or free trial: It’s always a plus if you can try the platform and run some tests before committing to a payment.
• Overall cost: All the various plan options, fees, add-ons, monthly versus annual pricing, volume discounts, installation costs, costs per line or extension and user costs.