Grasshopper vs RingCentral in 2026: pricing for a flat account rate against a per user cost, and the headcount where the cheaper bill stops being the better phone system
Grasshopper bills a flat rate for the entire account, $14, $25 or $55 per month billed annually, and the top two plans carry unlimited users. RingCentral bills per user, $20, $25 or $35 per user per month billed annually, or $30, $35 and $45 billed monthly. That means Grasshopper is cheaper at every headcount and the gap widens fast: at five people it is $55 against $100, at ten people $55 against $200, at twenty-five people $55 against $500. The difference the price hides is what a person gets. RingCentral gives every user their own dedicated phone number at no extra cost on every tier. Grasshopper Solo Plus at $25 includes one phone number and three extensions no matter how many users share it, and Small Business at $55 includes four numbers, with extra numbers at $9 per month each. Texting inverts the ranking: Grasshopper carries unlimited business texting on all three plans for a $19.50 one-time registration and $1.50 per month for the whole account, while RingCentral includes 25 messages per user per month on Core, which is roughly one text per working day. RingCentral wins on the things a growing team eventually needs and Grasshopper does not publish on its rate card: automatic recording from a named tier, pooled toll-free minutes, a multi-level auto attendant, integrations and a contact center path. Phoner sits between the two at $15 to $29 per user billed yearly ($19 to $35 month to month), with no seat minimum.
The full ranked field is in the guide to the best VoIP for small business, entry pricing for every provider sits yearly against monthly in the business phone system comparison, and Phoner's plans are listed in plain dollars on the pricing page.
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Where Grasshopper or RingCentral is genuinely strong
Both of these are honest products aimed at different businesses, and it is worth saying what each one is genuinely good at before comparing invoices. Grasshopper is a shared business line with extensions. You publish one number, callers reach a menu, and calls forward to whichever mobile or desk phone should ring. It bills flat for the account rather than per person, includes unlimited calling minutes and unlimited business texting on every plan, and runs on mobile and desktop apps with 24 hour support. For a two or three person business that hands calls around rather than assigning them, this is a well fitted product at a price nothing per seat can match. RingCentral is the reference platform in this category for good reason. It is a full communications suite: phone, video meetings, team messaging, analytics and a contact center path in one vendor, with hundreds of integrations, granular admin roles, and the scale to run thousands of seats. Every user on every tier gets their own dedicated business number at no additional cost, toll-free minutes are pooled across the account so one busy line does not exhaust a per user allowance, and call recording is available from the entry plan. If you are staffing a support desk or a sales floor, Grasshopper is not really in the running and RingCentral is.
Where Phoner fits
Phoner is worth pricing here if Grasshopper is too thin the moment your team stops sharing one number and RingCentral is more platform than you will ever open. Phoner Team at $29 per user includes a visual IVR phone menu you can inspect before you pay, ring groups written as readable rules, business texting with no monthly message cap on the plan, voicemail to text, and call recording with consent announcements, with toll-free and vanity numbers at a flat $5 each. Starter is $15 billed yearly or $19 monthly. Every tier is available month to month with no seat minimum and no annual commitment, so the price you compare is the price you can leave.
In practice the deciding features are usually the business texting and toll-free numbers.
Grasshopper vs RingCentral pricing, and why the two columns are not measuring the same thing
Read the third column before the second. Grasshopper prices the account and RingCentral prices the person, so a $55 row and a $35 row are not comparable until you fix a headcount. Grasshopper also bills monthly, but its monthly plan rates were not readable on its page, so we state only its annual figures. Both vendors' figures were read from their own pricing pages on September 9, 2026.
| Plan | Published rate | What the rate covers | Numbers and users included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grasshopper True Solo | $14 per account | Flat, billed annually at $168 | 1 user, 1 phone number, 1 extension |
| Grasshopper Solo Plus | $25 per account | Flat, billed annually at $300 | Unlimited users, 1 phone number, 3 extensions |
| Grasshopper Small Business | $55 per account | Flat, billed annually at $660 | Unlimited users, 4 phone numbers, unlimited extensions |
| RingCentral Core | $20 per user | $30 per user billed monthly | A dedicated number per user, 100 pooled toll-free minutes |
| RingCentral Advanced | $25 per user | $35 per user billed monthly | A dedicated number per user, 1,000 pooled toll-free minutes |
| RingCentral Ultra | $35 per user | $45 per user billed monthly | A dedicated number per user, 10,000 pooled toll-free minutes |
| RingCentral Customer Engagement Bundle | Quote only | No rate published | A dedicated number per user, 10,000 pooled toll-free minutes |
Swipe sideways for the full table
Grasshopper rates, included users, numbers and extensions read from its own pricing table on September 9, 2026 · RingCentral rates, pooled toll-free allowances and the dedicated number per user read from its own plans and pricing page the same day · Grasshopper offers monthly billing, but its monthly plan rates were not readable on its page and we do not invent them
What Grasshopper and RingCentral cost at four real headcounts, including matching the number count
The middle two columns take each vendor's cheapest plan that fits. The last column is the one worth arguing about: it prices Grasshopper up to the same number of dedicated phone numbers RingCentral includes for free, at Grasshopper's published $9 per month per additional number. Grasshopper still wins every row. The gap just stops being tenfold.
| Team size | Cheapest Grasshopper plan | RingCentral Core, billed annually | Grasshopper with one number per person |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 person | True Solo, $14 | $20 | $14, one number is already included |
| 3 people | Solo Plus, $25 | $60 | $43, one included plus 2 extra at $9 |
| 5 people | Small Business, $55 | $100 | $64, four included plus 1 extra at $9 |
| 10 people | Small Business, $55 | $200 | $109, four included plus 6 extra at $9 |
Swipe sideways for the full table
Arithmetic from both vendors' published September 9, 2026 rates · Grasshopper figures are annual billing · RingCentral core at $30 per user billed monthly makes every middle column figure 50 percent higher · Extension and messaging fees are excluded from both sides
What actually separates Grasshopper and RingCentral once you have both rate cards open
Grasshopper is cheaper at every headcount, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest
Comparisons of these two often bury the price because the answer is uncomfortable for whichever vendor commissioned them. Here it is plainly. Grasshopper bills the account, not the person: $14, $25 or $55 per month billed annually, at $168, $300 and $660 for the year. RingCentral bills the person: $20, $25 or $35 per user per month billed annually, and $30, $35 or $45 if you will not sign for a year. One person costs $14 against $20. Five people cost $55 against $100. Ten people cost $55 against $200. Twenty-five people still cost $55 at Grasshopper and $500 at RingCentral. There is no headcount at which RingCentral is the cheaper invoice, and no plan combination that changes it. Anyone telling you the flat rate stops paying off at some team size is describing a value judgment, not arithmetic.
"Unlimited users" is not "unlimited phone numbers", and that is the sentence the price hides
Grasshopper Solo Plus and Small Business both say unlimited users, which sounds like the whole argument settled. Read the two rows underneath it. Solo Plus includes one business phone number and three extensions. Small Business includes four phone numbers and unlimited extensions. So unlimited users means unlimited people sharing a small fixed set of published numbers, reachable at extensions behind them. RingCentral states the opposite on every tier: each user gets a dedicated phone number at no additional cost. That is the actual product difference and it decides most of these decisions before price does. If your five staff should each have a direct line customers can call and text, Grasshopper needs additional numbers at $9 per month each, which takes a $55 plan to $64 at five and $109 at ten. Still cheaper than RingCentral. Just no longer a different order of magnitude, and worth knowing before you sign an annual term.
Texting runs hard the other way, and RingCentral's entry allowance is smaller than most people expect
This is the row where the feature poor vendor wins outright and it deserves to be said clearly. Grasshopper carries business texting marked unlimited on all three plans, for a $19.50 one-time registration fee and a $1.50 per month messaging fee, charged to the account rather than per user. RingCentral publishes its Enhanced Business SMS allowance per tier and it is metered per user: 25 messages per user per month on Core, 100 on Advanced, 200 on Ultra, with additional messages available for purchase. Twenty-five messages a month is about one text per working day. A five person team on Core is paying $100 a month for a pooled ceiling of 125 messages; the same five people on Grasshopper Small Business pay $55 plus $1.50 and are not counting. RingCentral also notes that automated, high volume or marketing SMS falls outside this entirely and is sold as RingCentral High Volume SMS at additional cost. If any real part of your customer contact happens over text, price this row before you price the plans.
What the extra money buys at RingCentral, stated fairly
A page that only listed prices would send every reader to Grasshopper, and that would be bad advice for a lot of them. RingCentral includes things Grasshopper does not publish on its rate card. Call recording is available from Core, on demand, and becomes automatic from Advanced, and the difference between those two is a real purchase rather than a marketing distinction. Toll-free minutes are included and pooled across the whole account rather than metered per user, at 100, 1,000 and 10,000 by tier, so a single busy line does not exhaust an individual allowance. A multi-level auto attendant is on the entry plan. There are hundreds of integrations, admin roles and permissions, analytics, video meetings, 24 hour support and a published 99.999 percent reliability commitment. There is also somewhere to go: RingCX starts at $65 per user if the phone system eventually has to become a contact center. Grasshopper has no equivalent upgrade path, and for a business that expects to be staffing a queue in two years that matters more than $145 a month.
Grasshopper does not publish where its auto attendant and ring groups sit, and we will not guess
Grasshopper's pricing table covers users, numbers, extensions, calling minutes, texting, apps and support, and then stops. It does not state which plan carries the auto attendant, whether ring groups are available, or which tier carries call recording. Grasshopper's own support documentation confirms recording exists, set up automatically per extension, but names no plan. Several comparison pages assert answers to all three, usually pages published by a rival with a reason to describe Grasshopper as thin. We are not repeating a competitor's claim about a competitor as though it were a fact. If those three features decide your purchase, ask Grasshopper directly during the seven day free trial, which does not require a credit card, and get the answer in writing before you commit to an annual term. What we can state from its own table is that calling minutes are unlimited on all three plans, texting is unlimited on all three, and support runs 24 hours a day.
The annual term is doing more work at RingCentral than at Grasshopper
Both vendors headline an annual price, but the penalty for refusing one is very different. RingCentral publishes both columns: Core is $20 per user annually and $30 monthly, Advanced $25 and $35, Ultra $35 and $45. That is a 50 percent premium on Core, 40 percent on Advanced and roughly 29 percent on Ultra for the freedom to leave. Rerun the headcount table at monthly rates and five people cost $150 rather than $100, and ten cost $300. Grasshopper offers monthly billing and says annual billing saves over 20 percent, but its monthly plan rates were not readable on its page, so we state only its annual totals of $168, $300 and $660. The practical effect is that both of these ask you to commit for a year to see the advertised number. That is worth weighing against a month to month provider, ours included, when the whole point of leaving your old system was to stop being locked into it.
Add-ons at RingCentral are add-ons at every tier, including the most expensive one
One habit worth checking on any per seat quote is which features stay paid extras no matter how far up the range you go. On RingCentral's own plan matrix the AI Receptionist is marked as an add-on option on Core, Advanced, Ultra and the Customer Engagement Bundle alike, starting at $39, so there is no plan you can buy that includes it. Conversational Intelligence starts at $60. The Call Queues Booster is $35 and the Business SMS Booster is $25, and both of those become included only in the Customer Engagement Bundle, which is quote only with no published rate. Additional vanity numbers are $30 one time plus $4.99 per month. None of this makes RingCentral a bad buy, and every provider in this category has a version of it. It does mean that a Core quote at $20 per user is a floor rather than a forecast, and that the honest way to compare it with a $55 flat account rate is to ask for a quote with your actual add-ons and regulatory fees included.
Neither published rate is the whole invoice
Regulatory and E911 line items land on top of the plan rate at both vendors, and at us. The largest is the federal universal service pass-through, currently at a record level: the FCC set the fourth quarter 2026 contribution factor at 42.0 percent in Public Notice DA 26-946, released September 14, 2026. That percentage applies only to the interstate and international portion of your service rather than the whole bill, which is the detail most articles about phone fees get wrong, and interconnected VoIP providers may use the FCC 64.9 percent interim safe harbor, so a realistic pass-through lands near 27 percent of the service charge rather than 42.0 percent of everything. E911 fees are statutory and typically run about $0.20 to $3.00 per line per month, which is worth noting on a per seat quote because it scales with lines. A regulatory recovery fee, by contrast, is the carrier's own charge rather than a government tax. Ask any provider for a quote with fees included before you compare two numbers that were never measuring the same thing.
Who should pick which
Pick Grasshopper or RingCentral if
Pick Grasshopper if your business publishes one number that several people answer, if nobody needs a phone number of their own, and if unlimited texting on a flat fee matters more than recording or integrations. It is the cheaper bill at every headcount and it is not close. Pick RingCentral if each person needs their own dedicated number, if you need call recording, pooled toll-free minutes, a multi-level auto attendant, CRM integrations or analytics, or if there is any chance you will grow into a support queue, because that upgrade path exists at RingCentral and does not exist at Grasshopper.
Their list price: Grasshopper $14-55 flat per account, billed annually · RingCentral $20-35/user annually, $30-45 monthly
Pick Phoner if
Pick Phoner if you want per person numbers and a real phone menu without buying a communications suite: Team at $29 per user with a visual IVR builder, ring groups, business texting with no monthly cap on the plan, recording with consent announcements, and toll-free numbers at $5, month to month with no seat minimum.
Phoner: $15-29/user/mo yearly, $19-35 monthly
Leaving Grasshopper or RingCentral does not mean a new number
Your number is yours and moves with you. Phoner's free number porting takes about 1-2 weeks, and the line keeps ringing on Grasshopper or RingCentral until the moment it switches over. Set up your phone menu and ring groups in Phoner while you wait, then the cutover is invisible to callers.
Port order · Grasshopper or RingCentral → Phoner
Sign up for Phoner and submit the port with a recent Grasshopper or RingCentral bill.
Keep answering on Grasshopper or RingCentral. The number never goes dark.
In 1-2 weeks calls ring your Phoner apps. Cancel the old account.
Porting fee: $0 · Downtime: None
Compare Grasshopper or RingCentral against a specific competitor
This page weighs Grasshopper or RingCentral against Phoner. If you are choosing between two other vendors instead, these pages put both of their rate cards in one table.
Grasshopper alternatives
What all three Grasshopper plans include, the $9 per number and $3 per extension add-ons, and where the flat rate stops fitting.
RingCentral alternatives
RingCentral pricing across Core, Advanced and Ultra, the toll-free and texting allowances, and the vendors small teams switch to.
Grasshopper vs Google Voice
The other Grasshopper comparison where a flat account rate meets a per user price with a suite license underneath it.
Ooma vs RingCentral
A month to month provider against RingCentral's annual term, and what the contract discount is really charging for.
Common questions about switching
Is Grasshopper cheaper than RingCentral?
Yes, at every team size. Grasshopper bills a flat $14, $25 or $55 per month for the whole account billed annually, while RingCentral bills $20, $25 or $35 per user. Five people cost $55 against $100, and ten people cost $55 against $200. The trade is that RingCentral gives every user a dedicated phone number, while Grasshopper Small Business includes four for the whole account.
Does Grasshopper charge per user?
No. Grasshopper prices the account rather than the person, and both Solo Plus at $25 and Small Business at $55 list unlimited users. What is limited is numbers and extensions: Solo Plus includes one phone number and three extensions, Small Business four numbers and unlimited extensions. Additional phone numbers are $9 per month each and additional extensions on Solo Plus are $3 per month each.
How much is RingCentral per user per month?
RingCentral RingEX is $20 per user per month on Core, $25 on Advanced and $35 on Ultra when billed annually, read from its own pricing page on September 9, 2026. Billed monthly the same plans are $30, $35 and $45, a 50 percent premium on Core. The Customer Engagement Bundle is quote only with no published rate.
Does Grasshopper include unlimited texting?
Yes. Grasshopper marks business texting as unlimited on all three plans, with a $19.50 one-time registration fee and a $1.50 per month messaging fee charged to the account rather than per user. RingCentral meters texting per user instead: 25 messages per user per month on Core, 100 on Advanced and 200 on Ultra, with additional messages available for purchase.
Does Grasshopper have call recording?
Yes, according to its own support documentation, which describes automatic recording switched on per extension for inbound or outbound calls. Its pricing table does not say which plan includes it, so confirm that before buying. RingCentral publishes call recording on demand from Core at $20 per user and automatic recording from Advanced at $25. Ask Grasshopper during its seven day free trial before committing to an annual term.
Which is better for a team of five, Grasshopper or RingCentral?
It depends on whether those five people share a number or need their own. Grasshopper Small Business at $55 covers unlimited users across four numbers with unlimited texting. RingCentral Core at $100 gives each of the five a dedicated number, call recording, 100 pooled toll-free minutes and a multi-level auto attendant, but caps texting at 25 messages per user per month. Matching five dedicated numbers on Grasshopper costs $64.
Does RingCentral require an annual contract?
No, but the monthly price is substantially higher. RingCentral publishes both columns: Core is $20 per user annually against $30 monthly, Advanced $25 against $35, and Ultra $35 against $45. That is a 50 percent premium on the entry plan for not committing to a year. Grasshopper states annual totals of $168, $300 and $660 and says annual billing saves over 20 percent against its monthly option.
What is a good alternative to both Grasshopper and RingCentral?
It depends which compromise you are trying to avoid. Phoner at $15 to $29 per user billed yearly ($19 to $35 monthly) gives each person a real number and a visual IVR phone menu without buying a full communications suite, month to month at every tier with no seat minimum. Quo, formerly OpenPhone, suits text heavy teams. Dialpad is worth pricing if a HIPAA business associate agreement matters, since it carries one on every tier.
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