OpenPhone vs Grasshopper in 2026: Quo pricing per user against a flat account rate, and the team size where each one is the cheaper phone system
OpenPhone rebranded to Quo in September 2025 and bills per user: $15, $23 or $35 per user per month billed annually, or $19, $33 and $47 billed monthly. Grasshopper bills a flat rate for the whole account: $14, $25 or $55 per month billed annually, with unlimited users on the top two plans and a monthly option it says costs over 20 percent more. One person costs $14 at Grasshopper against $15 at Quo, so the two are a dollar apart for a solo owner. From the second person Grasshopper is cheaper and stays cheaper: three people cost $25 against $45, five cost $55 against $75, ten cost $55 against $150. The difference the flat rate hides is phone numbers. Quo includes one local or toll-free number for every user on every plan, with extra numbers at $5 a month. Grasshopper Solo Plus includes one number for the whole account and Small Business includes four, with extra numbers at $9 a month, so ten people who each need a direct line cost $109 at Grasshopper, not $55. Quo also gates the features most teams are shopping for behind its $23 Business plan: phone menus, ring order, call transfers, automatic recording and the HubSpot and Salesforce integrations are not on Starter. Grasshopper's rate card does not say which plan carries its auto attendant or its call recording; its support documentation confirms recording exists, configured per extension. Phoner sits between the two at $15 to $29 per user billed yearly ($19 to $35 month to month), with a visual IVR menu and recording on the $29 Team plan and 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 OpenPhone or Grasshopper is genuinely strong
These two are the products most US owners of a one to ten person business end up choosing between, and both are honest about what they are. Quo, which most people still search for as OpenPhone, is a per user phone system built around a shared inbox: every call, text and voicemail on a number lands in one threaded view the whole team can see, every user gets a local or toll-free number of their own included in the seat price, and the apps on iOS, Android, desktop and web are the best liked in the category. The Business plan at $23 adds phone menus, ring order, call transfers, automatic call recording, analytics, and integrations with HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho, Pipedrive, Clio, Jobber, Gong and HighLevel. Every plan now bundles an AI agent that can answer calls, with 1,000 automation credits, roughly ten AI handled calls, included per month. Grasshopper is a shared business line with extensions, billed flat for the account rather than per person. You publish one number, callers reach your greeting, and calls forward to whichever mobile or desk phone should ring, with unlimited calling minutes and unlimited business texting on all three plans, mobile and desktop apps, and 24 hour support. For two or three people who hand calls around rather than assigning them, it costs less than anything priced per seat and it is not close.
Where Phoner fits
Phoner is worth pricing here if Grasshopper is too thin the moment each person needs their own line and Quo is more shared inbox than phone system. 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. Toll-free and vanity numbers are 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 rate you compare is the rate you can leave.
In practice the deciding features are usually the IVR phone menu and business texting.
OpenPhone vs Grasshopper pricing, and why a $23 row and a $25 row are not the same kind of number
Read the third and fourth columns before the second. Quo prices the person and includes a number for each one; Grasshopper prices the account and includes a fixed handful of numbers however many people share them. Quo's figures were read from quo.com on September 16, 2026, Grasshopper's from grasshopper.com on September 9, 2026. Grasshopper also bills monthly, but its monthly plan rates were not readable on its page, so we state only its annual figures.
| Plan | Published rate | Billing basis | Numbers and users included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quo Starter | $15 per user | $180 per user per year, or $19 billed monthly | 1 local or toll-free number per user; shared numbers up to 10 users |
| Quo Business | $23 per user | $276 per user per year, or $33 billed monthly | 1 number per user; shared numbers for unlimited users |
| Quo Scale | $35 per user | $420 per user per year, or $47 billed monthly | 1 number per user; shared numbers for unlimited users |
| Grasshopper True Solo | $14 per account | Flat, $168 per year billed annually | 1 user, 1 phone number, 1 extension |
| Grasshopper Solo Plus | $25 per account | Flat, $300 per year billed annually | Unlimited users, 1 phone number, 3 extensions |
| Grasshopper Small Business | $55 per account | Flat, $660 per year billed annually | Unlimited users, 4 phone numbers, unlimited extensions |
Swipe sideways for the full table
Quo rates, included numbers and the shared number cap read from its own pricing page and plan matrix on September 16, 2026 · Additional Quo numbers $5 per month each · Grasshopper rates, users, numbers and extensions read from its own pricing table on September 9, 2026 · Additional Grasshopper numbers $9 per month each, additional Solo Plus extensions $3 per month each · Grasshopper offers monthly billing, but its monthly plan rates were not readable on its page and we do not invent them
What OpenPhone and Grasshopper cost at five real headcounts, with and without a number per person
The middle two columns take each vendor's cheapest plan that fits the headcount. The last column prices Grasshopper up to the same number of phone numbers Quo includes by default, at Grasshopper's published $9 per additional number. It moves the crossover: with numbers matched, Quo is the cheaper bill for two people and Grasshopper wins from three.
| Team size | Quo Starter, billed annually | Cheapest Grasshopper plan | Grasshopper with one number per person |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 person | $15 | True Solo, $14 | $14, one number is already included |
| 2 people | $30 | Solo Plus, $25 | $34, one included plus 1 extra at $9 |
| 3 people | $45 | Solo Plus, $25 | $43, one included plus 2 extra at $9 |
| 5 people | $75 | Small Business, $55 | $64, four included plus 1 extra at $9 |
| 10 people | $150 | Small Business, $55 | $109, four included plus 6 extra at $9 |
Swipe sideways for the full table
Arithmetic from both vendors' published rates · Quo Starter at $19 per user billed monthly makes every Quo figure about 27 percent higher · Quo Business, the cheapest Quo plan with a phone menu, is $23 per user, so five people with a menu cost $115 annually · Solo Plus caps at 3 extensions, so 4 or more people needing extensions move to Small Business · Messaging registration fees excluded from both sides
What actually separates OpenPhone and Grasshopper once both rate cards are open
A dollar apart for one person, then Grasshopper pulls away
For a solo owner these two are almost the same price and the comparison is about shape, not money. Grasshopper True Solo is $14 a month billed annually, one user, one number, one extension. Quo Starter is $15 per user billed annually, one number, and the Quo app is the better piece of software by most accounts. The gap opens at the second person. Grasshopper Solo Plus at $25 covers unlimited users sharing one number, so two, three or eight people pay $25 together. Quo charges per seat, so two people pay $30, three pay $45 and ten pay $150. Small Business at $55 is Grasshopper's ceiling for any headcount. There is no team size above one at which Quo is the cheaper plan rate, and no Quo tier that changes that. Anyone describing Quo as the budget option is quoting a single seat.
Every Quo user gets a number; Grasshopper's plans include one or four
This is the row that decides most of these purchases before price does. Quo's plan matrix reads "Phone numbers included (per user): 1" on all three tiers, and that number can be local or toll-free at no extra charge. Grasshopper's table reads one phone number on True Solo and Solo Plus and four on Small Business, for the whole account. So Grasshopper's "unlimited users" means unlimited people sharing a small fixed set of published numbers, reachable at extensions behind them. If your staff should each have a direct line customers can call and text, Grasshopper needs additional numbers at $9 a month each, which takes $55 to $64 at five people and $109 at ten. Still cheaper than Quo at $75 and $150. Just no longer three times cheaper. And for exactly two people who each want a number, Quo at $30 beats Grasshopper at $34, the only headcount where the per user vendor wins on numbers.
Both vendors charge exactly $19.50 to register you for texting, which tells you whose fee it is
Grasshopper lists a $19.50 one-time texting registration fee plus $1.50 a month. Quo lists "carrier review and setup fees: $19.50 one-time" plus a messaging fee of $1.50 to $3 a month. The identical $19.50 is not a coincidence. It is the A2P 10DLC brand and campaign registration that The Campaign Registry requires before any US ten-digit number can send business texts, passed straight through. Neither vendor is marking it up, and no US provider can waive it, including us. Where the two differ is the recurring fee: Grasshopper states a flat $1.50 per month charged to the account, Quo publishes a $1.50 to $3 range and does not state on its matrix whether that is per user or per account, so we do not either. Both mark messaging itself as unlimited on every plan, which puts them ahead of the per user caps at RingCentral and Nextiva.
The Quo features most teams are actually shopping for start at $23, not $15
Quo's Starter plan is a very good single line. It is not a phone system. Its own matrix puts phone menus, ring order, call transfers, group calling, advanced call forwarding, analytics and automatic call recording on Business at $23 per user, along with the HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho, Pipedrive, Attio, Clio, Jobber, Gong and HighLevel integrations and the HIPAA ready designation. Starter also caps a shared number at ten paid users and open tasks at ten. So a five person team that wants callers to hear a menu is pricing $115 a month billed annually or $165 monthly, not $75. That is the honest Quo figure to set against Grasshopper Small Business at $55, and it is where the gap becomes large enough to matter.
Grasshopper does not publish where its menu, ring groups or recording sit on the rate card, 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 say which plan carries the auto attendant, whether ring groups exist, or which tier records calls. Its support documentation does confirm that call recording exists, set up automatically per extension for inbound calls, outbound calls or both, so the many comparison pages stating Grasshopper has no recording are wrong; what no Grasshopper page states is the plan it requires. Most pages comparing these two vendors state confident answers to all three questions, and nearly all of those pages are published by a third phone provider with a reason to describe Grasshopper as thin. One widely copied comparison also quotes an "OpenPhone Standard plan at $17", a tier that does not exist on Quo's rate card. We are not repeating a rival's claim about a rival as though it were a fact. If a menu, ring groups or the recording tier decide your purchase, ask Grasshopper directly during its seven day trial, which requires no card, and get the answer in writing before you commit to an annual term. Quo, by contrast, publishes the answer on its rate card: manual recording on Starter, automatic on Business and Scale.
Quo bundles an AI agent on every plan, and the tenth call is where the meter starts
Quo's pricing page now marks its Sona AI agent as included on Starter, Business and Scale, with 1,000 automation credits a month on every plan. Its own footnote converts that to ten calls, so the free allowance is an AI receptionist that handles ten calls a month. After that you either pay overage at $1.00 per call or buy a credit tier: $25 for 4,000 credits (40 calls, about 63 cents each), $49 for 100 calls, $99 for 250, or $199 for 600 calls at 33 cents each, with per call overage stepping down from $1.00 to $0.45 as the tier rises. The pattern is one we have flagged at other vendors: the low per call figure is the volume rate, and the entry rate is more than double it. Grasshopper publishes no AI agent on its pricing table at all, so this is a Quo advantage that only matters if you want a machine answering. Phoner does not sell one either.
The annual term is doing different work at each vendor
Quo publishes both columns and the premium for refusing a year is real: Starter is $15 annually against $19 monthly, Business $23 against $33, Scale $35 against $47, a 27, 43 and 34 percent premium respectively. Grasshopper states annual totals of $168, $300 and $660 and says annual billing saves over 20 percent, but its monthly plan rates were not readable on its page. So both ask you to commit for a year to see the advertised figure, and only Quo prints exactly what leaving that commitment costs. For a business that just got out of a legacy contract, a month to month provider, ours included, is worth pricing against both before signing another twelve months.
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, 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 scales with lines on a per user plan and does not on a flat one. A regulatory recovery fee, by contrast, is the carrier's own charge rather than a government tax. Ask both vendors for a quote with fees included before comparing two numbers that were never measuring the same thing.
Who should pick which
Pick OpenPhone or Grasshopper if
Pick Grasshopper if your business publishes one number that a few people answer, nobody needs a direct line of their own, and unlimited texting on a flat fee matters more than recording, integrations or a phone menu you can see on the rate card. It is the cheaper bill from the second person onward. Pick Quo if each person needs their own number, if your team works out of a shared inbox of calls and texts, if you need HubSpot, Salesforce or Clio wired in, or if a HIPAA ready plan matters, because Quo publishes all of that on its Business tier and Grasshopper publishes none of it.
Their list price: Quo (OpenPhone) $15-35/user annually, $19-47 monthly · Grasshopper $14-55 flat per account, billed annually
Pick Phoner if
Pick Phoner if you want a number per person and a real phone menu without buying a $23 middle tier or a flat plan that stops at four numbers: 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 OpenPhone or Grasshopper 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 OpenPhone or Grasshopper 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 · OpenPhone or Grasshopper → Phoner
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Compare OpenPhone or Grasshopper against a specific competitor
This page weighs OpenPhone or Grasshopper against Phoner. If you are choosing between two other vendors instead, these pages put both of their rate cards in one table.
OpenPhone alternatives
Quo's full plan table, the features that sit on Business rather than Starter, the AI credit tiers, and the vendors teams move to.
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.
Grasshopper vs RingCentral
The same flat rate against a per user suite that gives every user a dedicated number, and the texting row that inverts the ranking.
OpenPhone vs Dialpad
Quo against the other per user vendor at $15, where the seat minimum and the recording tier decide it.
Common questions about switching
Is OpenPhone cheaper than Grasshopper?
Only for one person, and by a dollar. Quo Starter is $15 per user billed annually against Grasshopper True Solo at $14 flat. From two people Grasshopper is cheaper: Solo Plus at $25 covers unlimited users sharing one number while Quo charges $15 per seat, so three people cost $25 against $45 and ten cost $55 against $150. Matching one phone number per person on Grasshopper at $9 each narrows the gap to $109 against $150 at ten people.
Is OpenPhone better than Grasshopper?
For a team where each person needs a direct line, a shared inbox of calls and texts, CRM integrations or automatic call recording, yes: Quo publishes all of those on its Business plan at $23 per user, and Grasshopper publishes none of them on its rate card. For two to ten people who share one published number and hand calls around, Grasshopper is the better fit and the cheaper bill by a wide margin, and it does record calls, though its rate card does not say on which plan.
What happened to OpenPhone?
OpenPhone rebranded to Quo in September 2025. The product, plans and prices carried over: Starter $15, Business $23 and Scale $35 per user per month billed annually, or $19, $33 and $47 billed monthly, read from quo.com on September 16, 2026. Most people still search for it under the old name, and the openphone.com pricing page now redirects to quo.com.
Does Grasshopper charge per user?
No. Grasshopper prices the account rather than the person. True Solo at $14 covers one user, 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 numbers are $9 per month each on every plan.
Does OpenPhone have an auto attendant?
Yes, but not on the entry plan. Quo's own plan matrix places phone menus on Business at $23 per user billed annually ($33 monthly) and on Scale, not on Starter at $15. Ring order, call transfers, group calling and automatic call recording sit on the same tier. So the cheapest Quo plan that greets callers with a menu is $23 per user, which for five people is $115 a month.
Does Grasshopper have call recording?
Yes. Grasshopper's support documentation describes automatic call recording that you switch on per extension for inbound calls, outbound calls or both, with a recommended announcement to callers. What Grasshopper does not publish anywhere is which plan it requires, so confirm that in writing during the seven day trial. Quo publishes the tier on its rate card: manual recording on Starter, automatic on Business and Scale.
How much does OpenPhone cost for a team of 5?
Five people on Quo Starter cost $75 a month billed annually or $95 billed monthly, each with their own local or toll-free number. On Business, the cheapest plan with phone menus, call transfers, automatic recording and the HubSpot and Salesforce integrations, five people cost $115 annually or $165 monthly. Grasshopper Small Business covers the same five for $55 flat, with four numbers included.
Does OpenPhone or Grasshopper include unlimited texting?
Both do, and both charge the same $19.50 one-time carrier registration fee, which is the A2P 10DLC pass-through every US provider must collect. Grasshopper adds a flat $1.50 per month for the account. Quo publishes a messaging fee of $1.50 to $3 per month without stating the unit. Neither caps message counts by plan, which puts both ahead of the per user allowances at RingCentral and Nextiva.
What is a good alternative to both OpenPhone and Grasshopper?
It depends which compromise you want to avoid. Phoner at $15 to $29 per user billed yearly ($19 to $35 monthly) gives each person a number and puts a visual IVR menu, ring groups, texting with no plan cap and recording with consent announcements on the $29 Team plan, month to month with no seat minimum. Dialpad is worth pricing if a HIPAA business associate agreement matters, since it carries one on every tier. Google Voice suits a solo owner already paying for Workspace.
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