Softphone: a VoIP softphone app for business on Mac, Windows, iPhone and Android
A softphone is a software phone: an app on your computer or cell phone that places and receives business calls over the internet, with an on-screen keypad instead of a handset. There are two kinds, and the difference decides what you actually pay. A bare SIP softphone such as Zoiper, MicroSIP, Bria, or Linphone is only the dialer, and it will not complete a single call until you point it at a SIP account bought somewhere else or at a PBX you run yourself. A bundled softphone such as Phoner arrives with the business number, the calling, and the routing already attached, so the app is the whole purchase. The Phoner softphone runs on Windows, Mac, iPhone, Android, and any modern browser, and it is on every plan from $15 per user per month.
Almost everybody searching for a softphone is solving one of two completely different problems. Either you already own a phone system and want a better dialer to register against it, or you want a real business phone line on the laptop and cell phone you already carry, and there is no PBX anywhere in the picture. The first problem is a software purchase somewhere between $2.95 and $11.11. The second is a phone service purchase, where the app is the smallest part of what you are buying. This page separates the two, with verified pricing for the SIP clients we do not sell, so you can buy the right one.
ON EVERY PLAN FROM $15/USER/MO, WINDOWS, MAC, iOS, ANDROID, AND BROWSER
01 · Pick your number
02 · Your phone menu
03 · Incoming call
Press a key to answer the menu yourself
Voicemail to text
transcribed · texted to you · 0:42
Call sheet
Today
This number can be yours in about 5 minutes.
Recording consent laws vary by state and country. You are responsible for lawful use.
$15
Per user per month for the softphone plus the business number, unlimited US and Canada calling, and voicemail to text, billed annually, or $19 month to month, with no seat minimum
$2.95
The cheapest bare SIP softphone we could verify, Bria Solo on an annual term, which still cannot place a call until you buy a VoIP account separately
5
Places the Phoner softphone runs: Windows, Mac, iPhone, Android, and any modern browser with nothing at all to install
Non-commercial
The license on the free Zoiper 5 tier, which is the detail most people miss when they download a free softphone to use at work
What a softphone changes about answering a business line
01
The number stops belonging to a device
On a desk phone the number lives in a handset bolted to a desk, and on a cell phone it lives in a SIM that belongs to whoever is holding it. A softphone puts the number in an account instead. The same business line rings the laptop in the office, the browser tab on a borrowed machine, and the phone in somebody's pocket, and it keeps ringing all of them when that person is on vacation and a colleague covers the line.
02
Nobody has to buy hardware to start
Adding a person to a desk phone system means a handset, a network drop to their desk, and somebody to configure both. Adding a person to a softphone means sending them a login. That is the difference between a phone system you plan and a phone system you switch on, and it is why a two-person business can now run the same call handling a fifty-person business runs.
03
Work calls stay separate from personal calls
The most common reason a small team goes looking for a softphone is that customers have started calling somebody's personal cell at nine at night. A softphone gives every person a work identity that has business hours attached to it. Outside those hours the app stops ringing and the caller gets voicemail that somebody reads in the morning, instead of a text message to a private number.
04
The dialer is where the rest of the system shows up
A softphone is not only a keypad. It is the surface where transcribed voicemail, texting, call recording, transfers to a colleague, and the shared team number all appear. That is the part a bare SIP client cannot give you no matter how good the audio is, because those features live in the phone service rather than in the app.
How to set up a softphone for a business phone number
Work out which of the two problems you have
Ask one question: do you already have a SIP account or a PBX? If yes, you want a client, and MicroSIP on Windows or Bria across platforms will serve you for a few dollars. If no, a client is the wrong purchase, because you would then have to go and buy phone service anyway. Everything below assumes the second case, where the number and the app come together.
Pick the number before you pick the app
A softphone is worth nothing without a number behind it. Decide whether the business needs a local number in your area code, a toll-free number for a national audience, or both, and whether you are porting an existing number in. Porting is free and a carrier cannot refuse to release your number over an unpaid balance, but it takes days rather than minutes, so start it early and keep the old line live until it completes.
Install on the two devices that matter, not on everything
Put the softphone on the computer the person works at and the phone they carry, and sign in to both. Calls ring both and can be moved between them mid-conversation. The browser version is worth knowing about for the day somebody is on a machine that is not theirs. Resist configuring five devices per person on day one: it makes ringing noisy and troubleshooting harder.
Set business hours and the 911 address on the first day
These are the two settings people skip and then regret. Business hours decide when the app rings and when the caller gets voicemail, which is the entire reason most teams bought a softphone. The registered address decides where an emergency dispatcher is sent, and because a softphone travels with the laptop, it is your job to keep that address current rather than the network's.
Four things worth knowing before you download a softphone for work
These are the details that decide whether a softphone is a five dollar decision or a compliance problem. Each one is from the primary source rather than from another comparison article, and each is dated so you can check whether it has moved since we read it.
Non-commercial
The free tier of Zoiper 5 is published as being for non-commercial use only. This is the single most common trap for a small business: somebody downloads a well reviewed free softphone, installs it on the office computers, and is now running the company phones on a license that does not cover business use. The paid Zoiper tiers are cheap, at $11.11 for the desktop Premium version, $4.99 on iOS and 7.99 euro on Android, so the fix is inexpensive. It is worth knowing before an audit rather than after one.
$2.95
Bria Solo from CounterPath is $2.95 per month on an annual term, billed as $35.40 a year, and Bria Teams is $4.95 per month on the same basis. Bria Solo registers up to 5 of your own VoIP service or call server accounts on the paid plan. That last clause is the important one and it applies to every bare SIP client: the subscription buys you the software, not the phone service, not a phone number, and not a single minute of calling.
Source: CounterPath Bria pricing
January 6, 2022
This is the date softphone buyers actually need from the RAY BAUM Act, and it is not the one usually quoted. The Act requires a multi-line telephone system to deliver a dispatchable location with a 911 call. For fixed on-premises devices the deadline was January 6, 2021, but for non-fixed and off-premises devices it was January 6, 2022. A softphone on a laptop in somebody's apartment is exactly the off-premises case, which is why keeping each user's registered address current is a real obligation rather than a setup nicety. Kari's Law separately requires that 911 can be dialed directly, with no 9 or other access code first.
83.7%
Of the roughly 53 million business wireline telephone connections in the United States, 83.7 percent are now VoIP rather than traditional switched lines, according to the FCC's own Voice Telephone Services data. The useful way to read that figure is as displacement inside the business market rather than as growth: the softphone question for most US companies is no longer whether to move off a legacy PBX, it is which of the two kinds of softphone in the table above they are actually shopping for.
What each softphone costs, and what it still does not include
Softphone pricing looks absurdly cheap next to phone system pricing, and comparisons rarely explain why. It is because most of these products are only the dialer. The fourth column is the one that decides your real bill.
| Softphone | Platforms | Price | Business number and calling included? | Where this came from |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phoner | Windows, Mac, iPhone, Android, browser | $15 per user per month billed yearly, $19 month to month, no seat minimum | Yes. A local number, unlimited US and Canada calling, voicemail to text, and business hours are on the same $15 plan | Our own pricing page. The phone menu, ring groups, shared numbers, texting, and recording sit on Team at $29. |
| Zoiper 5 | Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android | Free tier is licensed for non-commercial use only. Premium desktop is $11.11, the iOS app is $4.99, the Android app is 7.99 euro | No. You supply the SIP account | Zoiper download page, read August 20, 2026. |
| Bria Solo | Desktop and mobile | $2.95 per month on an annual term, billed as $35.40 a year | No. It registers up to 5 of your own VoIP service or call server accounts | CounterPath pricing page, read August 20, 2026. |
| Bria Teams | Desktop and mobile | $4.95 per month on an annual term | No. Same model, you bring the service | CounterPath pricing page, read August 20, 2026. |
| MicroSIP | Windows only | Free download | No. It is built to register against FreePBX and other SIP infrastructure you run | microsip.org, read August 20, 2026. |
| Linphone | Desktop and mobile | Open source, also sold under a proprietary license | No. You supply the SIP account or run the server yourself | linphone.org, read August 20, 2026. |
Swipe sideways for the full table
Read the fourth column before the third. Every product under Phoner in this table is genuinely inexpensive and genuinely unable to place a call on its own, because the phone service is a separate purchase. If you are pricing a softphone against a phone system, you are not comparing two versions of the same thing.
Softphone, desk phone, and cell phone compared for a business line
Most teams end up running two of these three at once. This is what actually differs once the number is the same on all of them.
| Softphone on a computer | SIP desk phone | A personal cell phone | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost to add one more person | A seat on the plan and nothing physical | A seat plus the handset and a network drop to that desk | Nothing, until you need the call to reach anybody else |
| What happens when they move desks | Nothing at all, the app follows the laptop | The phone moves and the registered 911 address has to move with it | Nothing |
| Audio quality depends on | Wi-Fi or ethernet, the headset, and whatever else is saturating the network | Wired ethernet, which is the honest reason desk phones still sound better | Cell coverage wherever the person happens to be standing |
| What shows on the customer caller ID | The business number | The business number | The business number if the call is dialed in the app, the personal number if it is dialed from the native keypad |
| Who keeps the number when that person leaves | The business | The business | The business only if the number was never their own line to begin with |
| Emergency calling | The registered address has to be kept current, because the device travels. See the RAY BAUM Act note below | A fixed address at a fixed desk, which is the simplest case | The wireless carrier locates the handset |
Swipe sideways for the full table
None of this makes desk phones obsolete. A wired handset on a wired network is still the most reliable way to hold a two hour call, and standard SIP desk phones work with Phoner for the seats that want one. The point is that the desk phone is now a choice rather than the starting assumption.
When a softphone is the wrong purchase, including when we are
Every page in this category tells you when to buy. This is the section that tells you when not to, including the two cases where the honest answer is that another product fits you better than ours does.
You already run a PBX and only need a better dialer
If you have a working phone system, whether that is FreePBX, a hosted PBX, or an on-premises switch, and the only thing you want is a nicer client for it, do not buy a phone service to get one. MicroSIP is free and reliable on Windows, Bria is a few dollars a month across platforms, and both will register against what you already have. Phoner does not sell SIP trunks and will not feed a PBX you plan to keep. We replace that box rather than connect to it, so if the box is staying, we are the wrong vendor and a trunk provider is the right one.
You want to mix and match the app and the service
Phoner is sold as the phone service and the apps together. You cannot point the Phoner app at another provider's SIP account, and you cannot point Zoiper or Bria at a Phoner account. If keeping the client and the carrier independent matters to you, and for some IT teams it genuinely does, buy a SIP trunk and a standalone client instead. That is a legitimate architecture and this page is not going to pretend otherwise.
You want video meetings from the same app
Phoner does not offer video conferencing at any tier, by design. It is a phone system rather than a communications suite. If you want calls and meetings from one vendor and one bill, RingCentral, Zoom, Dialpad and Phone.com all bundle video, and Phone.com includes it from its $15 entry plan. That is a genuine point against us and it is worth weighing before you switch anything.
The network is part of the product and it is not the part we control
A softphone is only ever as good as the connection under it and the headset on top of it. Congested Wi-Fi, an old access point, or a laptop with fifty browser tabs will produce choppy audio no matter whose app is running, and a wired desk phone on the same network will sound better. Budget for a decent USB headset per person, put the access point where the people are, and if a specific desk holds long calls all day, put a wire in it.
Who runs the business line from a softphone
Remote teams
The clearest case for a softphone, because there is no office to put a desk phone in. Everyone works from the laptop they already have, one published number reaches whoever is on shift, and nobody has to publish a personal cell number to do their job.
Phone system for remote teamsSmall business
Two to ten people, one published number, and no appetite for a hardware project. The softphone is usually the entire phone system here, with a menu in front of it once more than one kind of call comes in.
Small business phone systemStartups
A phone line that can be switched on this afternoon and resized next quarter without a contract. Founders answering sales calls from a laptop is the normal starting shape, and it scales without anything being thrown away.
Phone system for startupsReal estate
Agents live in the car and on the laptop, and a softphone is what keeps listing calls coming to the business identity instead of to a personal cell that follows them to their next brokerage.
Phone system for real estate agentsLaw firms
Client calls need to reach the right attorney, be logged properly, and never arrive on a personal number. A softphone on the desktop, with transcribed voicemail, does all three without a handset on every desk.
Phone system for law firmsAccounting firms
Seasonal volume is the problem here. A softphone lets a firm add temporary seats for tax season and drop them in May, which is impossible when every seat is a physical handset.
Phone system for accounting firmsWhere the softphone sits in the rest of the phone system
The softphone is the surface, not the system. What rings it is the number: most teams start with a business phone number in their own area code, and the same app answers a virtual phone number or a toll-free line without any change on the device. If you are bringing an existing line across rather than starting fresh, number porting is free and the old carrier cannot hold your number hostage over a balance.
On the phone in your pocket, the same account is what our business phone app for iPhone and Android runs on, so the desktop and the cell are two views of one line rather than two separate services. Once more than one person answers, the piece that matters is no longer the app but what happens before it rings: a IVR phone menu sorts the caller, and call routing software decides whose softphone actually lights up and where the call goes when nobody picks up.
Teams pricing the whole thing rather than the app should start at VoIP phone service for the service layer, or at the business phone system cost page for what a full year actually comes to.
Softphone questions people actually ask
For a business line, the best softphone for Mac is one that comes with the number and the calling plan, so it works the moment you sign in. Phoner's desktop app runs on macOS with your business number, voicemail to text and unlimited US and Canada calling from $15 per user. Bare SIP clients with macOS versions, such as Zoiper, Bria and Linphone, are only dialers and need a separate VoIP account before they can place a call. MicroSIP is Windows only.
A softphone is a software phone: an application on a computer, tablet, or cell phone that makes and receives calls over the internet instead of over a phone line. It shows an on-screen keypad, a contact list, and call controls like hold and transfer, and it does the job a physical desk phone used to do. The word is short for software phone.
The app registers with a phone service over the internet, usually using SIP, which is the protocol that sets up, holds, and ends the call. Your voice is digitized, split into packets, and sent over your broadband connection to the other party. All of that happens in milliseconds, which is why a softphone on a decent connection sounds like an ordinary phone call.
It depends entirely on which kind you download. A bare SIP client such as Zoiper, MicroSIP, Bria, or Linphone needs a SIP account from a VoIP provider or from a PBX you run, and it cannot place a call without one. A bundled softphone such as Phoner includes the account, the number, and the calling, so there is nothing separate to buy or configure.
Some are, with a catch worth reading. MicroSIP is a free Windows download and Linphone is open source, but both still require phone service you buy elsewhere. The free tier of Zoiper 5 is licensed for non-commercial use only, so it is not a legitimate option for a business. Paid clients start around $2.95 a month for Bria Solo, and a bundled softphone with the number and calling included starts at $15 per user per month.
A hardphone is a physical desk telephone and a softphone is an app doing the same job on hardware you already own. The practical differences are cost, mobility, and audio: a softphone adds a person for the price of a login and travels with the laptop, while a hardphone on wired ethernet is more reliable for long calls and never needs its address updated because it does not move.
Yes. The Phoner softphone runs on Windows, Mac, iPhone, Android, and any modern browser, and the same account signs in everywhere. Among the SIP clients, Zoiper covers Windows, Mac, and Linux, Bria covers desktop and mobile, and MicroSIP is Windows only, which is worth knowing if any of your team is on a Mac.
For a business with no existing PBX, the best softphone is the one that arrives with the phone number and the calling attached, because a standalone client leaves you still needing to buy phone service. For a business that already runs a PBX, the best softphone is the cheapest reliable client for your platform, which is usually MicroSIP on Windows or Bria if you have Macs and phones to cover too.
Yes, but that is a feature of the phone service rather than of the app. On Phoner, shared numbers and team ring groups are on the Team plan at $29 per user per month, which is what lets one published number ring several people's softphones at once. A bare SIP client cannot do this on its own, no matter how many devices you install it on.
Not strictly, but get one anyway. A laptop's built-in microphone picks up the room, and the difference a $40 USB headset makes to how you sound is larger than the difference between any two softphone apps. If a seat is on calls all day, a wired headset on a wired network connection is the setup that stops sounding like a computer.
Yes, and there is an obligation attached that desk phones do not carry in the same way. Because a softphone travels with the laptop, the address registered on the account is what an emergency dispatcher receives, so it has to be kept current when people move. Under the RAY BAUM Act the dispatchable location requirement reached non-fixed and off-premises devices on January 6, 2022, and Kari's Law requires that 911 can be dialed directly without pressing 9 first.
A single call needs roughly 100 kbps in each direction, so bandwidth is almost never the problem on a modern connection. What actually causes bad softphone audio is jitter and packet loss from a congested network or a weak Wi-Fi signal, which is why a call can break up on a connection that runs a video stream perfectly well.
Yes. Porting an existing number to a softphone service is free and the FCC does not allow a carrier to refuse to release a number because of an unpaid balance. The process takes a few business days rather than minutes, so keep the old service active until the port completes, and start it before you cancel anything.
Keep reading
AP-10
Business phone app for iPhone and Android
The same account on the phone in your pocket, with work and personal kept apart.
Business phone appVS-01
VoIP phone service
The service layer underneath the app, compared on what it actually costs.
VoIP phone serviceBN-01
Business phone number
Getting the number the softphone answers, local or toll-free.
Business phone numberRT-01
Call routing software
What decides whose softphone rings, and where the call goes when nobody answers.
Call routing softwareSP-01 Softphone · Your line is open
Get a business softphone with the number already in it
Windows, Mac, iPhone, Android, and the browser, with a local number, unlimited US and Canada calling, and voicemail to text on the $15 plan. Month to month, no seat minimum, and nothing to buy separately to make the first call.
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