By Myroslav Orshak · Updated September 2026 · how we test and make money
Grasshopper does something narrow extremely well: it gives a business a real phone number that rings your personal mobile, with a greeting and extensions, for a flat monthly fee rather than a per-user one. For a solo owner that is close to perfect, and if that describes you, changing is a downgrade.
People shop for alternatives when the business stops being one person. Grasshopper forwards calls to phones; it does not run a phone system. Once you have staff who need to transfer a caller to each other, see who is on a call, or work a queue, you have reached the edge of what it was built to do.
If you are a solo owner or a two-person business run from mobile phones, stay. Every alternative below costs more per month and asks you to run something more complicated in exchange for capabilities you would not use. Grasshopper is the right answer for its size of business, and outgrowing it is a milestone rather than a mistake.
Calls arrive on ordinary cell phones, so there is no system holding the call. That means the things a growing team expects aren't available: transferring a caller to a colleague, seeing who is free, or queuing callers when everyone is busy.
A flat account price beats per-user pricing when you are one person. By the time you are five or six people the plans that support that many extensions cost more than a proper phone system charging per user, and you still do not get the phone system.
The model assumes everyone uses a cell phone. A reception desk, a warehouse phone, a lobby handset or a front counter has nowhere to plug in, which is usually what forces the decision in a business with a physical location.
You can see call activity, but not the answered-versus-missed and response-time reporting a team needs once someone is accountable for whether calls get picked up.
Every one of these is ranked in our main comparison. What follows is why each suits somebody leaving Grasshopper specifically — and what you give up by going.
The natural next step for a small office with a front desk
Around $20 per user for a real phone system that a non-technical owner can set up alone, with a virtual receptionist on the base plan and support for desk phones. This is the usual destination when a business gets premises and a reception phone.
What you give up: You move from a flat account price to paying per person, so the bill now grows with the team.
Cheapest per person if the team is already remote
At roughly $10.50 per user it is the least expensive credible phone system, and for a distributed team already meeting on Zoom it adds calling to software everyone has open. Proper transfers, routing and extensions included.
What you give up: It expects people to work from an app on a computer or phone. A business built around desk phones will find Ooma a more comfortable fit.
For a small sales team that lives on the phone
Around $15 per user with live transcription and automatic call summaries on the base plan. If the growth that pushed you off Grasshopper was hiring people to make calls, this hands you the follow-up notes as a side effect.
What you give up: Lighter on traditional administrative controls, and you are paying for AI features a non-sales team will not use.
When you know you will keep growing
Around $20 per user for a platform with the routing depth, reporting and integrations to carry a business well past twenty people, so the next move after this one is a plan change rather than another migration.
What you give up: The most complex option here, on an annual commitment, and considerably more system than a six-person business needs today.
Confirm the business number is portable and start the port while the Grasshopper account is still open. This number is likely on your cards, van and website, so it is the one thing you cannot afford to lose.
Write down every extension and where each currently forwards, because that mapping is the configuration you are rebuilding and it exists nowhere else.
Decide up front who needs a desk phone. That single answer picks your provider more reliably than any feature comparison.
Keep both running for a week. Point the new system at a test number, confirm calls and transfers work, and only then move the published number.
Tell staff that transfers now exist. It sounds trivial, but teams coming off call forwarding habitually hang up and call a colleague instead.
One rule outranks the rest: never cancel before the numbers have moved. Our guide to number porting covers the paperwork that causes most delays.
Tell us what you need and our team will reply with a shortlist that fits. Free, no obligation.
Around three to five people, and the trigger is behavior rather than headcount. When staff routinely need to transfer a caller to each other, or callers get a voicemail because everyone is already on a call, you have outgrown call forwarding and need a phone system.
No, provided you start the port before canceling. Numbers are portable by law, but the request has to happen while the account is open. Cancel first and you can lose it permanently, which for a number printed on a vehicle is an expensive mistake.
Per month, usually yes, because you move from a flat account price to paying per person. What you get is transfers, queues, desk phones and reporting. Below three people that trade is bad value, and above five it usually pays for itself in calls that get answered.
Yes, and better than before. Every alternative here has a mobile app that works like a proper extension. A call can be transferred to a colleague or picked up on a desk phone, instead of simply ringing a personal handset with no way back.