If you’re paying for RingCentral right now, I need you to do something. Pull up your latest invoice. Look at the total. Now ask yourself: do you actually know what you’re paying for?
Because there’s a very good chance you’re overpaying — and I mean significantly overpaying — for your business phone system. And if you’ve ever tried to leave RingCentral or even just reduce your number of licenses, you already know exactly what I’m talking about.
I’ve been deploying voice over IP systems for businesses through Crosstalk Solutions for over a decade now. RingCentral is one of our competitors, and I want to be upfront about that. You might say, “Well of course you’re going to bash RingCentral — it benefits your business.” And yeah, you know what? It does. But that doesn’t make any of what I’m about to show you less true. The numbers are the numbers. And the numbers are ugly.
Let’s talk about it.
The Real Cost of RingCentral: A Case Study
I want to tell you about a company I’ll call “Mom and Pop Engineering.” This is a real business — a medium-sized engineering company — that came to us after years of getting absolutely hammered by RingCentral.
Back in 2020, when COVID hit and everyone scrambled to keep their employees productive from home, Mom and Pop Engineering signed up with RingCentral. At the time, they had about 65 employees. Seemed like a reasonable move, right? Cloud-based phone system, employees can work from anywhere. Makes sense.
Here’s what they didn’t see coming.
$2,200 a Month for Phone Service
When we finally got a look at their bill, they were paying over $2,200 per month for phone services. That covered 65 users, 92 phone numbers (DIDs), and two meeting rooms.
Those two conference rooms alone? $363 per month. For context, you can get two Zoom Rooms for about $66 a month. That’s the kind of markup we’re talking about here.
The Contract Trap
Now here’s where it gets really bad. COVID forced Mom and Pop Engineering to downsize. They went from 65 employees down to 24. Their actual phone usage dropped to about 1,000 minutes per month. They didn’t need 65 licenses anymore.
So they called RingCentral to reduce their licenses. Seems reasonable, right? You’re only using 24 seats, why pay for 65?
RingCentral said no.
They were locked into an annual contract. They couldn’t reduce the number of licenses until the contract term was up. So this company was paying for 65 users when only 24 people were actually picking up the phone.
But wait — it gets worse. When they eventually tried to cancel altogether and move to a different provider, they discovered they weren’t just in an annual contract. They were in a three-year contract. And to get out of it? They had to pay a cancellation fee of over $27,000.
Let that sink in. Twenty-seven thousand dollars just to leave.
The Hidden Fee You Didn’t Know About
On top of all of that, buried in their monthly bill was something called a “Compliance and Administrative Cost Recovery Fee.” This little line item was costing them $256 per month. What does it cover? According to RingCentral, it helps offset costs related to their data centers, patents, and accounting.
In my opinion, those are just normal business expenses. That’s the cost of doing business. You don’t get to charge your customers a separate fee to cover your own overhead and then pretend it’s not part of the price. But that’s exactly what RingCentral does. They keep it off the advertised price so it looks cheaper than it really is, and then they hit you with it on the bill.
What Should They Actually Be Paying?
We priced out the exact same setup through Crosstalk Cloud PBX. Same number of users, same phone numbers, same functionality. The monthly cost? About $300 per month. That’s compared to $2,200. The migration cost was roughly $1,350 upfront, which means the entire switch paid for itself in about two months.
Two months. And then they’re saving nearly $1,900 every single month after that.
I go through this entire case study in detail in this video:
What You Should Actually Be Paying for a Business Phone System
All right, so let me break down how Crosstalk Cloud PBX pricing actually works, because I think transparency matters. In fact, we built a public online calculator specifically so you can see the real numbers before you ever talk to us. No sales call required. No “request a quote” nonsense. Just real pricing.
Here’s the deal. Crosstalk Cloud PBX, powered by ClearlyIP, is designed for 2 to 20 seat businesses that just want a working phone system with all the normal features — ring groups, call queues, auto attendant, music on hold, call recording, call detail records, a web-based Call Panel interface, and a softphone app included with every extension — but don’t want to get crushed by the pricing of RingCentral, 8×8, Vonage Business, or any of those other pay-per-extension-per-month providers.
Our pricing is simple:
- $5 per extension per month for the service
- Pay for the minutes you actually use — no inflated bundles
- No contracts. Month to month. Cancel anytime.
- No hidden fees. No “compliance recovery” surcharges.
- You own your phones. Buy them once, they’re yours. Two-year warranty included.
And we don’t just ship you a box of phones and wish you luck. Every Crosstalk Cloud PBX customer gets white-glove onboarding. We do a design consultation with you, configure your entire system, ship your phones pre-configured and ready to go, and walk you through number porting. You plug in the phones and everything works. That’s it.
Side-by-Side: Crosstalk Cloud PBX vs. RingCentral
Let’s run a real comparison. I’m going to use a 12-user setup as the example — a pretty common size for the businesses we work with. And I want to be fair here: for RingCentral, I’m using their $19.99/user/month price, which is their annual commitment rate. If you want month-to-month with RingCentral, it’s another $10 per user per month on top of that. Crosstalk is month-to-month from the start.
| Crosstalk Cloud PBX | RingCentral | |
|---|---|---|
| Upfront Cost (phones + setup + shipping) | $2,409 | $0 (phones rented) |
| Monthly Service | $118.50/mo | $239.88/mo |
| Monthly Phone Cost | $0 (you own them) | $102.94/mo rental |
| Total Monthly | $118.50 | $342.82 |
| Year 1 Total | $3,831 | $4,113.84 |
| Year 5 Cumulative | $9,519 | $20,569.20 |
| Contract Required? | No — month to month | Annual (or pay more) |
| Phone Ownership | You own them outright | Rented forever |
| Hidden Fees | None | “Compliance” surcharges |
| 5-Year Savings | Over $11,000 saved with Crosstalk (55%+ less) | |
Read that bottom line again. Over five years, Crosstalk Cloud PBX costs less than half of what RingCentral charges. And that’s using RingCentral’s discounted annual pricing. If you’re paying month-to-month with them, the gap is even bigger.
And here’s the kicker — with RingCentral, that phone rental never stops. You’re paying $102.94 per month for phones you will never own. Even after those phones are “paid off” many times over, they keep charging you. With Crosstalk, you buy the phones once, they’re yours. If you ever want to take them to a different provider, go for it. They’re your phones.
I walk through this entire comparison using our online calculator in this video:
Why We Built Crosstalk Cloud PBX This Way
I am absolutely sick and tired of seeing businesses get ripped off by the RingCentrals, the Vonages, the 8x8s of the world. That’s why I built Crosstalk Cloud PBX the way I did. Every decision we made was the opposite of what those companies do.
They lock you into multi-year contracts. We don’t do contracts. Period. You stay because the service is good, not because a piece of paper says you have to.
They rent you phones forever. We sell you phones that you own. They come with a two-year warranty, they arrive fully configured, and they’re yours. If you leave us, take them with you.
They bury fees in your bill. We put a calculator on our website. No hidden fees, no surprises. What you see is what you pay, plus taxes — which everyone has to charge. That’s it.
They make it nearly impossible to leave. We make it easy. Because if we’re doing our job, you won’t want to leave. And if we’re not? You shouldn’t be forced to stay.
They charge you for seats you’re not using. We charge $5 per extension per month plus the minutes you actually use. If your business changes, your phone bill changes with it.
In my opinion, this is just how a phone system should work. You shouldn’t need a lawyer to understand your phone bill. You shouldn’t need to negotiate your way out of a contract just to stop paying for services you don’t use. And you definitely shouldn’t be paying $27,000 for the privilege of leaving.
What About Features? Am I Giving Anything Up?
This is usually the next question I get, and it’s a fair one. If Crosstalk is so much cheaper, there must be a catch, right?
Not really. Here’s what’s included with every Crosstalk Cloud PBX system:
- Ring groups and call queues — route calls to the right people
- Auto attendant (IVR) — “Press 1 for sales, press 2 for support”
- Music on hold — because silence is awkward
- Call recording — for training, compliance, or just keeping records
- Call detail records (CDR) — see exactly who called, when, and for how long
- Call Panel — a web-based interface for managing calls from your browser
- ClearlyAnywhere softphone — included with every extension, works on mobile and desktop
- White-glove onboarding — we design, configure, and ship everything ready to go
For the vast majority of 2 to 20 seat businesses, this covers everything you need. And because we handle the full setup for you, you’re not spending hours on the phone with tech support trying to configure ring groups. You tell us how you want your calls to flow, and we build it.
Here’s What I’d Do If I Were You
If you’re currently on RingCentral — or any of the big-name cloud PBX providers — here’s my honest recommendation:
Step 1: Pull up your current phone bill. Look at the total. Look at the line items. See if you can find any “compliance” or “administrative recovery” fees hiding in there. Add it all up — including the phone rentals.
Step 2: Use our free online calculator to price out the same setup through Crosstalk Cloud PBX. It takes about two minutes. No email required. No sales pitch. Just real numbers.
Step 3: Compare. If the savings make sense — and they almost always do — reach out to us for a free bill review. We’ll look at your current setup, show you exactly what the switch would look like, and give you a straight answer on whether Crosstalk Cloud PBX is a good fit for your business.
No pressure. No contracts. No games. Just a better phone system for less money.
Because let’s be honest — the RingCentrals of the world are not on your side. They’re out to get every dollar they can from you, lock you in for as long as possible, and make it painful to leave. That’s their business model.
Ours is the opposite. And I think the numbers speak for themselves.
Comments 1
looking to switch from Office@hand. we are paying $1400 a month.