Deeper Dive: Our Top Tested Picks
1-VoIP provides services for both residential and business customers, starting at $8.97 per month. It offers extensive features like softphone compatibility and three-way calling as a result, though some advanced ones like virtual numbers and fax-to-email come at an additional fee. The main factors that determine your cost are where you place calls to and how often. You can opt for limited outgoing calls, unlimited US/Canada calls, or unlimited worldwide calls.
Starting at $8.25 per month (paid annually) for an unlimited calling plan that covers Canada and the US, AXvoice is one of the best values. The service bundles more than 30 features (including enhanced voicemail and simultaneous ring) with its three tiers, the cheapest of which uses a pay-as-you-go model. As with most services, virtual numbers and toll-free numbers cost extra. Unfortunately, it lacks unlimited worldwide calling.
If you have a Google account, you can order a free, second phone number that forwards incoming calls to your existing landline or mobile number. That’s handy for small business owners. Unfortunately, Google Voice doesn’t let you place outgoing calls using landline phones; Google wants you to make calls via its Google Voice website or mobile app, instead. Google Voice also integrates with the company’s other apps, including Google Calendar and Google Meet.
PhonePower divides its home phone service between US/Canada plans and international plans. How much you pay for a North American plan depends on whether you’re willing to prepay for a year, want monthly billing with a two-year term, or prefer no contract at all. The least you will pay is $8.33 per month (billed annually). The international plans offer unlimited global calling, though pricing depends on the number of countries they support. PhonePower isn’t the cheapest home VoIP solution, but it certainly has a wide range of plans.
Best for Unlimited International Calls
Voiply
Voiply hasn’t been around as long as some other providers and doesn’t offer as many advanced features, but it ships your phone adapter to you for free and doesn’t charge any setup fees. Its monthly rate of $8.95 is similar to that of other services, but you get two months free if you opt for an annual payment plan. One really nice feature: Voiply throws in unlimited calling to 50+ countries at no additional charge (most services require you to buy a more expensive plan to avoid per-minute billing for international calls).
VOIPo isn’t the cheapest home phone service unless you’re willing to prepay for a full two years, which drives the price down to $6.21 per month. That said, it offers a robust list of features, including call blocking, online call logs, softphone access, and more. You get 60 international minutes for free each month (upgradable to 1,200 minutes if you’re willing to pay an extra $7.95 per month). Otherwise, international calling will cost extra. Rates are at least lower than with a traditional phone service.
Starting at $9.99 per month, Vonage might just be the most established VoIP player in this roundup. In fact, it has steered more toward the business market of late. Still, it offers a full complement of VoIP features (Caller ID, Call Waiting, and Wi-Fi calling) and excellent customer support. It also provides a mobile softphone app for Android and iOS.
Best Phone Adapters
Ooma (Residential)
Ooma offers residential plans in addition to its popular small business VoIP solution, Ooma Office. The Basic service plan is technically free; you pay only a one-time fee for the hardware, along with applicable monthly taxes and fees (which add up to less than a regular phone bill). To get access to Ooma’s full suite of advanced features, you must pay for a monthly plan that starts at $9.99 per month. Ooma also offers three types of phone adapters: wired, one that works over Wi-Fi, and another that uses LTE.
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Buying Guide: Lose Your Landline: The Best VoIP Home Phone Services for 2025
What Is a Residential VoIP Service?
As mentioned, VoIP services run over the internet. Similar to how music streaming services encode audio to send it to your connected devices, VoIP platforms convert each side of a phone conversation into digital packets and then transmit them over a network. This process enables better call quality than traditional analog phones, along with a variety of advanced software-based features.
Your cable TV or internet service provider (ISP) has likely offered you a home VoIP solution at some point as part of a bundle. However, those services generally have fewer features than independent options because that’s just one part of their business. Dedicated residential VoIP providers tend to offer fairly unrestricted service, often with worldwide calling plans. As for features, you should look for caller ID, call waiting, support for emergency services (sometimes called “E911”), three-way calling, and voicemail at the very least.
Early VoIP systems were primarily for businesses that needed special hardware to connect to the network. But today’s residential VoIP providers typically provide adapters that let you connect to any standard phone. That’s particularly handy if you have a cordless phone system with multiple handsets that you put in various rooms of your house.
These adapters don’t require any intervention on your part. You plug them into your internet router or connect them to your Wi-Fi network, and they find the provider’s network by themselves. Some providers even offer adapters that connect over LTE. Just power them up, connect to your network, and wait for the light to turn green.
How Much Do VoIP Services Cost?
Typically, price is one of the most important reasons people opt for residential VoIP. Yes, almost every regional residential cable company and internet provider offers some sort of “triple play” deal that combines internet, TV, and phone service for a single monthly charge. And a bundle like this also means a technician will hook everything up for you. However, there’s often a massive caveat. In many cases, a package might carry an ultra-low price only for a limited number of months. Be sure to ask a provider about long-term pricing before you commit to it.
The services we detail here are independent and work over any fast internet connection. Pricing is typically more transparent than in a triple-play scenario, though some still obscure the actual amount in one or several ways. For example, they might offer a low-cost or even free basic tier that’s not actually practical. Or they might force you to commit to a one- or two-year contract to get the best rate. Although most residential VoIP services offer unlimited calling, this typically assumes you’re dialing a number within your home country. Calls to other countries might carry additional per-minute charges. The same often goes for VoIP calls to mobile phones.
Most of the services here start at well under $10 per month, though Google Voice is free for personal use.
Advanced Features of Residential VoIP Services
Many home VoIP customers might be content with a dial tone and voicemail box, particularly if their primary concern is getting phone service at a low cost. But to really get the most from a VoIP service, look into its advanced, software-based features. You should find much richer capabilities than with a standard line from the public switched telephone network (PSTN).
Much of a residential VoIP service’s software runs on the provider’s servers, so you don’t need to worry about installing anything. However, most provide a web-based control panel where you can configure the settings.
One example of a software-based VoIP feature is smart call forwarding, which lets you forward your phone number to one or even several other numbers. You might configure them to all ring at once or in a specific order. For example, you might route calls to your home phone first, then your mobile phone, and then your spouse’s mobile phone.
If your service offers an Always Reject List, you can place specific numbers into what’s essentially a blocklist. Your VoIP account will know not to ring your phone when such numbers call.
Virtual phone numbers are another increasingly popular feature. These are additional numbers for your primary VoIP account that you can manage separately. You can even purchase these through different services than your primary VoIP provider. You might use them to set up a virtual extension of your home phone line that’s in another area code.
Voicemail routing can take multiple forms, but it refers to a set of rules you can apply to incoming calls that automatically direct them to voicemail. So, for example, if calls come in with Caller ID blocked, you can route those to voicemail. If you’re not into talking to anyone, you can do the same for all calls.
Do You Need a Softphone for Your Home VoIP?
If you’re willing to install and manage software, a softphone app is another feature that sets VoIP apart from a traditional phone service. Essentially, a softphone is software that uses your device’s microphone, network connection, and speakers to turn it into a phone. They’re nearly ubiquitous in business VoIP systems, and some residential VoIP providers offer them, too.
Such softphones ring whenever your home phone does. When you place calls on them, they register as coming from your home phone number. This is possible on multiple platforms, including Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows.
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If you’re wondering what you get with a softphone that you won’t with a standard phone handset, that depends on the service. Business-class softphones offer various features related to call routing, multi-line conference calling, online meeting collaboration, and more. With a residential VoIP softphone, you most often find detailed call records, video conferencing, a voicemail-to-text converter, and user controls for anyone other than you who uses the service. Others also offer call metering (so you can see how much you’re spending), faxing, and text chat.
Some services, most notably Google Voice, support outgoing calls only by softphone. That’s something to check if you want to keep your traditional landline handsets.
(Credit: Kobus Louw/Getty Images)
Should You Make the Leap to VoIP?
Residential VoIP services generally don’t offer as many features as their business-class counterparts, but they are still overwhelmingly preferable to standard phone lines. They usually cost less and provide more features like intelligent call routing, virtual numbers, and more. In most cases, you can even keep your own phone number through a process called “porting.”
However, landlines are more disaster-resistant: If your house loses power, your landline should keep working because it doesn’t rely on the main power grid. But if your router loses juice, your VoIP phone goes dark, too. This limitation is less of a concern nowadays since most people have a mobile phone to back up their home phone. That phone will keep working in the event of a power outage, which means you can still make emergency calls. If you set up a softphone on your home VoIP account, you can make calls using your home phone number.
When you opt for a VoIP service, you must be aware of E911 requirements. Your VoIP provider needs to register your street address with emergency services so they can respond to the right address when you call. If you move, you need to update your E911 record with your new address since it might not be automatic. And if you use a softphone app from somewhere other than your home, your phone number won’t match your actual location.
One last consideration is your job. If your company allows remote work, it’s worth talking to your IT support person before buying a home VoIP service. If your employer wants to send you a VoIP phone or manage the installation of VoIP service in your home, you can often add a residential deal by simply tacking your home number onto the business phone.
Oliver Rist contributed to this article.
