Grasshopper Review

Why Grasshopper Is The Best Virtual Phone System

Grasshopper’s commitment to simplicity and affordability, alongside a small assortment of great features, make it the best virtual phone system for small businesses. We like how Grasshopper provides the same core features with every phone plan instead of spreading them across entry-level, middle-tier and enterprise-level offerings. That includes unlimited minutes, mobile and desktop apps, call forwarding, virtual faxing, voicemail, extensions, simultaneous call handling and business texting — everything a new or small business needs to project a professional image over the phone. 

We also appreciate the consistent 24/7 customer support hours across all subscription levels. The platform is no more difficult to operate than an iPhone or Android phone and offers a similar look and feel for calls and texting. You can select between a toll-free number, vanity number or local number to best suit your needs. You can also add new numbers down the line if your needs change. Starting at $14 per month, it’s among the three most affordable business phone systems we’ve reviewed. With unlimited users included with most service plans, Grasshopper’s value proposition grows with every additional user account you essentially get for free.

Other features that make Grasshopper a standout virtual phone system include instant response. This is a great feature for business owners who worry they’re losing customers if they’re too busy to answer a call. With instant response, you can text new callers automatically to provide important information about your business or let them know you’ll be ready to serve them as soon as possible. Purchasing and setting up Grasshopper is a quick and easy process, especially if you’re selecting a new phone number instead of porting an old number from your previous carrier (the former is more common for new and small businesses).

Making calls and sending texts on the Grasshopper mobile app feels natural and easy thanks to the intuitive design. Source: Grasshopper

Usability

If you’re comfortable operating your existing smartphone, you shouldn’t have any issues adopting Grasshopper. You can access your business phone account and platform settings through the desktop app, mobile app and web browser. However, the apps are where you’ll be able to access the dialer and messages to make calls and send texts. While you can use Grasshopper from a computer, we think the mobile app offers a much better user experience once you’ve moved past the setup process. 

Grasshopper piggybacks off your phone’s cellular network for voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) calls, texts and messages, but it also works with Wi-Fi to support communications if your cell service becomes shoddy. Using Grasshopper feels like using your normal phone. For most people, the only major difference is what is displayed on the caller ID to help you distinguish between personal and business calls. With Grasshopper, you can decide if you want to see your business number populate the caller ID to let you know you’re receiving a business call or you can set the caller ID to show the caller’s phone number instead.

Customizing your phone system with new add-on features, extensions, phone numbers, menu options, business hours and voicemail greetings is easy to accomplish with a few clicks from within the app or web browser. If you need help figuring out how to use or adjust any features, the desktop app includes a small resource center with tips, tricks, frequently asked questions (FAQs) and webinars addressing common issues. While a few AI-productivity features like note-taking would make the platform even easier to use, we still appreciate how Grasshopper has remained a simple system to use, especially for those new to business phone systems.

Grasshopper Features

All Grasshopper plans come with the same core phone features and customer support. With a virtual phone system from Grasshopper, you get everything from a basic auto attendant menu and call forwarding to business texting and voicemail transcription. While Grasshopper’s phone features are relatively common, the simple platform includes a few nice features for small and new businesses.

Mobile App

Available on both iOS and Android devices, the Grasshopper mobile app allows you to make and receive calls from your business line on nearly any device. Unlike other virtual services, when you make a call using the Grasshopper app, your business line number shows up on the caller ID of the person you are calling. During setup, you can choose whether you want to see your business number or the incoming caller’s number displayed, helping you distinguish between personal and professional calls when using the same device for both.

Instant Response

This automatic texting feature can respond to new customers immediately via text when you miss a call, helping to ensure you don’t lose prospects to competitors because you’re speaking with someone else. Even in the early days of your business when calls might be fewer and further between, this feature ensures quick communication with anyone who reaches out to you. Responses are easy to customize from within the Grasshopper app with your key branding elements, including images, custom text and hyperlinks.

Instant response is easy to set up and change from the mobile app. Source: Grasshopper

Reporting

Grasshopper provides simple but effective reporting tools with all of its virtual phone plans. Although reporting is more commonly a focus among larger businesses or those with big customer service or sales teams, we still appreciate that Grasshopper includes these tools at no extra cost alongside its basic features. This is another reason why, when your business starts to grow, you might be grateful to have Grasshopper in your software stack.

Administrators and users can use Grasshopper to uncover insights into historical data with custom reporting tools to provide an overview of calls by type, including voicemails, hang-ups and faxes. You can also dive into minutes used and average call length with sorting options for specific phone numbers, extensions, time zones and dates. Reports are stored for up to 90 days and are available to download as comma-separated values files from the Grasshopper app.

Reports are easy to run, read and download from within the Grasshopper application. Source: Grasshopper

Call Blasting

This paid add-on is designed to reduce wait times and increase customer satisfaction. It lets you assign up to 15 phone numbers for simultaneous ringing. It’s an ideal tool to implement in small businesses when demand and incoming calls skyrocket for short periods of time. You can toggle the add-on from within the app and adjust your settings on the fly to use this feature effectively when you need it.

Grasshopper Cloud Phone Costs

Unlike most business phone service providers that separate plans into tiers according to the number or types of features included, Grasshopper’s pricing is largely tied to how many phone numbers and extensions you plan to purchase. Additional phone numbers cost $9 per month, regardless of the plan. Additional extensions cost $3 per month for True Solo and Solo Plus subscribers.

Other potential fees include business texting, which requires a $19 one-time fee plus $1.50 per month. For $75, Grasshopper will provide a professionally recorded greeting of up to 250 words for your phone system. You can also hire a live United States-based receptionist with the Ruby add-on starting at about $160 per month for up to 50 receptionist minutes. Although this figure may seem high, it’s still less than you’d pay an in-house receptionist, making it a cost-saving approach to manning your small business’s phones.

Grasshopper Setup

The lack of complex routing options and software integrations means the setup process for virtual phone systems like Grasshopper is very easy. Once you select a phone number and log in with your credentials, the system’s onboarding assistant walks you through the process with a short series of basic questions. For most people, the longest part of the setup process is likely recording a satisfactory greeting. 

Grasshopper’s setup wizard walks you through the onboarding process with helpful instructions. Source: Grasshopper

Unless you’re waiting for your previous carrier to release an existing phone number, the entire setup process only takes a few minutes to complete from the time you make your purchase or sign up for a demo account. If you are porting a number, you may have to wait anywhere from a few business days to a couple of weeks to start using your existing business number with Grasshopper. That said, as you get your business off the ground, you’re likely starting with a brand new number rather than one you already have, so you might not face this issue.

Grasshopper Customer Service

We love that all Grasshopper plans have the same level of customer support. That includes 24/7 availability through phone, email, chat, Facebook and X (formerly Twitter). We contacted the company numerous times, posing as a new business owner. Each time we reached out, our calls were immediately taken by representatives who provided clear and detailed answers to all our questions. The reps never tried to pressure us into signing up for the service. 

Grasshopper also offers on-demand training covering everything from creating new extensions and configuring user permissions to registering your brand to comply with U.S. and Canadian business texting regulations. 

You’ll find links to on-demand training courses from your Grasshopper app. Source: Grasshopper

Grasshopper’s parent company, GoTo Technologies USA, Inc. (formerly LogMeIn Inc.), is an accredited member of the Better Business Bureau with an A+ rating. Over the past three years, 73 complaints have been filed against the company. However, not all of those complaints were related to the Grasshopper service.

Grasshopper Drawbacks

One downside to Grasshopper is that it doesn’t offer some features and tools that other virtual services do, such as call recording and integrations with programs like Microsoft Office. On the other hand, many other virtual systems don’t offer a powerful mobile app that allows you to make calls from your business line on your smartphone.

Even though Grasshopper doesn’t directly integrate with other platforms, it’s still possible to facilitate call-tracking with top customer relationship management software and Zapier using tagged phone numbers and other workarounds. Additionally, early in your business’s existence, you might be using just a handful of software platforms, making integrations much less important (though still nice to have).

Another potential negative is that Grasshopper only offers a virtual system. If your business were to outgrow a service like this and need a more robust business phone system, you would have to find a new provider. Check out our RingEX review or Aircall review for more comprehensive business phone systems. 

Methodology

In searching for the top business phone systems, we investigated more than a dozen platforms. We researched and analyzed each offering, participated in demos whenever possible and tried free and paid plans. We evaluated each solution based on its tools and features, pricing, limitations, ease of use, setup process and customer service options. We selected Grasshopper as the best virtual phone system for the flexibility it offers on top of great customer support and unlimited users with most plans.

Overall Value

We recommend Grasshopper for …

• Anyone shopping for a virtual phone system.
• First-time business owners.
• Any business looking for a basic, low-cost phone system.

We don’t recommend Grasshopper for …

• Businesses shopping for an advanced unified communications platform.
• Businesses that want to integrate their phone system with their other software applications. 
• Businesses looking for AI-powered productivity tools to improve communications.