RingCentral vs 8x8: Business Phone Comparison

When we speak to business owners, many are moving to a cloud phone system for the first time because of this, so it's worth knowing that both RingCentral and 8x8 depend on your broadband. If your connection is shaky, fix that first with our business broadband comparison.

This guide compares RingCentral and 8x8 on plans, pricing, call minutes, integrations, contracts and customer reviews, so you can work out which one fits how your business works.

RingCentral vs 8x8: At a Glance

*RingCentral UK prices as reported by ExpertSure, verified August 2026. Check the live figure for your user count before you rely on it.

**8x8 withdrew public pricing in late 2023. These are historic US list prices, shown for context only, not a UK quote.

RingCentral lets you compare tiers and see a monthly cost in minutes. 8x8 makes you start a sales conversation, which suits larger businesses that expect to negotiate but slows things down for a five-person team that just wants a number.

What Do You Actually Get on Each Plan?

It's easy to assume that every cloud phone plan now comes with unlimited UK calling. In practice, that isn't true of RingCentral's UK range. RingCentral's four UK plans include outbound minute allowances rather than unlimited calls: 100 minutes per user on Essentials, 750 on Standard, 2,000 on Premium and 4,000 on Ultimate. For most office-based users, 750 minutes a month is plenty. For a sales team making outbound calls all day, it's worth checking your current call logs before you choose a tier.

8x8 works the other way round. Its X2 plan has included unlimited voice calls to 14 countries, while X4 extends unlimited calling to 48 countries and adds a receptionist console, supervisor analytics and call monitoring tools such as whisper and barge. 8x8's own UK page says its plans include unlimited calls to standard landline and mobile numbers in each covered country, subject to a fair-use policy, while calls to premium-rate, special services and out-of-zone numbers are charged at 8x8's rates.

Some third-party guides claim 8x8's unlimited calling excludes mobiles. When we checked 8x8's UK page, it said the opposite for standard-rate mobile numbers. This is exactly the kind of detail to confirm in writing when you get a quote.

The result is that RingCentral is easier to price but meters calls, while 8x8 is harder to price but tends to include more calling, especially internationally.

Matched-Tier Comparison: Standard vs X2

These are the closest like-for-like plans for a small business that needs a proper phone system with video and messaging, but not contact centre tools.

*Historic US list price; 8x8 no longer publishes UK or US prices.

At this level, the two are closer than their pricing pages suggest. RingCentral gives you a confirmed price and a minute cap. 8x8 gives you uncapped calling to more countries but no price until you ask. In our experience, if nobody in your business calls abroad, RingCentral's minute allowance rarely becomes a problem.

What is RingCentral Best For?

RingCentral is built for businesses that want to see exactly what they're paying before they commit, start on a modest plan and bolt on more tools as the team grows. It combines calls, video meetings, team messaging and fax in one app, and its UK plans run from £12.99 to £29.99 per user per month on annual billing.

Key Features of RingCentral

• Four published UK tiers, Essentials, Standard, Premium and Ultimate, so you can compare costs before a sales call

• A marketplace of more than 500 integrations, including Microsoft 365, Google Workspace and Slack from Standard, and Salesforce, HubSpot and Zendesk from Premium

• AI tools across all plans, including live call notes, meeting summaries and natural-language search across messages and files

• Video meetings from the Standard plan, with up to 100 participants, rising to 200 on Premium and Ultimate

• 24/7 phone, email and chat support on every plan, and free implementation help for teams of two or more users

• A UK legal entity based in Ealing, London, with SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certifications

• A free trial, limited to 5 users and 2 desk phones, with 50 outbound minutes per user

Trade-Offs to Consider

• The Essentials plan leaves out video meetings, internet fax, voicemail-to-email, multi-level IVR, call recording and all third-party integrations, so most businesses will realistically start on Standard

• Calls are capped by minute bundles rather than unlimited, which matters for outbound-heavy teams

• Unlimited EMEA calling is available as an add-on from Standard, but only for accounts with 20 or more users

• CRM integrations such as Salesforce and HubSpot, plus supervisor coaching tools, are held back until Premium

• Monthly billing costs up to 38% more than paying annually, so the headline prices assume a 12-month commitment

• Extra tools cost extra: the RingSense conversation intelligence add-on is £48 per user, and the Call Queues Booster is £28 a month

RingCentral works well if you want transparent pricing and a system that plugs into the software you already use, but you'll pay for the features that make it stand out, and the entry plan is too basic for most businesses.

If you're weighing RingCentral against other hosted systems, our guide to the best modern business phone systems is a useful resource.

What is 8x8 Best For?

8x8 is built for businesses that make regular international calls, or that want office phones and a customer service queue on one platform. Its UK site presents unified communications (8x8 Work), contact centre, customer engagement and communications APIs as products you mix and match into a custom plan, with every option routed to "Request a Quote".

Key Features of 8x8

• Unlimited calling to 14 countries on X2 and 48 countries on X4, which can remove per-minute international charges entirely for some businesses

• Supervisor analytics, a front desk console for receptionists, and monitor, whisper and barge tools on X4

• Contact centre capabilities on the same platform, rather than as a separate product, so you can run an office phone system and a support queue under one contract

• A 99.999% uptime commitment across both its unified communications and contact centre services, with more than 25 carrier partners for coverage and redundancy

• A UK presence that includes a public sector listing on the government's G-Cloud framework, and UK company Sipsynergy listed among the 8x8 companies

• Also available through UK resellers and partners, which some businesses prefer for local support

Trade-Offs to Consider

• 8x8 doesn't publish a starting price that applies to every new customer, and older X-series prices quoted around the web should be treated as historical context rather than a budget

• Buyers report sales cycles of two to three weeks just to get a price, and you can't sign up with a card the way you can with some rivals

• Its native integration catalogue is roughly 60 apps, far fewer than RingCentral's Softabase

• Recording storage is 30 days on X2 and 130 days on X4 and above, with longer retention sold as a paid add-on, which matters for regulated firms

• No self-serve free trial comparable to RingCentral's

8x8 works well if international calling or contact centre features are part of the plan from day one, but the quote-only process adds friction that a small, UK-only business may not need.

Is RingCentral or 8x8 Cheaper?

RingCentral Pricing

RingCentral publishes its UK prices, and they're straightforward to check. On annual billing, Essentials costs £12.99 per user per month, Standard £19.99, Premium £24.99 and Ultimate £29.99. Paying monthly raises those to £17.99, £23.99, £28.99 and £33.99 respectively. These figures were verified by ExpertSure in August 2026. RingCentral's own UK pricing page says you can save up to 38% by paying annually and asks you to enter your number of users, which means the price can vary by team size.

For a 10-person team on Standard with annual billing, that works out at about £199.90 a month, or £2,398.80 a year, before add-ons, desk phones or VAT. Moving the same team to Premium, which unlocks Salesforce, HubSpot and supervisor tools, adds £50 a month.

It's worth being careful with RingCentral pricing you find online. Much of what ranks in search is US pricing in dollars, with plans called Core, Advanced and Ultra. The UK uses different plan names, different prices and minute bundles rather than unlimited US calling.

8x8 Pricing

8x8 is harder to price. It stopped publishing prices in late 2023 and moved to a sales-led approach. The last public figures were in US dollars: X2 at $24 per user per month on annual billing ($28 month-to-month), and X4 at $44 per user per month on annual billing ($57 month-to-month). A UK price comparison site listed sterling figures of around £22 for X2 and £32 for X4 as of March 2025, but we couldn't confirm these against anything 8x8 currently publishes.

For larger teams, there's usually room to negotiate. Buyer data from Vendr suggests discounts of 20% to 35% off list are common for multi-year deals or deployments above 250 users. A 10-person business shouldn't expect that kind of leverage.

In practice, RingCentral is easier to budget for and likely to be cheaper for a small UK-only team on Standard. 8x8 can work out better value where unlimited international calling replaces a large per-minute bill, but you'll only know once you have a quote in writing.

RingCentral vs 8x8: Pros and Cons

Contracts, Integrations and Customer Service

Contract Length and Billing

RingCentral offers monthly and annual billing, but the headline prices assume annual commitment. Before signing, check whether a monthly plan still carries a minimum term, since some RingCentral customers on Trustpilot report confusion about this at cancellation. 8x8 contracts are set in your quote, so ask directly about term length, early termination fees and how easy it is to reduce user numbers mid-contract.

Integrations

This is RingCentral's clearest advantage. If your team lives in Salesforce, HubSpot or Zendesk, RingCentral's Premium plan connects to all of them, and its wider marketplace covers most mainstream business software. 8x8 integrates with the major platforms too, including Microsoft Teams and Salesforce, but the catalogue is smaller, so check any niche tools you rely on before committing.

International Calling

If your business calls customers or suppliers abroad every week, 8x8's inclusive international calling can outweigh everything else in this comparison. RingCentral charges per minute outside its bundles unless you qualify for its EMEA add-on. When we speak to business owners with European clients, this single line item is often what decides it.

What Real Businesses Say

When we looked at both providers' Trustpilot pages, the picture depends on which profile you read. RingCentral has two. Its UK profile (ringcentral.co.uk) has held a rating of around 4 out of 5 from roughly 680 reviews the last time we could confirm the figure, with positive reviews often naming individual onboarding and support staff. Its global profile (ringcentral.com), which is dominated by US customers, is much weaker, at 1.8 out of 5 from around 2,000 reviews.

8x8's single global Trustpilot profile shows a TrustScore of 2.9 out of 5 from 619 reviews, as of June 2026, with a sharp split between very positive and very negative experiences. Positive reviews tend to praise call clarity and multi-device use, while negative ones mention difficulty reaching support through a chat-only route, app bugs and integration issues. Cancellation and contract disputes come up in negative reviews for both providers.

It's worth being cautious with these scores. Both global profiles blend in customers from other countries and product lines, and B2B software reviews tend to attract a smaller, more complaint-led sample than consumer services.

Who Should Consider RingCentral?

RingCentral is worth considering for your business phone system if your company:

• Wants to see and compare prices without booking a sales call

• Is a small or growing team that expects to add new users and features

• Relies on Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Salesforce or HubSpot

• Makes mostly UK calls and won't exceed its minute allowances

• Wants to trial the system with a few users before committing

Who Should Consider 8x8?

8x8 is worth considering for your business phone system if your firm:

• Makes regular calls to other countries and wants them included

• Runs a customer service or sales queue and wants contact centre tools

• Has enough users to negotiate on price, or is happy to go through a reseller

• Needs supervisor tools such as call monitoring and a receptionist console

• Is comfortable with a quote-led buying process that may take a few weeks

Best Alternatives to RingCentral and 8x8

RingCentral and 8x8 are both big, feature-rich platforms, and neither is automatically the right fit for a small business that mainly needs a reliable number and a mobile app. When we compare the wider market, a few alternatives stand out:

*Indicative prices from ExpertSure, checked August 2026. Confirm with each provider.

bOnline starts at around half the price of RingCentral Essentials, Dialpad includes real-time transcription and live coaching on its cheapest plan, and GoTo Connect includes free calls to more than 50 countries.

If you'd rather compare several providers at once, our VoIP systems comparison and cloud phone systems pages are the quickest route. Our guide on how to compare SME phone and broadband bundles covers buying both together.

FAQs About RingCentral and 8x8

Is RingCentral or 8x8 cheaper for a small business?

RingCentral, on a published basis. Its UK Standard plan costs £19.99 per user per month on annual billing, and you can confirm the price online. 8x8 doesn't publish UK prices, so a direct comparison isn't possible without a quote. For businesses making lots of international calls, 8x8's inclusive calling can close the gap.

Does RingCentral include unlimited calls in the UK?

No, not on its UK plans. RingCentral UK plans include outbound minute bundles, from 100 minutes per user on Essentials to 4,000 on Ultimate. Unlimited calling is common in RingCentral's US marketing, which is why many online guides get this wrong for UK buyers.

Why doesn't 8x8 publish prices?

8x8 moved to a sales-led, custom pricing model in late 2023. Its UK pricing page lists products and capabilities and asks you to request a quote. Any 8x8 prices you see online are historic or third-party estimates.

Is 8x8 or RingCentral better for international calls?

8x8. Its X2 plan has included unlimited calls to 14 countries and X4 to 48 countries, subject to fair use. RingCentral charges for international calls outside its bundles, with unlimited EMEA calling available as an add-on only for accounts with 20 or more users on Standard and above.

Do I need new broadband for RingCentral or 8x8?

Not necessarily, but you need a stable connection. Both systems run over the internet, so call quality depends on your broadband.

Our broadband speed guide and guide to company broadband reliability explain what to check first.

Can I keep my existing business number?

Yes. Both RingCentral and 8x8 can port your existing UK numbers. RingCentral says number porting typically takes 5 to 10 working days.

Our Verdict: RingCentral or 8x8?

If you run a small or growing UK business that wants clear pricing, a quick setup and integrations with the software you already use, RingCentral is the stronger starting point. Start at Standard rather than Essentials, and check your call volumes against the minute bundles before you commit.

If your business calls abroad regularly, runs a customer service queue, or has enough users to negotiate, 8x8 is worth getting a quote for. Its inclusive international calling and built-in contact centre tools are hard for RingCentral to match without paid add-ons.

However, neither is the cheapest option for a very small team with simple needs. If this sounds like you, it's worth comparing a few more providers side by side before you commit.