What a Business Phone System Actually Costs in 2026

There is more than one way to pay for a phone system

The old copper network switches off in January 2027, so a lot of businesses are getting phone quotes for the first time in a decade. Three quotes land, each with a confident monthly figure on the front, and not one of them can be compared with the other two. That is not you missing something. Providers genuinely do not price the same way as each other.

Before any of the numbers mean anything, it helps to know which of these is you.

Starting fresh, everything in one price a single figure per person per month, with your phone numbers included
Starting fresh, numbers charged separately a lower figure per person, then every phone number billed on top of it
You already have a phone system worth keeping you keep it and replace only the lines running into it, paid for by how many calls you need at once
Most of your staff rarely phone anyone you pay for the number of calls happening at the same time instead of for every member of staff

The first two are what you will be quoted if you are starting from scratch, and they are the ones most often compared badly against each other. The other two only apply if there is already a system in the building. Buying a brand new system outright is a fifth route, and it gets its own section near the end, because the answer there has changed.

What the market charges per user

Published pricing across the market in 2026 sits roughly like this:

Large international platforms list prices around $20 to $35 per user per month on annual terms, UK pricing usually high teens to mid twenties in pounds
Vonage from about £18 per user per month, call recording on the tier above
GoTo Connect roughly £18 to £22 per user per month
UK providers commonly £7 to £23 per user per month depending on features
Quote-only providers some have withdrawn published pricing entirely

Be careful with the Microsoft Teams figure

Teams Phone gets quoted at around £6 to £7 per user per month, which makes it look dramatically cheaper than everything else. That price is an add on sitting on a Microsoft 365 licence that already includes Teams, and on its own it will not make external calls. For that you need a calling plan on top. It can be a good fit for a business already living in Microsoft 365, but the advertised price is a component, not a phone system.

The costs that sit outside the per user price

The licence is the part everyone quotes and rarely the biggest part of the bill. Three things routinely land on top, and your internet connection sits underneath all of it, so a stretched line means an upgrade that was in nobody's phone quote.

Number rental

Where a provider prices per user and per number separately, number rental is a real second line on the bill, typically £2 to £5 per number per month. Ask what each user costs and what each number costs as two separate figures, rather than accepting one combined price.

Handsets

Desk phones are not included. IP handsets run from about £60 to £300, most landing between £80 and £220, so ten people can be a couple of thousand pounds before anyone makes a call. Plenty of businesses do not need them at all: if your team already works from laptops and mobiles the app does the same job, so fit out reception or the warehouse and leave the rest on the app.

Number porting

Bringing your existing numbers across usually costs £5 to £20 per number as a one off, separate from the monthly rental, and most providers will waive it if you ask before you sign.

Most of your team do not need their own number

This is where the real money is. A bundled per user price assumes everyone needs a direct dial number that customers ring, and in most businesses that is not true. Reception needs the main number, sales and accounts usually want their own, and everyone else is well served by an extension they pay nothing extra for. Count the people who genuinely need a number customers dial directly, and treat that as a separate figure from your headcount.

When paying per person is not the answer

Everything above assumes a fully hosted service where you pay for each member of staff. Two other routes work differently, and both suit a business that already has a phone system in the building or is happy to run one itself.

Replacing just the lines into it

If you bought a capable phone system in the last few years, you may not need to replace it at all. It is the old ISDN lines running into it that are being switched off, not the system itself. SIP trunks take over from those lines and everything else carries on as it is. You pay for channels rather than people, and a channel is simply one call at a time, so a business of twenty with six people ever on the phone together buys six. UK channels commonly run £4 to £8 each per month, with the cheapest published rates a little over £3. For a business with a decent system and a few years left in it, this is usually the cheapest way through the switch-off, and it is the option providers are least likely to lead with.

Paying by the call rather than the person

Some systems licence by how many calls are happening at once instead of by how many people you employ. A forty person business where only ten are ever on the phone together pays for ten. That suits places where most of the team are not sat at a desk, such as warehouses, workshops and sites. The trade-off is that you run the software yourself, on your own server or a hosted one, so there is more to look after than with a fully hosted service.

Is buying a new system outright still worth it?

For most businesses, no, and it is worth saying that plainly rather than leaving you to work it out. A new system of your own, sitting in your building, is a capital purchase, typically a few thousand pounds and up to twenty thousand or more depending on size, against roughly £8 to £20 per user per month for a hosted service. With the old network switching off in January 2027 there is little sense in putting new hardware in a cupboard. The cases where it still stacks up are narrow: organisations with compliance rules that demand local control, or sites where the broadband is genuinely too unreliable to depend on. If you have been quoted for one, ask why.

What to check before you sign

Two clauses decide what the contract really costs, and neither of them is on the front page of the quote.

The annual increase

Most UK telecoms contracts let the provider raise prices every year in line with RPI, a measure of inflation, commonly 5 to 8 per cent, applied automatically without your agreement. Over three years that compounds to roughly 15 to 25 per cent on top of what you agreed. The price you sign is the cheapest that contract will ever be. Ask for the clause to be pointed out, and ask whether it can be capped.

The exit terms

Early termination charges are severe and some providers charge the full remaining value of the agreement, so leaving eighteen months into a three year deal can mean paying for eighteen months of nothing. Check the call bundle too: some plans include unlimited UK mobile calls and others treat mobile as a chargeable add on, which changes the real per user cost noticeably.

What the total actually looks like

Take ten staff who need four direct dial numbers, and price the two starting-from-scratch routes properly:

Bundled, at £20 per user £200 a month, or £2,400 a year
Unbundled, at £12 per user plus four numbers at £3 £132 a month, or £1,584 a year
One off costs, either hosted model around £1,080, being six handsets at £120, £60 to port four numbers and £300 for setup
Three year totals with a 6 per cent annual increase roughly £8,700 bundled against about £6,100 unbundled

Now the same ten people in a business that already owns a capable system and never runs more than four calls at once:

Four SIP channels at £6 £24 a month, or £288 a year
Four numbers at £3 £12 a month, or £144 a year
One off costs little beyond £60 to port the numbers, because the handsets and the system are already in the building
Three year total with the same 6 per cent increase roughly £1,400, against about £6,100 for the cheaper hosted option

Those three are not directly comparable, and it would be dishonest to pretend they were, because the last one assumes somebody already paid for the system. What they do show is that the monthly figure on the front of a quote predicts none of them, and that replacing a phone system you did not need to replace is the expensive way through the switch-off.

Ask for the three year number, not the headline one

When you compare quotes, ask every provider for the total across the full term, whether they are pricing you per user, per channel or as a one off purchase. That means licences, number rentals, channels, handsets, porting, setup and the annual increase, in one figure. Providers confident in their pricing hand that over without hesitating, and reluctance is useful information in itself. We do not publish one price, because the honest answer depends on how many people you have, how many need a number customers dial directly, how many calls you run at once, and what is already in your building.