Ringotel - what makes it worth the money?

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Voipy

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Feb 5, 2026
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I had a look at Ringotel. It is my understanding that it is a sofphone. Pricing seems to be very high for that though so maybe I am misunderstanding it. It's €2.49 per month, which is more than double compared to what we charge for an extension on a PBX. This vs Acrobits or microsip or a whole host of others that are either free, or have a once off price, in the case of acrobits $9.99.

I can't see many of our customers being willing to pay if there are plenty of alternatives available that essentially do the same thing - but maybe they DON'T do the same thing. Am I missing something here?
 
I recommend contacting them directly. I am using their service. They have 2 plans: Essentials and Pro. My cost for essentials is $2, and Pro is $4 per extension/user. Pro support sms/mms feature where in Essentials you can only do internal chat. I have using whitelable APP. Once you will have like more user for example 100+ then the montlhy cost will go down. There is a one-time cost to make your own company brand APP. They will help you in everyway to make the APP and maintain it. Plus, there is a monthly 200$ APP maintenance fee. They will takecare of your apple platform and Playstore (Android/Google APP store). Apple store does charge yearly to APP fee. So far i am happy with the app. I have not received any complaints so far from my customers. Hope this will help you.
 
I like the fact that updates are pushed to the client so the software can always stay current. How many clients go out and seek out updates for the sip client.

You can update phone configurations on their portal and they are pushed to the softphones

Also nice that Ringotel uses a proxy so the softphones will only be coming in from one source IP

I'm sure there are more reasons to like it
 
You are looking at the retail price. If you sign up as a wholesaler, your price will be around $1 per user. At your price point per extension, it still may not make sense. But in the US, each seat costs between $20-40, so $1 doesn't seem expensive for all the features they offer. You get mobile and desktop apps with lots of integrations, and someone else manages the whole platform for you.
I would probably do something else if the math wasn't working out, like in your case. The great news is that FS PBX can work with any softphone, free or paid.
 
I may add it as an option for people to choose. $1 is not too bad.

If we'd charge $20 - $40 per extension/seat - the first thing people will do is just purchase an on-site Yeastar PBX. They cost $500 for an entry level one. It would be a hard sell to justify a cloud pbx for say 10 extensions @ $200 per month if they can buy an on-prem one for $500. Different markets of course but even in the US, purely out of interest, what makes people decide on a cloud pbx at that price vs an on-prem one?
 
Voipy said:
what makes people decide on a cloud pbx at that price vs an on-prem one?
Click to expand...
The cloud PBX is always on and working regardless of local problems that could shut down an on-prem PBX such as hurricanes, fallen trees on your trunk feeds, etc. If your whole office suffers a disaster or loses power or internet connectivity, your cloud PBX is still there. It can still take calls and send them to voicemail even if no stations are active or it can have failover for extensions to cell phones. You can also have two geographically separated cloud instances and sync your PBX's for redundancy. Cloud PBXs also are much more convenient if you have users who are not on-premise or use mobile clients as they are working away from the office. You don't have to worry about all the firewall issues you must deal with on your local internet router.

Not to mention you can have a cloud PBX large enough to run FS PBX for about $30-60/year. It eases local firewall issues, helps if your internet provider is using CGNAT, or other blocking issues which can occur.

The disadvantage is that you need enough bandwidth in your local internet connection to support however many calls you need for your extensions to reach the PBX over the internet. This is no longer an issue for most locations.

With FS PBX or FusionPBX, you can have a large cloud machine with multiple domains so you can host many small clients on one machine and still keep them separated by their own domains. This means you have one PBX to keep software current instead of many.
 
Hi Kenn

Yes all understood. We have 400 domains and about 5000 extensions out there and have been using Fusion (and asterisk before that) for 10 years. So we see all the benefits. But I was just taken aback by the "per seat pricing" in the US that was mentioned and was wondering what the value add would still be for a general office with few special requirements. They just want a few handset, and transfer calls. Luckily in our part of the world we don't get hurricanes :)
 
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Many in the US are using Acrobits or other white-label versions of Acrobits such as the offering from ClearlyIP's Clearly Anywhere softphone. In my experience, I've seen little or no uptake for Ringotel in the FreePBX/Asterisk world or amongst any proprietary PBX systems.. I believe Ringotel is much more popular in the UK and EU.
 
For US customers, uptime is crucial, and outsourcing PBX management often beats using an on-premises system that could fail. Buying on-site requires paying an IT professional, which can end up costing more in the long run. Downtime also risks significant lost sales. @kenn10 emphasizes supporting remote workers and mobile app users, which on-premises systems cannot accommodate. These points explain why many are transitioning to hosted solutions. While Panasonic and Avaya systems are still common, including some dating back 30-40 years like Meridian, none match the features and flexibility of modern hosted VoIP solutions.
 
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