Grasshopper

Availability: United States
Founded in: 2003

Grasshopper offers a virtual PBX phone system for entrepreneurs looking for an alternative to a traditional phone line. Grasshopper offers the advanced features and capabilities of an expensive business phone line for an entrepreneurs’ budget. It allows your business to sound like a larger, more professional organization every time you recieve a call.

Grasshopper Features

Every Grasshopper plan comes with one toll-free or local number, unlimited extensions, and a slew of standard features. These features include:

• Call forwarding allows you to route calls from a single phone number to your cell phone
• Unlimited call handling means you’ll never miss an important call
• Free conference calling included on all plans
• Online account management allows you to make changes to your account on the go
• Voicemail-to-email: transfers voicemails into mp3 files and sends them to your email. It also includes a text transcription of the voicemail
• Fax-to-email: transfers faxes into PDF files in your email, so you can read them on the go

Grasshopper plans

• Pay as you Grow
• Ramp
• Grow
• Max

Grasshopper Pay As You Grow

Grasshopper’s basic plan costs users $9.95/month. It includes only the standard features and as the title suggests, is billed at a $.06 per minute rate. This plan has no minutes included.

Grasshopper Ramp

Ramp builds on Pay As You Grow. It costs $24/month and includes all standard features and 500 minutes.

Grasshopper Grow

Grasshopper’s most popular plan will help you Grow. It includes all standard features, plus 2000 minutes monthly, a new toll free or local phone number, and a free number port. Grasshopper Grow costs $49 a month.

Grasshopper Max

Max is Grasshopper’s premium plan. It offers all the standard features, plus 3 toll free or local numbers, unlimited number ports, and unlimited voice studio to record professional greetings.

There is a $25 activation fee for all Grasshopper plans, except the Max plan, and any existing toll free or local number can be ported to Grasshopper for an additional $30 fee.

More about Grasshopper

Because Grasshopper is a virtualPBX, it only handles incoming calls. Small businesses will need a traditional phone line to handle forwarded and outgoing calls.

Grasshopper doesn't require a contract and promises a 30 day money back guarantee, allowing small businesses to try the service, risk free. Users that want to cancel  need to submit an online support ticket to Grasshopper to start the cancellation process. Once the ticket is received, Grasshopper will make sure the account is closed within 1 business day. Grasshopper runs without hardware, so businesses avoid large up-front investments, too. (You also don't have to return any equipment.)

Grasshopper’s 24/7 live support can be reached at 1-800-279-1455 about any technical issues.  You can also manage your account online to deal with any problems.