Up in the air about whether to go with Hosted Voice or Onsite PBX business phones – which is the best fit for your company’s needs and the best value for your investment? 

To see which option measures up best to what you’re looking for in a business office phone system, take a look at a comparison review of Hosted Voice (also known as Hosted PBX) vs. Onsite PBX, weighing key points in terms of cost, flexibility, and ease of expansion.

A quick refresher: Hosted Voice is a cloud-based system – your business phone system is “hosted” and run by an offsite provider through a data center. With Onsite PBX, your phone system is operated by your business and located on-site at your company or organization. 

COST

Hosted Voice

Hosted Voice is a cost-saver on IT equipment infrastructure and maintenance expenses because your business phone system is being operated by your provider. You save on upfront equipment expense and on time and IT expertise to run it.   

(For companies that have onsite now, a switch to Hosted Voice can translate into as much as a 50 percent annual cost savings.)

Hosted Voice also eliminates the additional time needed to resolve any issue because it eliminates multiple vendors, i.e., one for the PBX, another for the phone service.

Hosted Voice is a predictable monthly fee, and falls under an operational expense vs. capital, which can be beneficial as far as budgeting and to companies wanting to streamline cash flow. 

Onsite PBX

Onsite PBX allows for a potentially lower monthly phone bill, once the upfront purchase and installation costs are absorbed.

With Onsite PBX, you are able to use fewer phone numbers than you have devices, and that can be used as a way to lower your phone service costs.  

FLEXIBILITY

Hosted Voice

Hosted Voice offers flexibility in its cloud mobility by unifying communications, integrating apps with iPhones and Androids. The cloud-based system allows you and your employees to work from any location and remain on your business network.

With Hosted Voice, you can start with a set of phone features then easily add on as you identify new needs. This can be particularly important for smaller businesses with expected growth. You can add or delete features as your business situation requires.

Your Hosted service provider may have more resources to implement business phone solutions you could otherwise not afford to do if on-site.

Onsite PBX 

Owning and operating your business phone system, Onsite PBX may allow for some adjustments, depending on the issue and only if you have available and in-house IT resources and staff to do so.

Onsite PBX can be a good option for larger companies or organizations, particularly those that deal with security issues, such as a government agency.

EASE OF CHANGES/NEW TECHNOLOGY

Hosted Voice

In addition to gaining mobility, your business can take advantage of the newest technology for business phone features. Hosted Voice gives you the ability to define and manage group and employee features through a user interface. 

With Hosted Voice, you can get instantaneous changes – adding and deleting features can be done as you need them, such as reassigning employees and group phones, through your Hosted Voice user interface.

Onsite PBX

Each time you expand your Onsite PBX means you and your IT staff have a more complex system to manage.

Your company could run into IT resource and budget issues to make the changes if they are complex, expensive or highly customized.

Closely related:  Moving On from the Standard Onsite PBX