Buyer's guide · Cloud PBX and hosted VoIP
This page covers the office phone system — extensions for staff, a main business number, reception routing, desk phones or softphones — which is a different purchase from the agent-seat contact-centre platforms used to run support and sales floors. In India the decision is usually framed as replacing an ageing EPABX, and the honest comparison is not just the monthly licence: a traditional system costs ₹50,000 to ₹5,00,000 upfront in hardware plus annual maintenance, while cloud alternatives run ₹500 to ₹2,400 per user per month with no capital outlay. Below is what each option actually suits, with the India-specific catch on Microsoft Teams Phone that catches most buyers out.
The most straightforward cloud PBX for Indian offices — from ₹830/user/month
Zoom Phone is the easiest recommendation for a business that wants extensions working quickly without a networking project. Metered starts at ₹830 per user per month with per-minute call rates, Unlimited is ₹1,400, Pro Regional ₹1,900 and Pro Plus ₹2,400. If your team already uses Zoom for meetings, phone arrives inside the same application — one client for calls, meetings and chat, which removes a genuine adoption problem. Provisioning is measured in days.
Pros
Cons
Best for: Offices of 5-200 people replacing an EPABX, especially anyone already standardised on Zoom.
Compelling if you are already on Microsoft 365 — but read the India caveat
For an organisation already running Microsoft 365, putting the phone system inside Teams is architecturally tidy: one identity, one client, one admin centre, calls alongside chat and meetings. Teams Phone is a paid add-on on top of your Microsoft 365 licence, and it needs PSTN connectivity underneath it. Here is the India catch that derails planning: Microsoft Calling Plans have limited availability in India, so Indian deployments almost always use Direct Routing, connecting Teams to an Indian carrier such as Tata or Airtel through a session border controller. That works well and is widely deployed — but it is a networking project with a carrier contract, not a checkbox in the admin centre.
Pros
Cons
Best for: Organisations already committed to Microsoft 365 with IT capability to run Direct Routing, typically 50 users and above.
One vendor for the line and the phone system — strongest outside the metros
Buying the phone system from the carrier that also supplies your connectivity removes the most tedious failure mode in Indian telephony: two vendors blaming each other while your calls drop. Tata's coverage into tier-2 and tier-3 circles is the widest available, which matters if you have branches beyond the major cities where the software-first platforms depend on partner carriers. Expect a more traditional buying experience — a proposal rather than a signup page — and correspondingly more hand-holding.
Pros
Cons
Best for: Multi-branch Indian businesses, offices outside the metros, and anyone who wants one vendor accountable for the whole voice stack.
Lowest running cost if you have the skills — licence per system, not per user
3CX is licensed per system rather than per user, which inverts the economics at scale: a hundred-user deployment can cost a fraction of per-seat cloud pricing. You can run it on your own server or a cloud instance, connect any Indian SIP trunk provider, and use standard SIP desk phones without vendor lock-in. The trade-off is real and should not be glossed over — you own the uptime. When calls fail at 10am on a Monday, there is no vendor SLA to invoke, only your own team or your IT partner.
Pros
Cons
Best for: Larger offices with in-house IT, or businesses with a managed IT partner, where per-user cloud pricing has become the largest line in the telecom budget.
The fastest route to a professional front desk without a phone system at all
Not every business needs extensions. A great many Indian small businesses need one professional number that greets callers, offers a menu, and routes to the right person's existing mobile — and SuperReceptionist does exactly that, running on top of the mobile phones your team already carries. Deployment takes days, there is no hardware, and no desk phones. It stops being the right answer once you need internal extension dialling, call queues or hunt groups.
Pros
Cons
Best for: Small businesses, professional practices and field teams that need to sound organised without buying a phone system.
Zoom Phone for most, at ₹830 per user per month metered or ₹1,400 unlimited — it deploys in days, needs no networking work, and staff already understand the interface. If you are on Microsoft 365 with IT support available, Teams Phone with Direct Routing is tidier long-term. If you only need a professional number routing to mobiles rather than actual extensions, Knowlarity SuperReceptionist costs a fraction of either.
In practice, nothing — all three describe a business phone system where the switching lives in the provider's data centre rather than in a box in your server room. Vendors favour different words: "cloud PBX" emphasises the replacement of on-premise PBX hardware, "hosted VoIP" emphasises who runs it, "VoIP phone system" is the plain-language version. Compare features and total cost rather than terminology.
A traditional EPABX runs ₹50,000 to ₹5,00,000 upfront depending on capacity, plus annual maintenance and eventual replacement. Cloud runs ₹500 to ₹2,400 per user per month with no capital cost. For a 20-person office, cloud at roughly ₹1,400 per user is about ₹28,000 per month, so over five years cloud costs more in raw licence terms than a mid-range EPABX — and still usually wins, because it needs no maintenance contract, survives office moves, supports remote staff natively, and never needs a forklift upgrade. Run the comparison over five years including maintenance, not on month one.
Yes, through number porting, and it is worth insisting on. Porting an Indian landline number to a cloud provider typically takes two to four weeks and involves your existing carrier, who has little incentive to hurry. Start the port before you commit to a go-live date, and keep the old service running in parallel until the port completes — cutting over first and porting afterwards is how businesses end up unreachable for a fortnight.
Bandwidth is rarely the issue — roughly 100 Kbps per concurrent call means twenty simultaneous calls need about 2 Mbps. Consistency is the issue. Shared broadband suffers contention, and the resulting jitter and packet loss produce exactly the choppy, robotic calls that make people distrust VoIP. A modest leased line with QoS configured will outperform much faster broadband for voice. If you are deploying more than a handful of extensions, sort the connection first.
Because Microsoft Calling Plans, which provide PSTN connectivity directly from Microsoft, have limited availability in India. Indian deployments therefore use Direct Routing: a session border controller connects Teams to an Indian carrier such as Tata or Airtel. It works well and is common, but it means a carrier contract, an SBC to configure, and a network project rather than a licence purchase. Budget for the SBC and the carrier alongside the Teams Phone add-on, not just the add-on.
On licence cost, substantially — per-system pricing means a hundred users cost far less than a hundred cloud seats. On total cost, only if you already have the skills. You are taking on uptime, patching, backups and security for a system the business notices within seconds of failing. For organisations with capable IT or a managed partner it is excellent value; for those without, the saving evaporates the first time something breaks during business hours.
Fewer than most buyers assume. One main business number plus direct numbers for people who genuinely need to be reached individually — typically sales, management and reception — is enough for most offices. Everyone else is reachable by extension through the main number. At ₹500-2,500 per number per month, buying a DID for every employee is a common and expensive mistake; you can always add numbers later, and rarely need to.
Replacing an EPABX or setting up a new office? Send headcount and locations to +91 98119 98370 and we will quote cloud phone plus the numbers and connectivity underneath it.