OpenPhone vs Google Voice: price, texting, missed calls
2026-11-11 · 8 min read
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It's Tuesday and the business line is still your own cell. It rang twice while you were on a ladder and once while you were writing up an estimate at a customer's kitchen table. Your office hire starts Monday and has no way to answer any of it. So tonight you have two tabs open, OpenPhone and Google Voice, and you want to know which one to put the business number on.
This post compares OpenPhone vs Google Voice for that owner. One note before the numbers: OpenPhone is now called Quo, and openphone.com/pricing redirects to quo.com. I'll use both names. Every price below comes from Quo's pricing page, Google's Voice product page and Google's help article on sending and receiving texts, all read on November 11, 2026. I didn't use review sites. Check again before you buy.
OpenPhone vs Google Voice at a glance
| OpenPhone (Quo) | Google Voice | |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest team plan | Starter, $19 per user per month, or $15 billed annually | Starter, $10 per user per month, up to 10 users |
| Middle plan | Business, $33 per user per month, or $23 billed annually | Standard, $20 per user per month |
| Top plan | Scale, $47 per user per month, or $35 billed annually | Premier, $30 per user per month |
| What you need first | Nothing else | A Google Workspace plan, billed separately |
| Free version | No. 7-day trial | Yes, a personal tier at $0 that needs an existing mobile number |
| Texting | US and Canadian numbers, under a fair usage policy | US only on paid plans |
| Auto-reply to a missed call or text | On every plan | I couldn't find one on the pages I read |
| One number that rings several people | Shared numbers on every plan (up to 10 users on Starter) | Ring groups start at Standard |
| Phone menu | Business and up | Auto attendants start at Standard |
| Call recording | Manual on Starter, automatic on Business and Scale | "Easy call recording" on Starter, automatic on Premier |
| Zapier, Make, webhooks, API | On every plan | Not listed on the product page |
| Carrier texting registration | $19.50 one-time, then $1.50 to $3 per month | Not mentioned on the pages I read |
What a three-person shop pays
Say it's you, a second tech and the new office hire, and you want one business number that rings more than one phone.
| Setup | Monthly cost for 3 users | What's on top |
|---|---|---|
| Quo Starter, annual billing | $45 | $19.50 one-time registration, $1.50 to $3 per month messaging fee |
| Quo Starter, monthly billing | $57 | Same |
| Quo Business, annual billing | $69 | Same |
| Quo Business, monthly billing | $99 | Same |
| Google Voice Starter | $30 | Workspace for each user. No ring groups on this plan |
| Google Voice Standard | $60 | Workspace for each user |
Google looks cheaper until you add Workspace. Google's footnote says Voice "requires a Google Workspace plan billed separately," so the real number is Voice plus whatever your Workspace plan costs per seat. If you already pay for Workspace to get email on your domain, Voice is a small add-on. If you don't, you're buying two products to get a phone line.
The Starter row also needs a second look. Google lists ring groups and auto attendants under Standard, so a shop that wants one number ringing two phones is pricing the $20 plan. Quo lets up to 10 users share a number on its cheapest plan.
Quo has its own extras, though they're small. Texting customers from a business number means registering with The Campaign Registry, which is where the $19.50 goes. Extra numbers are $5 a month each. Texts sent by an automation through the API, Zapier or Make cost one cent per segment. I broke the rest down in OpenPhone pricing, and the Google side in Google Voice for business pricing.
Texting is where they differ most
If your customers text you, this section should decide it.
Quo is built around texting. Every plan includes texting to US and Canadian numbers, auto-replies ("automatically respond to texts, missed calls, or voicemails with pre-defined messages"), snippets for answers you type every day, and connections that let other software send and read texts.
Google's help article describes something narrower. It says paid Voice subscriptions can text only in the US. It says Voice messaging "is intended only for interactive conversations" and isn't meant for bulk messaging. The behaviors it warns can get messages blocked include sending the same text to multiple recipients and sending URL links. That article is written with personal accounts in mind, so ask Google how it applies to your Workspace account before you plan around it. But a business that wants to text a booking link to every missed caller should assume Google Voice wasn't built for that.
What a missed caller gets
Someone calls, nobody answers, and they dial the next company on the list before your voicemail greeting finishes. For a service business, that caller matters more than any feature in the table above.
On Quo, you can set an auto-reply so that caller gets a text within moments. Each plan also includes 1,000 credits a month for Sona, Quo's call-answering assistant, which works out to 10 calls at 100 credits each.
On Google Voice, the caller gets voicemail, and Voice transcribes it for you. I couldn't find an automatic text to missed callers on the product page or the texting help article.
If you want wording for that first text, I collected copy-ready versions in auto reply text message examples. They paste straight into Quo's auto-reply settings.
Which one fits which business
Pick Google Voice if your team already lives in Workspace, your customers mostly call instead of text, and you want the cheapest reliable line with voicemail transcripts. It also supports desk phones on every team plan, which matters if you have a front counter.
Pick Quo if customers text you, if you want a missed caller to hear back without anyone touching a phone, or if you plan to connect the phone to your job software later. The API and webhooks on every plan are what make that possible.
Stay on the free Google Voice tier only if you're solo and fine with the number living on your personal Google account. Once a second person needs to answer, it stops fitting. I wrote about that in business number vs personal cell.
What neither one does for you
Both products get the call or the text to a person, and after that the work is yours on either one.
An auto-reply sends one message. When the caller answers with an address and a photo of the leak, someone still has to read it, decide if it's urgent and type it into the schedule. If the caller never answers, nobody follows up unless you remember. Neither app will tell you on Friday how many calls you missed and how many became jobs, either.
I build that piece. A missed-call text back that sits on top of your number works like this:
- A call goes unanswered and a text goes out within a minute, asking what the job is and where.
- The reply gets sorted. Anything you've marked urgent pings your phone.
- Everything else lands in your job software or a lead list with the name, address and problem filled in.
- If nobody replies, one follow-up goes out the next morning, then it stops.
On Quo this plugs into the plan you already have. On Google Voice it runs beside the phone system, and how it connects depends on how your number is set up. I built lead capture and tracking for a Chicago-area pool service company, so new inquiries get logged and followed up instead of sitting in one person's phone. Builds start at $500 one-time, then a flat monthly from $99 after an included run-in period, cancellable.
What stays with a person
The phone app and the text-back buy you time to call back, and a person still has to pick up the conversation from there. You decide what counts as an emergency and what the job costs. The customer who's upset or confused gets a call from you, and so does the regular who texts "just call me." I'd still answer live whenever you can, because the automation only covers the calls you couldn't get to.
Want a second opinion before you move the number?
Book the free 20 minute process audit and bring a week of your call log. We'll look at how many calls go unanswered, what those callers get today, and whether the fix is Quo, Google Voice, or a small build on the line you already have. Book it here.