iPlum pricing: Hidden fees + 7 other things to know

iPlum’s pricing can seem straightforward and affordable at first. But is that actually true? If you look beyond its pricing page, you may notice the costs add up fairly quickly. There are several fees and paid add-ons hidden in the fine print.

Before making a decision, we break down everything you should know about iPlum’s pricing and fees. If you’re not sure it’s the right platform for your business, we offer an iPlum alternative that can help you better serve your customers.

iPlum pricing and plans at a glance: What you get and what you’re missing

iPlum is a cloud-based communications platform that offers a second phone number app for professionals on the go. It allows you to keep work and personal calls separate without carrying two phones.

But while iPlum has expanded its features in recent years, it’s rarely the right fit for growing or small businesses. This is especially true once you dig into iPlum’s pricing.

Here’s an in-depth view of all three plans side by side:

Feature	Standard	Professional	Enterprise
Price per user per month, billed annually	$8.99	$14.99	$25.99
Best for	Individuals needing basic calling and texting	Teams needing a signed Business Associate Agreement, or BAA, for HIPAA compliance	Companies needing to record incoming calls
Unlimited calling in the US & Canada	✓	✓	✓
Unlimited texting in the US & Canada	✓	✓	✓
Shared numbers	✗	✓	✓
Voicemail transcription	✗	✓	✓
Phone tree, or IVR	✓	✓	✓
Spam blocking	✓	✓	✓
Auto-replies	✓	✓	✓
Group text, broadcast text	✗	✓	✓
Scheduled texts	✗	✓	✓
Text templates	✗	✓	✓
Text-to-email	✗	✓	✓
Call recording	✗	✗	✓
Recording consent announcement	✗	✗	✓
HIPAA compliance	✗	✓	✓

Standard plan

Pricing: $13.99 per user per month billed monthly, or $8.99 per user per month if billed annually

Best for: Individuals needing basic calling and texting

The Standard plan includes basic business phone system features like unlimited calls in the US and Canada. Here are several other features that iPlum’s Standard plan supports:

• Calling and business texting to the US and Canada
• Phone tree
• Voicemail
• Spam blocking
• iOS and Android mobile apps
• Auto-replies
• Business Hours

These are bare-bones features you should expect from other VoIP providers. Plus, calling and texting to the US and Canada are subject to iPlum’s Fair Use Policy. You’ll only get 2,500 credits for calls and texts per month. Each minute or message uses one credit. If you need more than that, you’ll pay extra. 

Keep in mind you’ll still be missing essential features your team needs unless you upgrade to the next tier.

Professional plan 

Pricing: $20.99 per user per month billed monthly, or $14.99 per user per month if billed annually

Best for: Teams needing a signed Business Associate Agreement, or BAA, for HIPAA compliance

The iPlum Professional plan makes it easier for your team to save time and work together. Here are the features you’ll get access to:

• Shared numbers 
• One year of text archiving to keep past conversations out of your inbox
• Voicemail transcriptions
• Scheduled texts
• Group texting
• Text templates, or snippets

This plan also unlocks signed BAA agreements so you can communicate with clients in a HIPAA-compliant manner. If you’re in healthcare, this is the plan you’ll need to be on to comply with HIPAA requirements. That includes tools like:

• HIPAA-compliant calling
• HIPAA-secure voicemail
• HIPAA-compliant eFax 
• HIPAA-compliant mobile app
• Secure texting works inside the mobile app, but both your clients and your team need to use the app

But keep in mind you still won’t have access to features like call recording, which most business phone systems offer on their base plans.

Enterprise plan 

Pricing: $30.99 per user per month billed monthly, or $25.99 per user per month if billed annually

Best for: Companies needing to record incoming calls

iPlum’s most expensive plan unlocks the following features:

• Call recording
• Recording consent announcements. That way, you can notify the caller you’re recording the call to stay compliant with US call recording laws. 
• 10 years of text archiving. This lets you easily retrieve past conversations for audits or customer requests.

But that’s quite literally all you get by upgrading to iPlum’s most expensive plan. If you want more tools — like API access — you’ll need to pay for add-ons.

iPlum’s paid add-ons and other fees to know

As mentioned, iPlum’s true cost is more than what you see on the pricing page. You also have to look at its paid add-ons and hidden fees, depending on the features your growing business needs.

For example, be prepared to pay for:

1. Toll-free business numbers. You can replace your local business number with a toll-free number for an extra $5 per month. Keep in mind other VoIP companies let you purchase toll-free numbers at the same price as local numbers. Plus, iPlum doesn’t let you buy additional phone numbers at all. This can get restrictive as your business grows.
2. Calls and texts. iPlum’s “Unlimited” plans aren’t actually unlimited. Instead, they follow fair usage guidelines — 2,500 credits for inbound and outbound calls, plus SMS and MMS. Every minute of a call or each text you send uses one credit. If you exceed those limits, you can purchase 2,000 more credits for $20. At first, that might sound like enough. But it adds up quickly as your call and message volume increases. Some healthcare teams, for example, handle around 200 calls a day between patients and insurance providers.
3. International calling and texting. International calling and texting with iPlum uses a credit-based system. You can purchase 2,000 credits for $20. But you need to check the iPlum app to see how many credits each international call uses per minute. 
4. API access. Want to connect your phone system to the rest of your tech stack? You’ll need iPlum’s API first, which costs an extra $2 per month. 
5. iPlum port-out fees. According to iPlum, there’s a “mandatory one-time unlocking fee” required to move your existing number to another platform. This will cost you $19.99 per number.
6. Online faxing. Need to send or receive online faxes? You’ll have to pay extra. iPlum’s online fax service starts at $8.99 per month. If you want to send HIPAA-compliant eFax with BAA, you’ll need to pay $12.99 per month. 

Quo: A more effective alternative to iPlum

iPlum’s up-front pricing seems reasonable enough. But as you can see from the fine print, you get what you pay for. iPlum doesn’t technically offer unlimited calls and texts. Plus, changing your mind can get expensive, as it doesn’t offer free port-outs either.

Keep in mind iPlum isn’t unique — many other VoIP services aren’t designed with growing businesses in mind. That’s why many small businesses go with Quo, the #1 business phone in customer satisfaction as rated on G2.

Take a closer look at Quo vs iPlum side-by-side:

Features	Quo	iPlum
Starting price	$15 per user per month	$8.99 per user per month
Transparent pricing	✓	✗
Unlimited calling and texts in the US and Canada	✓	2,500 credits, then $20 for 2,000 more
Additional phone numbers	$5 per number per month	Not available
Voicemail-to-text	✓	Requires upgrade
AI phone call summaries	✓	✗
Phone tree	✓	✓
Integrations	✓	Requires using API
Group messaging	✓	Requires upgrade

1. Transparent and flexible pricing

Everything you need to know about Quo’s pricing is transparently listed on our website. You can upgrade or downgrade at any time, so you only pay for what you need.

Plans start at $15 per user per month and scale alongside your business. For example, each new user on your account includes one unique local US, Canadian, or North American toll-free phone number. Unlike iPlum, you can purchase additional numbers at any time for $5 per number per month.

2. Foster team collaboration to provide better customer service

When your team uses their own business phone numbers, conversations stay siloed. There’s no easy way to see what’s been said, who replied last, or if a lead was ever followed up with. That lack of visibility makes it harder to manage your team and keep communication consistent.

Quo solves this problem by offering shared numbers. These let your team share responsibility for customer conversations, as they can call and text from the same phone number.

Everyone works together from the same context in a shared number. They can see the full conversation history, including any call recordings, texts, and voice messages. Plus, you can enable automatic call transcripts and summaries to save your team time on follow-up. 

You can also easily work together as a team. Using internal threads, coworkers can tag you with an @mention to ask a question or delegate tasks. You’ll then get a notification in your Activity feed and can reply in Quo. 

iPlum only offers shared phone numbers if you upgrade. Plus, it doesn’t provide internal threads at all.

Learn more about how to share a business phone number with your team in Quo:

3. Unlimited calls and texts to the US and Canada

iPlum’s pricing says it offers “unlimited” calling and texting, but it caps usage at 2,500 minutes and messages per month. These could be exhausted quickly if you do a lot of outbound texting and calling.

Quo, on the other hand, offers truly unlimited calls and texts to the US and Canada. You don’t need to worry about “credits” for minutes and messages. Everyone on your team can make as many domestic calls and texts as necessary to communicate with clients.

4. Automate your workflows with direct integrations

As mentioned earlier, iPlum pricing doesn’t offer any native integrations. There are only REST APIs with limited capabilities. That means no matter how much you upgrade, you can’t easily connect your phone system with the tools you already use.

Quo’s native integrations can help automate your workflows and save your team time. Quo supports CRMs like:

• HubSpot
• Salesforce
• Jobber
• Zoho CRM
• Attio

Along with 8,000+ other third-party integrations via Zapier and Make.

If you do need a custom setup, you can use the Quo API to to connect other parts of your tech stack.

5. Automatically answer calls 24/7

Can’t immediately pick up the phone? With iPlum, the best you can do is send callers to voicemail. But Quo’s AI voice agent, Sona, can automatically answer the phone 24/7. This helps you avoid missing calls so you don’t lose potential customers and leave money on the table.

With Quo, you can add general information about your business to Sona’s knowledge pages. This includes details around your pricing, hours, certifications, and policies. That way, when callers ask common questions, Sona has the information it needs to respond right away. 

Sona can also:

• Transfer callers to the right teammate or department
• Capture leads for you to follow up with later
• Send booking links or other information by text message during live calls

Every Sona call comes with a transcript and summary so you can quickly get oversight without listening back to calls.

iPlum pricing doesn’t include an AI voice agent at all. It’s designed to act like a second phone number app, and not necessarily a modern business phone system.

6. Call and text from anywhere on any device

With Quo, your team can call and text from any device with an internet connection. Download Quo on Mac or Windows, use it on iOS or Android, or open it in your browser.

That way, whether your team is remote, in the field, or in person, they’ll always have access to customer conversations.

iPlum, on the other hand, is mainly built for mobile use as a second phone number app. There’s no downloadable desktop app, making it harder to manage calls and texts from a computer.

iPlum pros and cons

Here are some of the pros and cons of iPlum:

Pros

• Secure communication within the iPlum app
• HIPAA and HITECH compliant 
• Call transfers

Cons

• No truly unlimited minutes; credits can run out quickly for teams handling high call volumes every day
• Porting out costs extra, which can make it harder to switch providers later
• All integrations require an API, so your reps may end up manually logging calls and texts to your CRM if you don’t hire a developer
• No built-in AI features such as an AI answering service, which can mean missed calls go unanswered during busy periods or after-hours 

Quo: A better alternative to iPlum

iPlum pricing works fine for businesses with low call volume. But it’s a poor example of what a business phone system can be. Not only is it missing truly unlimited calls and texts, but it’s also difficult to integrate with third-party providers. And you’ll get nickel-and-dimed for little things, like porting out phone numbers.

The good news is that Quo does none of this. We offer transparent plans with genuinely unlimited calls and texts on every plan. You also get 8,000+ integrations via Zapier and Make with the tools you already use. You’ll have access to tools that save your team time, like Quo’s Sona, call transcripts, and summaries, to follow up correctly with every customer.

Ready to get a business phone number with Quo? Test us yourself with a seven-day free trial.

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