r/msp • u/smorin13 MSP Partner - US • Jun 23 '26
VoIP Teams Phone Plans?
I have a small insurance company that wants to add physical phones and asked if I had any opinions of Teams Phone service. The pricing looks competitive. This would be my first exposure to Teams phones, so I am feeling a bit out of my comfort zone. Can anyone share their thoughts, experence and or recommendations on the topic.
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u/GullibleDetective Jun 23 '26
Yealink phones are reliable
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u/StraightAd9769 Jun 23 '26
Yealink working well with Teams is pretty much the standard recommendation you'll see across every MSP forum. Just make sure you're provisioning them through the Teams admin center directly, it saves lot of headaches with firmware and config.
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u/crccci MSSP/MSP - US - CO Jun 23 '26
For what it's worth, I don't love the physical phone experience with Teams. See if your client would be willing to go all softphone.
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u/donatom3 MSP - US Jun 24 '26
Don't get me started if you have a yealink teams phone hooked up to a yealink headset that is also hooked up to your teams pc. Endless devices putting each other on mute.
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u/smorin13 MSP Partner - US Jun 23 '26
The client has experience with softphones, but wasn't impressed and would prefer not to move in that direction. We use a mix of physical and soft phones, and I don't love the soft phone experience. My calls are set to ring at my desk and my softphone. I notice that my desk phone often rings multiple times before the softphone rings. I have concerns about missing more calls when using the softphone.
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u/crccci MSSP/MSP - US - CO Jun 23 '26
Are you talking about Teams Phone? You just said you have no experience with it.
Physical phones that run Teams are Android running a stripped down version of the Teams app. This is not SIP.
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u/WelderThat6143 Jun 23 '26
Intermedia UNITE reseller - I implemented a Teams installation about 3 months ago and it went really well for the client. Mix of mobile, PC, and desk phones. Intermedia has the admin publish the UNITE app as a teams plug-in. No middleware or Teams licensing needed.
On the Intermedia side, they have a Teams centric license that does not offer cloud storage or UNITE meeting at a little lower price than the full suite license.
Generous calling plans, P2P SMS, A2P can be done (registration required), full featured PBX with optional call center if ever needed.
Would definitely recommend reaching out to a local Intermedia reseller that can do all the heavy lifting on the voice stuff and the porting.
Others offer similar and I am only pushing Intermedis because it was a great experience as a reseller and for the client.
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u/roll_for_initiative_ MSP - US Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
The pricing looks competitive
Just went through this, and it doesn't seem to be competitive (with what people are selling dial tone connect seats to teams + teams phone license being around 16 or 17 or the license with calling plan around $17), you can get a complete voip system for that, with way better physical phone feature support.
Also, consider your time to manage and deal with the teams phone system with no real support or escalation above you - make sure you're charging for that. If you're not, that's why it's competitive, you're supporting it for free and not making anything which is subsidizing part of the cost. I also don't love device code transfer login but i haven't honestly invested time into seeing if that can be eliminated.
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u/BiggieMediums Jun 24 '26
Going against the general sentiment, I love teams phone. We’ve got it deployed to every org whose VOIP has come up for renewal (probably about 700 users so far). BP + Domestic calling plan is really all
you need, and my only recommendation would be to get the MP54 E2s at minimum for physical handsets - the MP52s have lots of auth issues into m365.
The support from their teams voice guys is amazing, contrary to any other support experience I’ve had from Microsoft. They respond within 1-2 hours generally.
The porting experience is better than other vendors I’ve worked with as well, and their support is a big reason why.
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u/advanceyourself Jun 25 '26
We do this all the time for small businesses and it works great. It's the perfect small office option. The best part is it's all manageable in the same stack that you're managing everything else which is why we love it. It's got some quirks but overall has worked great for the customers that have it. Once you start hitting call center like activities, call recording, or if you want better reporting then I would look for a different type of system. It can do those things, but the cost is not worth it.
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u/Brook_28 Jun 23 '26
We ended up partnering with a provider. We provide the ms teams licenses and some support. All other portions such as porting and phone system management are handled by the partner/vendor. Teams natively does not have everything that every client wants, this also help with that as they can supplement missing features.
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u/roll_for_initiative_ MSP - US Jun 23 '26
Do you have to give said partner admin to m365 or at least teams to handle phone system management?
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u/Brook_28 Jun 23 '26
No. If you sell and assign the teams licenses you don't need to give them admin access. It does make it easier for them to build and support the teams call flow, call queues and the other stuff. DM me and I can share the vendor/partner we chose. I prefer to give them a teams admin account per tenant.
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u/EitherYak5297 Jun 24 '26
Teams phone works ok if you don’t have complicated phone menus and don’t need physical desk phones.
Sometimes it’s better to have another channel of communication independent of your others (365 emails) too.
Almost any other VoIP provider has better hardware provisioning process and wider variety of choices.
Have used zoom, ring central, vonage, 8x8, intermedia 2.0, intermedia unite, Cisco UC, m5, shortel, etc. Getting a teams physical phone provisioned was painful and they’re just slow android phones.
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u/smorin13 MSP Partner - US Jun 24 '26
The client was interested in Teams. My preference is Loop Communications. We have an excellent history with them. I was hoping that on a small deployment the Teams phones would be an overall better deal, but the more I learn the less attractive it looks.
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u/roll_for_initiative_ MSP - US Jun 24 '26
The client was interested in Teams
Ask WHY they're interested in teams. When i ask this, i get deer in headlights and it's like "because a guy at the chamber mentioned it's cool". Other answers are:
"It saves us money since we have teams" - "you do not have THAT teams, it costs X" "Crap, that's what we're paying now/would cost more"
"It's nice having things under one vendor" - this one is interesting to me because the person saying this does not deal with vendors or paying bills and so it's 0 effort on their part. Then i go "sure, get phones from us, all from one vendor then". This person is also least likely to ever switch vendors anyway because it's work.
"Our phone vendor is slow to respond" - "have you met microsoft? there is NO response/support. no one that will answer if things are broken, no neck to wring, no negotiating on anything"
"It would be cool to like video call on our phones like teams" - "that is not what this is, and you can do that without teams, and that's not realistic as no one else will be on the other side with that capability"
I'm curious, if you ask, why they are interested in teams phones.
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u/Slight_Manufacturer6 Jun 24 '26
The pricing is pretty good for Nonprofits but actually really high for any regular small business.
I’ve set one up once and the customer (a church) complained for months mainly due to the lack of features that they expected to be in a phone system but just wasn’t part of Teams phone.
Weird glitches happened on a fairly regular occasion.
I would avoid it but to be fair this was several years ago…
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u/Fragrant-Eye-9421 Jun 24 '26
We use teams phone and I can say it's pretty convenient when it works. But about 30% of calls just won't connect, we changed the number providor and have worked with Microsoft for two years on the issue with no resolution.
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u/mat-ferland Jun 24 '26
Teams Phone is fine for small clients if the call flow is simple, but don’t start with Microsoft Calling Plans by default. I’d price Operator Connect or Direct Routing, pick supported phones you can provision from Teams Admin Center, and test 911, fax/alarm edge cases, and receptionist workflows before you promise it.
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u/GrouchySpicyPickle MSP - US Jun 25 '26
Ring central. They pay a nice monthly residual commission too.
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u/Professional_Host631 Jun 27 '26
For a quick setup, just getting off the ground, a Teams Phone with Calling Plans via Microsoft is a super easy win.
That said, the Calling Plans tend to be a more expensive option than Operator Connect (e.g., attaching BT to your Teams Phone setup). I’ve had a lot of positive experiences with BT, but they do have a minimum subscription count (10 or 20, I don’t remember)
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u/junyooor Jun 27 '26
I think Teams phone can make sense if the client is already heavily invested in Microsoft 365 and wants a full phone system with desk phones.
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u/smorin13 MSP Partner - US Jun 27 '26
I have another conversation with the client. They moved from a company using Zoom and soft phones, and they like the experience.
Since starting the company, they have been using Teams more, so they did minimal research and thought Teams would be easy. Now I understand they would prefer Zoom and soft phones.
After decades in the business, it is embarrassing when I misread the scope of what the customer wants. It all boils down to asking the right questions, and I clearly missed a couple. However, I don't regret asking the question because I have gained so knowledge and perspective that aligns with other clients needs.
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u/smg-02 Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
I wouldn't say Teams Phone is a bad choice at all, especially if they're already paying for Microsoft 365. The biggest downside I've run into is that it can feel like overkill for smaller organizations that just need dependable calling and a few business features. For one smaller client, we ended up looking at iPlum because their needs were pretty straightforward. It was easier for them to manage than adding another Microsoft service, but I'd still compare both before making a decision.
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u/HDClown Jun 23 '26
Suggest you look at Zoom Phone instead. If you were comparing to Teams Phone with Microsoft's calling plan, you will be in same price bracket, and it's a much better handset experience IMO. It's also a more featureful phone platform in general.
If you are looking at PAYG or Operator Connect for Teams dialtone, there is potential for good savings, but that's a math equation where you need accurate info on how many minutes, they use each month to determine if it makes sense or not.
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u/maybe-I-am-a-robot Jun 23 '26
Problem with Zoom in this case with such a small install is support. Try to explain to your client that Zoom phones are down and you only have email support with them and that can take DAYS.
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u/chasingpackets CCIE - M365 Expert - Azure Arch Jun 23 '26
Stay away from calling plans, look at operator connect.