MightyCall or Talkroute?

When assessing the virtual telephony market, Talkroute is sort of like Grasshopper-lite. The systems are very similar, and Talkroute touts their use of the PSTN (public switched telephone network)—which is also the backbone of Grasshopper’s call connections. The majority of competitors on the market use a strictly VoIP-centered approach, which means a call’s quality depends directly on your internet connection. (MightyCall uses a bit of both to give you options depending on your location.)

An area where Talkroute exceeds Grasshopper and most other companies is their minutes usage. There are unlimited minutes on all of Talkroute’s plans, which is defined under “fair use”. This “fair use” unlimited principle is standard for the industry, but most companies set that against the total value of your call minutes (usually falling between 4 and 7 cents a minute), while Talkroute does so only against your minutes usage—which tends to be more generous to customers.

Talkroute’s pricing plans are also tiered like Grasshopper’s (and ours). You’re not paying X amount more for each user (like with Vonage and RingCentral, for example), but a monthly amount that has certain predetermined parameters.

Those tiers are $19, $39, $59, and $99 a month (MightyCall’s are $19, $49, and $99). However, Talkroute wants you to think those values derive from merely a few sources. The comparisons on their website, like this one (which is outdated), literally do not mention features at all when discussing prices. And that’s for good reason—unless you’re on the $59 or $99 plan, you won’t be getting any features of note.

• The $19 plan only supports 1 user and 1 number, so core functions like call transfers and ringing multiple phones or devices simultaneously aren’t present. You don’t even get an auto-attendant with this plan. It’s basically just a second business line with unlimited minutes.
• Once you’re up to the $39 plan, which supports 3 users, there are still core functions M.I.A. Customizable call flow? Nope. A call directory so callers can easily find the extension they need? Nope. Call analytics to see how your company is performing? Nope.

Capabilities Comparison

Price per month	$ 19,99*	$ 19**
Minutes Included	1 000	Unlimited
Price per minute	0,02	0,03
User extensions	Unlimited	1
Local or Toll-free numbers	2	1
Texting	Unlimited	100
Existing number transfer	Yes	$10
Call forwarding	Yes	Yes
Call Queue	Yes	No
Business hours	Yes	No
Conference calling	Yes	No
Auto attendant	Yes	No
Website Widgets	Yes	No
Social Media tracking	Yes	No
Webphone for In/Out Calls	Yes	No
Dashboard	Yes	No
	*Basic plan	**Basic plan

No matter how much you pay, you can’t get features like:

• call recording,
• conference calling,
• voicemail transcription, or
• a webphone.

Those features are all dynamic enough to visibly influence your business; we aren’t talking about periphery features that only would be useful in specific situations, but MVP features that most in the industry charge extra for.

• Essentially, you’ll pay $59 just to get a virtual phone system with comparable power to most on the market. And for that money, you get 3 numbers, 10 extensions, 1,000 text messages, and unlimited minutes (while missing out on the aforementioned major features).

On MightyCall’s $50 plan, you get 5 numbers, unlimited extensions, unlimited texting, and admittedly, *only* 5,000 talk minutes included (that’s over 2 and a half hours a day on average), but you also get all the features on Talkroute’s $59 plan (and even on their $99 plan) and more for less money. There simply isn’t a choice here at all.

By keeping Grasshopper in the corner of their eye for so long, Talkroute has fallen victim to the same flaw Grasshopper has—a lack of advanced features. If you want a plain old call forwarding number without any extra oomph, Talkroute isn’t bad, but if you want an actual virtual phone system with useful features, it won’t deliver results for you like most other virtual phone systems.

If you want to know more about the industry at-large and your choices, here is a bird’s-eye view of the Business VoIP market: Your Mega-Giant Guide to the Most Popular VoIP Providers