The VoIP Shop is a UK unified communications provider based in Leicester. We supply, install and manage unified communications for UK businesses, including NHS services, schools, dental groups and multi site estates. Plans start at £13.95 per user per month.
Choose Microsoft Teams, iPECS, Yeastar or 3CX. We tell you which one fits, configure it, post the handsets ready to use, and support it from the UK afterwards, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Unified communications is a single platform that brings voice calls, video meetings, instant messaging, presence, voicemail and file sharing together, so a user can move between them without changing device or application. It is also sold as UCaaS, which stands for unified communications as a service and means the platform is hosted in the cloud rather than on hardware in your building.
A traditional setup keeps these things apart. The phone system is one product, video conferencing is another, chat is a third, and none of them know what the others are doing. Unified communications puts them on one system, with one set of numbers, one directory and one bill.
There is a deadline attached. The UK public switched telephone network, the PSTN, closes on 31 January 2027, along with ISDN. Every business still running an analogue or ISDN phone system has to move to an internet based system before then. Most use that move to go from a phone system to unified communications in one step, because the work is the same either way.
We are not tied to one platform. We fit the platform to the business, then deliver and manage it.
Best for businesses that want calling and video meetings from the same platform rather than a phone system plus a separate meetings subscription. Cloud calling works on desk phone, laptop and mobile, a call can be turned into a full meeting at the touch of a button, and video conferencing supports up to 1,000 attendees with no meeting time limit. Messaging, file sharing and whiteboarding are included. This is the platform we sell most.
Best for businesses already running Microsoft 365 across the company. Calling is added into the Teams app your staff already have open, so there is nothing new for them to learn and no second directory to keep up to date. We provide the numbers, the routing and the desk phones, and we handle the Microsoft side of the configuration.
Best for businesses that want a full featured phone system with proper desk handsets and call handling built for reception teams, contact centres and busy front desks. Strong on call queues, hunt groups, wallboards and multi site working.
Best for smaller teams and single sites that want the features without the complexity, and for businesses moving off an old on premise PBX with existing handsets they would rather keep.
Best for businesses that want the system hosted in their own environment, or a hybrid of cloud and on premise. 3CX runs as software, so it can sit in your own cloud tenancy or on a server on site, which suits organisations with data location requirements or an existing IT estate they want to keep control of.
Unified communications in the UK typically costs between £10 and £25 per user per month. The VoIP Shop's Standard Voice plan is £13.95 per user per month, Premium AI is £16.95 and Ultimate AI with CRM integration is £23.99. All three include unlimited UK landline and mobile calls, the mobile and desktop apps, support and maintenance, and no installation fee. Prices correct as of August 2026.
Our core calling plan for everyday business use
Core plan plus AI call transcription and summaries
Premium AI plus full CRM integration
Most UK providers will not publish this, so it is worth asking every one you speak to the same six questions.
| What to ask | Our answer |
|---|---|
| What does it cost per user per month, published? | £13.95, £16.95 or £23.99. On this page, not behind a form. |
| Is there an installation fee? | No. |
| Am I locked into one platform? | No. Microsoft Teams, iPECS, Yeastar or 3CX. |
| Where is support answered, and when? | United Kingdom, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Sales and account enquiries 9am to 6pm Monday to Friday. |
| What is the response time on a critical fault? | 30 minutes, per our published SLA. |
| How long until we are live? | Handsets configured and posted within 48 hours. |
| Can you evidence the compliance claims? | Cyber Essentials, NHS Data Security and Protection Toolkit, DCB0129, ICO registration, UK GDPR and PCI DSS. |
Unified communications works by hosting the phone system in a data centre rather than on hardware in your office, then delivering calls, video, chat and voicemail to any device over your internet connection.
In practice it happens in five steps.
Existing numbers are ported across, so customers carry on dialling the same numbers. Nothing is printed again.
A user has one extension and one direct dial number that follows them, rather than a number tied to a phone on one desk.
Desk phone, laptop app, mobile app. All three ring for the same person, and a call can be picked up on any of them.
Time of day, department, queue position, out of hours, holidays. Changed in a browser, not by an engineer visit.
Call volumes, missed calls, queue times and recordings sit in one dashboard, across every site.
AI features in a unified communications system answer calls automatically, transcribe what was said, summarise it in writing, and send the caller to the right person without them working through a menu. Because the AI sits on the same platform as your calls, it uses your existing numbers, call flows and CRM rather than a separate service.
These are AI features we supply and support today, not a roadmap. They are added to a unified communications plan rather than bought as a separate product.
An AI voice bot answers every inbound call immediately, including out of hours and during a rush, so no caller reaches a queue or an unanswered ring. It speaks naturally rather than reading a menu.
Recorded calls are converted to text, and voicemail arrives as a written message as well as audio. Calls become searchable, so a dispute or a detail can be checked by reading rather than by listening to a recording.
After each call the AI sends your team a summary: who called, the number, what they wanted and what was agreed. Nobody has to write up a message or replay a recording to find out what happened.
The AI understands the reason for the call in ordinary language and routes it accordingly, instead of asking the caller to press one for sales. Urgent calls can be identified and put through to a person straight away.
The AI can book, move or confirm an appointment in your calendar during the call, and write the caller's details into your CRM. It connects to systems including Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, Microsoft Dynamics and Dentally.
Every AI handled call is scored for caller sentiment and reported on alongside volumes, wait times and missed calls. You can see which enquiries are going badly rather than only how many calls came in.
AI features are priced separately from the per user plans above, starting at £10 a month. There are also versions built for specific sectors, including dental practices, GP clinics, care agencies, schools, hotels, pharmacies, restaurants and accountants.
An auto attendant answers every inbound call with a recorded menu and routes the caller to the right person or department without a receptionist. Included on all three plans at no extra cost.
Presence shows whether a colleague is available, on a call or away, before you transfer to them. It removes the blind transfer and the caller waiting while somebody walks the office looking for the right person.
Voicemail and faxes arrive in the user's email inbox as an audio file or PDF, so messages get picked up from anywhere rather than by dialling in.
Time based routing sends calls to different destinations depending on the time of day. Calls go to the office during business hours and to an out of hours message, a voicemail box or a mobile after closing.
Call queues hold callers in order with a position announcement rather than a busy tone. Hunt groups ring a set of people in sequence or all at once until somebody answers.
Video meetings and one to one or group chat run in the same app as the phone, so a chat can become a call and a call can become a video meeting without moving to another product.
Click to call dials any number shown in a browser or CRM record with one click, which removes mis dialling and logs the call against the customer record automatically.
Calls can be recorded for training and compliance, and every call is reported on for volume, wait time and missed calls across all sites in one dashboard.
Multiple offices run as one system with internal extension dialling between sites. If a site loses its internet connection, calls fail over automatically to mobiles or another site.
Mobile unified communications means a member of staff can make and take business calls on their mobile using the company number, with the same extension, voicemail, call recording and transfer options they have at their desk.
The mobile app registers to the same platform as the desk phone. That has three practical consequences.
Nobody gives out a personal mobile number. Outbound calls from the app present the company number, so the customer relationship stays with the business when someone leaves.
Calls transfer properly. A call taken on a mobile can be transferred to a colleague, put in a queue or moved to a video meeting, which a diverted mobile call cannot do.
Field and hybrid staff are reachable on one number. One number rings desk, laptop and mobile together, so there is no chasing between three numbers.
This suits engineers, care and site staff, delivery teams, and anyone splitting the week between home and an office.
Unified communications suits a small business because it removes the upfront cost of a phone system. There is no PBX to buy, no installation fee and no maintenance contract, and the monthly cost per user is fixed and known.
What a small team gets that it would not have had on an old system.
It sounds bigger than it is. An auto attendant, departmental options and hold music are standard, not extras.
You add and remove users yourself. A new starter is a few minutes in a browser, not an engineer visit and a quote.
No capital outlay. The cost is per user per month, so five users cost five users. Nothing is sized for a business you are not yet.
Nothing to maintain. Updates and fixes happen on the platform. There is no hardware in a cupboard to fail.
We are a managed provider, not a self service portal. The setup is done for you, including the hardware, and we handle hybrid environments where part of the estate stays on premise.
We look at your current numbers, lines, contracts, sites and call volumes, and tell you which platform fits and what it will cost.
Call flows, departments, opening hours, out of hours handling and who rings for what, agreed before anything is built.
The platform is built, users are created, and handsets are configured to your call flow before they leave us. Phones are posted ready to plug in within 48 hours.
Numbers are ported on an agreed date. The old system stays up until the new one is proven, so there is no window where calls cannot be answered.
Your team is shown the system on the day, and support afterwards is answered in the UK, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Starting from nothing. New premises or a new business. Numbers are provided, the system is built and it goes live on a date you pick.
Coming off analogue or ISDN before the 2027 switch off. Existing numbers are ported, so the change is invisible to your customers.
Hybrid, keeping something on premise. Some sites or systems stay where they are and connect to the cloud platform, which suits phased migrations and data location requirements. 3CX and SIP trunking both do this.
An AI absence line now takes parent absence calls automatically, saving the attendance team 97.5 hours a year.
Telephony costs cut by 75% after moving off their previous system.
Multiple offices brought onto one system with internal extension dialling between sites, completed with zero downtime.
The VoIP Shop is Cyber Essentials certified, UK GDPR compliant and ICO registered under the Data Protection Act 2018. We meet the NHS Data Security and Protection Toolkit standard and DCB0129 clinical risk management requirements for health IT systems, and we are PCI DSS compliant for card payments.
The VoIP Shop compliance confirmed, standards exceeded. This is what allows us to supply NHS services.
Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard compliant. Relevant if you take card payments over the phone.
Clinical risk management compliance for health IT systems.
Registered under the UK Data Protection Act 2018 and UK GDPR.
The VoIP Shop UK GDPR compliance certification.
The VoIP Shop is Cyber Essentials certified, under the UK government backed scheme for baseline cyber security controls.
All certifications current as at August 2026.
Unified communications is a single platform that brings voice calls, video meetings, instant messaging, presence, voicemail and file sharing together, so a user can move between them without changing device or application.
VoIP is the technology that carries voice calls over the internet. Unified communications is the wider platform that includes VoIP calling alongside video, messaging, presence and voicemail. Every unified communications system uses VoIP, but a VoIP service on its own is only the calling part.
UCaaS stands for unified communications as a service. It means the unified communications platform is hosted in a provider's data centre and paid for per user per month, rather than bought as hardware and installed in your building.
They describe the same set of tools. Unified communications is the capability. UCaaS is the delivery model, meaning it is hosted in the cloud and bought as a subscription. A unified communications system can also be run on premise, which is not UCaaS.
Unified communications in the UK typically costs between £10 and £25 per user per month. The VoIP Shop's plans are £13.95, £16.95 and £23.99 per user per month, with unlimited UK landline and mobile calls and no installation fee. Prices correct as of August 2026.
Unified communications works by hosting the phone system in a data centre rather than on hardware in your office, then delivering calls, video, chat and voicemail to desk phones, laptops and mobiles over your internet connection.
The main benefits are one number that reaches a person on any device, no phone system hardware to buy or maintain, adding and removing users in a browser rather than by engineer visit, multiple offices running as one system, and call reporting across the whole business in one place.
Microsoft Teams provides the messaging, video and collaboration parts of unified communications on its own. To make and receive calls to ordinary phone numbers it needs a calling plan and a telephony provider added to it, which is what Microsoft Teams Phone with Direct Routing or Operator Connect does.
Yes. A mobile app registers to the same platform as the desk phone, so staff make and take business calls on a mobile using the company number, with the same extension, voicemail and transfer options they have at their desk.
Yes. Because it is charged per user per month there is no phone system to buy and no installation fee, so a team of five pays for five users. Features that used to be enterprise only, such as an auto attendant and call queues, are included as standard.
Hosted unified communications means the platform runs in the provider's data centre rather than on a server in your building. It is another name for UCaaS, and the terms are used interchangeably in the UK market.
Not always. Many existing IP handsets can be reconfigured to the new platform. Analogue phones cannot, and older ISDN handsets cannot, so those need replacing. Staff can also use a laptop or mobile app instead of a desk phone.
Yes. Existing landline numbers are ported to the new platform, including geographic numbers, so customers carry on dialling the same number and no printed material needs changing.
Handsets are configured and posted within 48 hours, so a small single site can be working within a few days. Number porting is the part that sets the timeline, and it is scheduled on an agreed date with the old system kept live until the new one is proven.
Nothing, because unified communications already runs over the internet rather than the PSTN. The 31 January 2027 switch off affects analogue and ISDN phone systems, which is why most businesses use the deadline as the point at which they move to unified communications.
Compare the published price per user per month, whether there is an installation fee, whether you are locked to one platform, where and when support is answered, the response time on a critical fault, and whether compliance claims are backed by named certifications.
Tell us how many users you have and what you run today, and we will tell you which platform fits and what it costs. No obligation.
