What is GoToConnect?
GoToConnect is an inexpensive, extensive, all-in-one VoIP business phone and meeting system. Its products and services are cloud-based and use mobile, desktop, or web apps, allowing your workers to work remotely and connect from anywhere. This highly customizable system offers many advanced features as standard, many of which are not commonly found in other VoIP providers’ standard plans. It also integrates video-conferencing and team chat while supporting high call volume operations such as contact centers or sales and marketing departments.
Parent company GoTo has been around for a while and has been through several iterations, beginning in 2003 as 3am Labs before listing on the Nasdaq in 2009 as LogMeIn, Inc. The company finally rebranded in February 2022 as GoTo. Those 19 years have seen some clever technology acquisitions and divestments to get the company to where it is today. Focusing on three main business areas, GoTo offers identity and access management, customer engagement and support services, and unified communication and collaboration services. The GoToConnect product we are reviewing forms part of the latter business group, being one of eight separate products.
At its most basic level, GoToConnect allows you to port your number or select a new local, toll-free, or vanity number. Smart call routing, unlimited extensions, and call forwarding come as standard, as do auto-attendant recorded greetings, customizable dial plans, ring groups, and call queues. You also have team messaging, audio conferencing for four people, and video conference capability. Move up one plan, and your meetings can expand to 150 people while the features keep coming, such as voicemail to email, paging, intercom, call recording, and caller hold-time reports. Toll-free minutes are charged on the lower tier plan, while higher levels include free minutes to share across the account.
You’ll want the highest plan if your business is a contact center or in sales and marketing. This plan gives you access to specific features such as listen/whisper/barge, call analytics, real-time queue status, and agent effectiveness reporting. You’ll also get considerably more monthly toll-free minutes, unlimited meeting durations, and meeting participants can number 250.
GoToConnect
What popular features do you get with GoToConnect?
- Call filtering
- Call on hold feature
- Call routing on all plans
- Intuitive admin portal
- Screen sharing
- Unlimited extensions
- Vanity phone numbers
- Virtual Fax
- Team-wide document editing
- Integration with 75 collaboration apps
- Customized messages and greetings (* Available within the US only)
- Free-of-charge toll-free numbers*
Customer Support is available at GoToConnect
GoToConnect will try and stream you through their knowledge base before you send an email or pick up the phone for help. Some of the help articles are long-form text, and others are videos. Past criticisms of GoToConnect highlighted the lack of visuals in the knowledge base, and the self-help videos would appear to be a response to that. If self-help doesn’t work, you can email or call customer support.
While no hours are given for the customer support team, we assume they’re 24/7, given you can select toll-free local numbers for 24 countries in addition to international numbers. Email support is a ticket-based system where you go into a queue for a customer support agent to respond. Both phone and email contact methods will ask for details of your issue before contact is made to allow your request to be channeled appropriately.
What kind of business is GoToConnect ideal for?
GoToConnect is an ideal product for established small and medium-sized businesses, particularly if the workforce is geographically dispersed or working from home. All features assume a small to moderate-sized team, so solopreneurs would be paying for many features they’re unlikely to use. Given the breadth of features on offer within the standard package, the plan pricing is competitive, and as your business grows, you can scale the number of seats and the level of features to suit.
Pros and Cons
- An integrated VoIP communications platform offering phone, video, and chat
- Free toll-free and vanity numbers provided
- Try-before-you-buy 14-day free trial
- Call filters can route important calls directly to an employee
- Easy to use dial-plan editor
- Supports SMS and MMS messages in the US and Canada
- Specific features for contact centers
- The knowledge base for self-help is a bit clunky and difficult to use
- Voicemail to email and e-Fax is not available on the basic plan
People like you also researched
Here are some products we think might be a good fit based on what people like you viewed.
Ooma Office
- Free number porting
- Virtual fax
- Feature-rich Ooma Office Web Portal
- Unlimited domestic calling
Nextiva
- Customized Dashboards
- CRM options available
- Unlimited calling in North America
- Feature-rich Communications Platform
Grasshopper
- Voicemail Transcription
- Simultaneous Call Handling
- Business Texting
- Virtual Fax
How much does GoToConnect cost?
*based on information provided by the vendor. Actual cost may vary.
The pricing page of GoToConnect allows you to select your location/currency to the left of the page to see the prices relevant to your region. You can choose between Basic, Standard, and Premium pricing plans. You also have an option of a 14-day free trial, although number porting, toll-free and vanity numbers, and international calling are not included.
The Basic plan for US and Canadian residents starts at $24 per user per month*. As the name suggests, you get basic services, including device and location agnostic calling and use of your existing number or a toll-free, vanity, or local number provided by GoToConnect. Included are smart call routing, unlimited extensions, and call forwarding. You also get one each of the following features:
- Auto-attendant greetings
- Ring groups
- A customizable dial plan
- A call queuing system
In the Basic plan, toll and international calls are charged per minute. You also get basic audio and video conferencing facilities with a restricted meeting duration of 40 minutes.
The standard plan starts at $29 per user per month and unlocks all the GoToConnect features apart from the contact center features. International calling to more than 50 countries is included free, and you receive 1,000 toll-free minutes to be shared across the account. Video calls are capped at 150 participants with no limit on the meeting duration. This multisite compatible plan allows unlimited auto-attendant greetings, dial plans, ring groups, and call queues.
The Premium plan includes everything from the standard plan and adds the customizable contact center features. These include call analytics and monitoring, listen/whisper/barge options, real-time queue status, and agent effectiveness reporting. A supervisor dashboard is also included. You receive 5,000 toll-free minutes shared across the account, and video conference participants are capped at 250.
Final thoughts...
GoToConnect is a nice option for an established small to medium-sized business with several to many employees, particularly if they are remote or geographically dispersed. While the Basic plan is slightly restrictive and doesn’t include features we feel it should, the Standard and Premium plans give you a lot for your money. You get some advanced features included in your monthly fee, normally charged as add-ons by competitors. While the customer support is a bit clunky, it’s not enough to penalize GoToConnect. We like the features, and we like the pricing. GoToConnect is well worth considering.
