Review Overview
AX Voice is a smaller Internet phone service provider that offers different programs for homes, international callers and small businesses. It’s hosted, virtual PBX offering is limited to its SOHO (Small Home Office) and Small Business plans. They’re full-featured and come at a smart price for small operations.
PBX Focus
AX Voice runs a small virtual PBX offering that has features including direct-inbound dialing and outbound calls with a variety of business features. Plans bread down for small business and home office professionals, with packages that start at 200 minutes for U.S. and Canada calls.
The service also includes standard options such as voicemail, call waiting, caller ID, blocking and forwarding, with the lowest plan starting at just $15 each month. Different plans have different details, but most are geared to startups.
SOHO Plan
The Home Office (SOHO) Plan from AX Voice costs just $14.99 per month and provides you with a single phone line and 200 free minutes plus free incoming calls. Each additional minute will cost you 1.5 cents.
The company offers the same feature set for this and its other business plans (see the “Feature Set” section for a full list) and the key items it highlights are its caller ID, online account management and its virtual voicemail.
While the company touts “free equipment” on its plans, this is restricted to the Ax Voice VOIP Phone Adapter that you’ll need to plug in to your router so you can use the VoIP service and continue to browse the Web on your network. Plans do not cover additional equipment, such as touchtone phones.
One thing that seems relatively unique to AX Voice is that it charges you a $1.50 fee each month for access to Emergency 911 calling. The overall cost structure of your SOHO plan breaks down as:
| First Month | Monthly Recurring Costs | |
| Monthly Fee |
$14.99 |
$14.99 |
| Shipping |
$19.99 |
None |
| Emergency 911 |
$1.50 |
$1.50 |
| Taxes |
If Applicable in Your State |
If Applicable in Your State |
| Activation Fee |
Free |
Free |
| BYOD Activation |
Free |
Free |
| Hardware | Free | Free |
| Total | $36.48 + Tax | $16.49 + Tax |
Small Business Plan
Ax Voice also offers a Small Business VoIP Plan that jumps up your calling time to 1500 free minutes to the U.S. and Canada, plus free calling within your business network. Like the SOHO plan, extra minutes will cost you 1.5 cents each.
The plan also includes SIP trunking which offers you a number of channels so multiple employees can talk at the same time. This is a dedicated service, so it’ll always be available to your business and should maintain a consistent quality.
The Small Business plan gives you access to phone numbers from more than 2,000 area codes when selecting your new company number. The platform also uses simple forwarding technology to make porting and switching easy while not losing any important calls.
The plans start at either $39.99 for a month-to-month plan or $29.99 per month on an annual package. The company provided this matrix for your expected costs, but this will rise somewhat if you stick to a month-to-month plan.
| First Month | Monthly Recurring Costs | |
| Monthly Fee |
$29.99 |
$29.99 |
| Shipping |
$19.99 |
None |
| Emergency 911 |
$1.50 |
$1.50 |
| Taxes |
If Applicable in Your State |
If Applicable in Your State |
| Activation Fee |
Free |
Free |
| BYOD Activation |
Free |
Free |
| Hardware | Free | Free |
| Total | $51.48 + Tax | $31.49 + Tax |
Beyond those differences, all of the features available to the SOHO plan are also available to the Small Business plan.
What You Need
To get your service from AX Voice, you’ll need just a couple items to make sure everything works properly. These are:
- High-speed Internet access, such as cable or DSL Internet service.
- A touchtone phone – contact the company if you have a PBX phone to make sure it will work with the service
- An available Ethernet port on either your modem or router. This is for the AX Voice VoIP Phone Adapter and allows you to use your Internet for browsing and the phone service at the same time.
- A major credit card or a debit card backed by a major credit card. You can use either a U.S. or Canada card.
Feature Set
With any plan from AX Voice, you’ll get access to the following features. They come standard and can help you bring your small business to the next level of professionalism.
General Features
- Call Logs
- Web-based voicemail access
- Voicemail notification via email
- Free in-network calling
- BYOD support
- Softphone support
- Web management of accounts and voicemail
Outbound Calling Features
- Caller ID Blocking to block your phone number and information
- Alternate Caller ID to use defined account information as your outbound caller ID.
- Different codecs to use less bandwidth
- International Call Blocking
- Simultaneous ringing on mobile and office numbers
- Hold Music
- Enhanced 911 service for U.S. and Canada
Incoming Calling Features
- Caller ID and Blacklists
- Do Not Disturb
- Reject calls from people who block their caller ID
- Call Filters
- Call waiting with Caller ID
- Conference Calls
- Multiple rings
- Find Me Follow Me
- Call Forwarding
- Failover to forward calls to you if your Internet connection is out
For an additional fee you can also get a virtual number or Toll-Free number. Virtual numbers will cost $4 per month while Toll-Free options will feature a monthly charge as well as specific per-minute costs that run up quickly.
Additional Services
AX also offers a set of residential and international plans, but these do not provide PBX options. However, company representatives said plans can be combined for potential savings.
Is It Right for You?
AX Voice appears to offer a great service for getting started, and it comes with no contracts and a money-back guarantee, which is nice. The company requires you to do some leg work to verify that your equipment will work, but for most small businesses that’s not a concern. The feature set is straight forward and all of your bases are covered, but it is a cost that will rise quickly if you move past the single-person office. Also, make sure to check your call frequency before opting for its smaller plans.
Pros
- International rates and plans are some of the best in our list.
- BYOD support to work with your own unlocked VoIP devices.
- No extra fees for SIP softphones.
- Reliable for voicemail, call logs, and account management.
- Customer service is given mostly good marks from customers, but it must be done online only.
- Good value for some plans.
Cons
- Its website pricing can be disingenuous. It notes in at least one chart that it has no second month charge but it is comparing an annual plan to competitor’s month-to-month plans.
- Some plans have very few minutes.
- No phone-based support.
- Customers report outages and dropped calls – which may be due to either service failure or the Internet connection of the customers.
- AX Voice gets too expensive for some growing operations.
Final Say
AX Voice is a top option for companies and small business that do a lot of international work and need reliable, cheap calling. The company has the best rates for most foreign country calling. The downside to AX is that its feature set is not as robust as many of its competitors and the support is limited compared to the price. Customers are mixed about its service and troubleshooting because responses tend to help but they are only available through an email exchange. It’s very well-loved by small businesses, so it makes a solid option when getting started.
