Hey Quad vs RingCentral

Side by side

Hey Quad compared with RingCentral RingEX Core, read at RingCentral’s own pages on September 8, 2026.

What is being compared		RingCentral RingEX Core
Seat price	Quoted per seat for your business, in writing, within one business day. Every tax and fee for your address on its own line, and the bill matches the quote.	Not published on their pricing page.
Billing term required	12- or 24-month agreements, the same price on either. No setup fee, no per-line activation.	"Save up to 33% by paying annually." Phone rental available only with multi-year contract. Fourteen-day free trial, up to 20 lines; SMS is not available during the trial.
Taxes and fees	The taxes and 911 fees for your service address, each as its own line on the quote and the invoice. No regulatory recovery fee.	Other taxes and fees such as the Federal Universal Service Recovery Fee, E911 Service Fee, Compliance and Administrative Cost Recovery Fee, 911 Fee, and State and Local Taxes, may apply.
Phone numbers	Local numbers come with your account, with 911 address registration on every number at no charge from us. Your quote says how many.	Additional local or toll-free numbers $4.99 a month. Vanity numbers $30 one-time plus $4.99 a month. Additional international numbers from $5.99 per user a month.
Calling minutes	Minutes on every seat, pooled across the whole team. International is one flat rate wherever you call.	Unlimited domestic calling on every RingEX tier. Toll-free minutes are capped by tier at 100, 1,000 and 10,000.
Texting	Outbound texts on every seat, pooled across the team. Inbound texts are free and unlimited.	25, 100 or 200 SMS per user a month by tier. A shared SMS inbox with templates and compliance tools is the Business SMS Booster add-on at $25 per user a month. High-volume SMS is separately metered from $0.0119 per message sent or received.
Text registration fees	The carrier registration The Campaign Registry requires, as a line on your quote. We fill in the paperwork.	Not published on their pricing page.
AI receptionist	An optional add-on in named tiers, each with its own pool of AI minutes that does not eat your calling allowance. Not metered per call.	AI Receptionist (AIR) is an add-on that starts at $39 a month. Conversational Intelligence starts at $60.
Desk phones	We ship desk phones pre-configured, and they stay ours — cancel and we send a prepaid box. Or use the softphone in your browser or the Windows desktop app, or both at once on one seat.	Desk phones can be bought or rented, but the page states that phone rental is available only with a multi-year contract.
Setup	The founder sets it up with you, on a call, in Eastern business hours.	Self-serve trial or a sales-led implementation. The pricing page routes every tier to "Contact sales".
Support	A person in Eastern time who answers the phone, not a ticket queue. It is the same person who builds it.	Sales line (888) 697-8311. Support tiers are not priced on the page.

In RingCentral’s own words:

Other taxes and fees such as the Federal Universal Service Recovery Fee, E911 Service Fee, Compliance and Administrative Cost Recovery Fee, 911 Fee, and State and Local Taxes, may apply.

On top of any advertised seat price come your state and local communications taxes, a 911 fee per number, the federal Universal Service charge and, with most providers, a fee line of their own. None of those amounts appear on the pricing page, so the bill is always higher than the headline. Our quote lists every one of them for your address, on its own line, before you sign, and adds no “regulatory recovery fee” of our own.

What each of those lines is, and which of them are real taxes: phone taxes and fees on a business phone bill.

Where RingCentral is better

RingCentral is the most capable platform on this list by a wide margin, and if you are going to outgrow a small phone system it is the one to outgrow into. The integration catalogue is enormous, the contact-centre product is real, they publish a 99.999% availability commitment, and they operate at a scale where somebody has already solved whatever unusual thing your business needs. If you have multiple sites, a compliance department, or a Salesforce deployment that has to be the centre of everything, that is a genuinely different product from ours and the right one for you.

We would rather you read that here than find it out in month two. If it describes your business, buy theirs.

Questions people ask

Is Hey Quad cheaper than RingCentral?

Compare the number on the invoice, not the one on a pricing page. Advertised seat prices leave out state and local taxes, the federal Universal Service charge and the provider’s own fee lines. We send a written quote with every one of those for your address on its own line, and the bill matches it — so you can put the two side by side before you sign.

Do you cover my area?

Tell us where the business is and we’ll quote you, including that location’s taxes and fees, each on its own line.

Can I keep my number if I move from RingCentral?

Yes. Your number is yours, and porting it to us is free. We handle the paperwork with the losing carrier and schedule the switch so your phones do not go quiet in the middle of a workday.

What does RingCentral charge extra for?

From their own plans page, read 8 September 2026: an AI Receptionist from $39 a month, Conversational Intelligence from $60, a Call Queues Booster at $35, and a Business SMS Booster at $25 per user a month for the shared SMS inbox with templates and compliance tools. High-volume messaging is metered separately from $0.0119 per message sent or received.

How many texts come with a RingCentral seat?

The base tiers include a small SMS allowance: 25 messages per user a month on Core, 100 on Advanced, 200 on Ultra. Every Hey Quad seat includes pooled texts shared across the team, and inbound texts are free.

What fees does RingCentral add?

Their pricing page footnotes it: "Other taxes and fees such as the Federal Universal Service Recovery Fee, E911 Service Fee, Compliance and Administrative Cost Recovery Fee, 911 Fee, and State and Local Taxes, may apply." Five named lines, no amounts. Our quote lists every tax and fee for your address, each on its own line, and adds no recovery fee of our own.

Can I rent desk phones from RingCentral?

Their page states that phone rental is available only with a multi-year contract. Ours ship pre-configured with the seat and stay ours — if you cancel, we send a prepaid box.

Is Hey Quad a good RingCentral alternative?

For a business of roughly two to twenty people, yes: phones, texting, the AI receptionist, a shared inbox and customer records in one system, an itemized quote your bill matches, and setup done by the person who built the product. For a multi-site company with a formal contact centre and a Salesforce deployment at the middle of everything, no — that is what RingCentral is for, and we say so on this page rather than letting you find out later.