Microsoft Teams Phone System Review 2026

You work for a medium to large size company — anywhere from 100 users to a few thousand — and Microsoft Teams Phone System is one of the options you’re considering for your new phone system. But you’re wondering if Teams Phone is actually a good fit for a company your size in 2026.

In this video, I give you my full review of Microsoft Teams Phone System, breaking down every major buying factor on a ten point scale so you can make the right call for your organization.

Want my recommendations on the best Operator Connect vendors to quote? Ask me today.

About Me

Mike Smith has been helping companies select the best telecom, WAN, security, and cloud services since 1999. He founded AeroCom in 2003, and has been the recipient of numerous business telecommunications industry awards, including being recognized as one of the top 40 business people in tech-heavy Orange County, CA. Follow Mike on YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit and SpiceWorks.

Transcript

If you’d like my recommendation on the best Operator Connect vendors your company should be quoting for Teams Phone System, send me an email or give me a call at 714.593.0011. It doesn’t cost your company anything to work with me and I will get you better pricing on your Operator Connect service than if you try to reach out on your own. There are over 100 Operator Connect vendors out there — you do not want to start calling random ones. I will find you the right one for your company, introduce you directly to the best sales rep, get you a great demo, and make sure all your technical questions get answered properly. Join the thousands of other companies who have used me to help their company make a better decision in a fraction of the time. Also don’t forget to subscribe to the YouTube channel and go check out AeroComInc.com — you can read and write reviews on providers, watch videos, and filter providers by features like Teams Phone System.

When Is Teams Phone System the Right Fit for a Medium to Large Company?

Before getting into the ratings, here are the five situations where Teams Phone System is the perfect fit for a medium to large size company. Your company does not have to check all five boxes — two or three may still make it a good fit — but if all five are true, Teams Phone System is probably the perfect option for your organization.

One — your company has an IT department. Two — your company uses Microsoft Teams heavily today for instant messaging and conferencing. Three — your company does not need a lot of phone system features. Four — your company already has a Microsoft 365 E5 or E7 license. Five — your company purchases the Teams Phone System calling plan through an Operator Connect vendor.

Those are the five factors. Now let me explain why through the ratings.

My Teams Phone System Review: 6.6 out of 10 for 2026

I evaluate business phone systems on a ten point scale across the ten factors that matter most to medium to large size companies. Here is how Teams Phone System scores.

Service Quality and Reliability: 7 out of 10

Most of the time Teams Phone System is up and running — and the actual call quality is very good. But if you have been in IT and using Teams for several years, you know that Microsoft 365 and Teams Phone do have outages from time to time. Teams goes down occasionally, and that is something you have to account for when evaluating it against other cloud phone systems. For that reason, seven out of ten on service quality and reliability.

Customer Service: 9 out of 10

Before you push back on this one — I am not grading Microsoft’s direct customer service. I am assuming your company uses an Operator Connect vendor for the calling plan, which means when something goes wrong you are calling your Operator Connect vendor, not Microsoft directly. Relying on Microsoft themselves for hands-on customer service is not their strong suit. But if you use a good Operator Connect vendor — and I can help you find the right one — customer service in my experience is a nine out of ten.

Five Year Viability: 9 out of 10

I give Teams Phone a nine out of ten on five year viability. There is a very strong chance Teams Phone System is around for at least five more years and Microsoft continues to invest in the product. If you get Teams Phone today, you are not going to find yourself on a grandfathered platform with no development behind it in a year or two.

Features: 5 out of 10

This is where Teams Phone struggles. They cover the basics — answering, transferring, voicemail, auto attendant, on-demand call recording, and basic call queuing. But beyond that the feature gaps are significant. No custom call reporting, no MMS, no always-on call recording, and no call center application. If you use a good Operator Connect vendor you can bolt on some of those missing features for an additional charge, but stack too many bolt-ons and you end up with what I call Frankenstein Phone System — a patchwork of third party applications that creates complexity and cost. If your company needs a lot of features, Teams Phone is probably not the right fit.

User Experience: 9 out of 10

From a user perspective, Teams Phone is very easy to navigate and very easy on the eyes. I have not heard many complaints from customers about users struggling with the phone system inside Teams. It is simple, straightforward, and most employees are already familiar with the Teams interface. Nine out of ten.

Admin Experience: 5 out of 10

The admin experience is where things get more complicated. There are several steps involved in tasks that should take one click. Adding an auto attendant, for example, requires creating a phone number, creating a resource account, building the auto attendant, assigning it to the phone number, and assigning it to the resource account — several separate steps. Even getting to the Teams Phone Management Portal requires navigating through the Microsoft 365 Admin Portal, finding the Teams option at the bottom, clicking into Teams, then finding the Voice section. It is not impossible for an IT professional to figure out, but it is more cumbersome than it should be. Five out of ten.

Pricing: 6 out of 10

I give Teams Phone a six out of ten on pricing — and that is only if you are using an Operator Connect vendor for the calling plan. If you are going directly to Microsoft, the score is lower. Teams Phone is one of the more expensive options on the market if your company does not already have an E5 or E7 license, because you have to add Teams Phone Standard to every single user and then add the calling plan on top of that.

However, if your company already has an E5 or E7 license — meaning Teams Phone Standard is already included — and you layer on a call path based calling plan through an Operator Connect vendor, the total cost can get very competitive. There are good pricing paths available, but it depends heavily on your existing Microsoft licensing. Six out of ten overall.

Global Availability: 10 out of 10

Teams Phone has one of the largest global footprints of any business phone system on the market. If you use a good Operator Connect vendor for the calling plan, you can deploy Teams Phone System in virtually any country. Ten out of ten — if your company has global locations or global remote users, Teams Phone can support them.

Integrations: 1 out of 10

This is the lowest score I give Teams Phone and it is not close. Teams Phone does not have an open API — it is a closed system. On top of that, Microsoft has not developed many pre-built integrations outside of their own ecosystem. Teams Phone integrates well with Dynamics 365 but not with Salesforce, HubSpot, ServiceNow, Jack Henry, or most major CRMs and ERPs. If your company needs strong third party integrations, Teams Phone is not the right fit.

Hardware: 5 out of 10

Teams certified hardware works well but it costs about double what a standard cloud phone system desk phone or headset would cost. On top of that, it is proprietary — if your company ever decides to move off Teams Phone System, you will have to replace all of that hardware because it is certified exclusively for Teams. Five out of ten.

Final Score: 6.6 out of 10

Teams Phone System does some things really well — global availability, user experience, five year viability — and some things not so well — integrations, admin experience, features. Take my categories and customize them for your company. If global availability is not relevant to your organization, remove it from the rating. If features matter a lot, weight that higher. Apply the scores to your specific situation and it gives you a much more accurate picture.

If you want to know which Operator Connect vendors your company should be quoting, send me an email or give me a call at 714.593.0011. There are over 100 of them — do not start calling random ones on your own. I will get you better pricing, find you the right vendor, introduce you to the best sales rep, and get you a great demo where an engineer can answer all of your technical questions and walk you through call path based pricing. I do not charge your company anything to work with me — the Operator Connect vendors pay my broker fee. Don’t forget to subscribe to the YouTube channel and check out AeroComInc.com. Thanks for watching — I’ll catch you on the next one.