Voys vs Google Voice (2026): Dutch SMB Comparison After Steward-Ownership

Most “Voys vs Google Voice” articles you'll find online were written before two events that change the comparison entirely: Voys' transfer to steward-ownership on 6 September 2024(which makes Voys legally unsellable forever) and Google's SIP Link bundling change in February 2025(which folded the SIP Link add-on into the Standard and Premier tiers). Both matter. This is the verified May 2026 comparison — including Voys's real 2026 pricing (€19.95 + €1.65 number), the practical Google Voice gap in the Netherlands (no published Dutch SIP Link carrier partners), the ACM regulatory context (no STIR/SHAKEN mandate yet, unlike France and Spain), and the honest BubblyPhone third-option fit for Dutch diaspora and Skype refugees.

Voys verified facts (2026)

Voys was founded in Groningen in 2006 by Mark Vletter and Ben Hoetmeras a TNO spin-off. The company runs out of Lübeckweg 2, 9723 HE Groningen, with roughly 105 employees and ~€7M in revenue (Tracxn, 2026). Voys is bootstrapped — no venture capital, no private equity, no acquisition history on the receiving end.

Two organisational facts set Voys apart from every other Dutch VoIP provider:

• Holacracy since spring 2015.Voys adopted Brian Robertson's Holacracy v5.0 Constitution when the company was at 26–50 staff, and publicly celebrated 10 years of Holacracy in spring 2025. The flat, role-based decision model still runs the company in 2026 — an unusually long stretch for any holacratic organisation that big.
• Steward-ownership transfer on 6 September 2024 (announced 14 October 2024). Vletter and Hoetmer transferred 100% of Voys shares to a steward-ownership foundation. The foundation's board is three stewards: an employee representative, a client representative, and a mission guardian. Voys legally cannot be sold— ever. There was no Dutch legal framework for steward-ownership at the time, so it took roughly a year to set up. In 2026, Voys is one of a handful of Dutch steward-owned companies in any sector, and the only one in business telecom.

Voys also runs the 48percent.org foundation, donating 1% of revenue (more than €300k cumulative as of 2025) to social-mission projects, and absorbed VoIPGRID's 32,000-customer white-label platformin January 2025 when it rebranded to Voys Partners. So Voys' total Dutch footprint — direct customers plus Voys Partners resellers — is materially larger than the headline customer-count number suggests.

Honest note: Voys's Trustpilot NL score is 3.9/5 (“Goed”, not “Excellent”). Most independent reviews call Voys operationally strong but pricier than entry-level Dutch competitors. The steward-ownership and Holacracy story is the strategic differentiator, not the lowest-cost-per-seat positioning.

Voys 2026 pricing (live from voys.nl/prijzen)

Voys' current published pricing as of May 2026:

Two numbers do most of the work here. A single-user Voys account with one geographic +31 number costs €21.60/month minimum (excl. BTW), or roughly €260/year just to be reachable— even if you make ten calls a month. There is no pay-as-you-go tier. You're buying a full PBX you may not use heavily, in exchange for the Dutch number, Dutch- language support, and full feature set.

International rates and the Professional tier are quote-only, which is normal for Dutch B2B telecom but worth flagging: you cannot comparison-shop Voys against per-minute providers without a sales call.

Google Voice in the Netherlands — the SIP Link reality

Google Voice is not first-party in the Netherlands. The Netherlands is on the SIP Link list, which means:

• You cannot get a native +31 number from Google.Google doesn't allocate Dutch geographic, mobile, 0800, 088, or 085 numbers itself.
• You must Bring Your Own Carrier. You contract separately with a SIP Link partner carrier for the +31 number(s), then route those numbers into Google Voice via SIP trunking.
• No major Dutch carrier publicly advertises as a SIP Link partner.KPN, Odido, VodafoneZiggo — none of them list SIP Link partnership on their public B2B sites. In practice you're dealing with smaller carriers or international SIP Link partners that happen to provision Dutch numbers.
• Effective NL pricing floor ~$27/user/month: Standard tier $20/user (Starter $10 is US-only; Premier $30 if you need ring groups and multi-level auto-attendants) plus Google Workspace base ~$7/user underneath plus the separate Dutch carrier deal for the number itself.
• Contracting entity for EEA customers is Google Voice Limited, Dublin (the same Irish entity used for Ireland and other EEA countries). Voys is contracted Dutch B.V. with EU-only data residency.

The one genuine improvement is February 2025's SIP Link bundling: Google removed SIP Link as a separate paid add-on and folded it into Standard and Premier. Before February 2025, you paid for Voice tier + Workspace + SIP Link add-on + carrier. After February 2025, you pay for Voice tier + Workspace + carrier. Meaningful, but doesn't change the fundamental SIP-Link-only constraint.

Head-to-head feature comparison

Where Voys clearly wins

• You need a 0800 freephone, 088 corporate, or 085 nomadic Dutch number.Google Voice cannot issue any of these. Voys can, and is ACM-registered to allocate 088 in 100-block minimum.
• You want WhatsApp Business integrated with your phone system.74% of Dutch employees use WhatsApp for work (Voys' own 2025 data) and Voys shipped native WhatsApp Business integration in H1 2025. Google Voice has none.
• You run a Dutch SMB on AFAS, Exact, or MoneyBird.These are near-universal Dutch business-software stacks. Voys integrates natively; Google Voice doesn't touch any of them.
• You want Dutch-language support and onboarding. Voys is a Groningen-team Dutch-native operation; Google Voice support is English-language Workspace support routed through Dublin or US.
• You want a vendor that structurally cannot be sold.Steward- ownership since 6 September 2024 means no PE buyout, no acquisition, no “sunset this product” risk. For Dutch businesses that lived through Skype (founded NL, sunset by Microsoft on 5 May 2025), this is non-trivial.
• You need multi-tier PBX features (IVR, hunt groups, call queues) without paying Premier-tier pricing.Voys ships these on the €19.95 Basis tier; Google Voice locks them behind the $30/user Premier tier.

Where Google Voice clearly wins

• You're already on Google Workspace and want one admin console.Voice is administered from the same Workspace admin panel as Gmail and Drive. Voys lives in its own portal, which is an additional admin surface for IT teams.
• You have a US presence and want unified US + NL numbering.Google Voice was built for US numbering first and added SIP Link for non-US countries. If your team is 80% US and 20% NL, Google Voice is the more natural fit (with the SIP Link Dutch-carrier caveat).
• You want transparent self-serve pricing without sales calls.Workspace + Voice tiers are listed on workspace.google.com. Voys Professional tier is quote-only.
• You want to dictate your own SIP carrier.SIP Link gives large enterprises the freedom to negotiate carrier rates and porting terms directly — useful at scale, friction at SMB scale.
• Compliance posture you don't need to over-think.If your buyer doesn't care about EU-only data residency or NIS2 sovereignty, Google's general-purpose compliance posture is fine and the contracting entity is the Dublin one anyway.

Where both lose — BubblyPhone fits

Voys is built for Dutch teams of 1–3+ users who need a full PBX with a Dutch number. Google Voice is built for global teams already on Workspace, with SIP Link as an EU workaround. Neither product is built for the segment that is genuinely large in the Netherlands:

• The Dutch diaspora abroad.631,391 Dutch citizens lived abroad in 2024 (UN DESA), 209,000 emigrated from NL in 2024 (CBS). There are ~3.2 million Americans of Dutch ancestry, ~400,000 Canadians of Dutch ancestry, and large communities in Australia, New Zealand, and Germany. They call home to NL landlines and mobiles. They don't need an inbound +31 number or an €260/year PBX subscription.
• Skype Out refugees. Microsoft shut Skype down on 5 May 2025. Skype was founded in the Netherlands — ironic. Teams Free doesn't replace credit-callable-out. Dutch users who relied on Skype credit to call elsewhere in Europe are looking for the closest equivalent in 2026.
• Dutch solo founders before they need a PBX.The first month of a new Dutch business doesn't need 0800, 088, or IVR. It needs to dial. Voys at €260/year and Google Voice at $27/month + SIP Link carrier are both overspecced for that phase.
• Occasional callers and one-off callers.Every other Dutch resident who calls internationally a few times a month and doesn't want a subscription.

For those segments, BubblyPhone is the credible third option: per-minute prepaid, $5 minimum top-up, 100+ countries, no monthly fee, 30 free signup minutes, browser-based dialer with no app install required. The honest pitch isn't “BubblyPhone is better than Voys” — it's “BubblyPhone is what you actually need when neither Voys nor Google Voice is the right shape for the job.”

Dutch regulatory context — what changed 2024–2026

• No NL STIR/SHAKEN mandate as of May 2026.Unlike France (mandatory since October 2024) or Spain (February 2025), the Netherlands has not mandated caller-ID authentication. Dutch caller-ID fraud is consequently higher-friction to remediate, and provider choice matters more — a regulated Dutch provider like Voys has stronger anti-spoofing operational posture than a SIP-Link-routed setup.
• ACM now enforces the EU Digital Services Act(since October 2024). Doesn't affect voice telephony directly, but raises baseline platform-compliance expectations for any service Dutch businesses use.
• 088 numbers are ACM-issued in 100-block minimumand require a registered Dutch telecom provider — one reason Google Voice cannot offer them. 085 numbers are issued individually by registered providers like Voys.
• NL SMS compliance:fines up to €900,000 per violation, quiet hours 21:00–08:00 CET, explicit consent required. Google Voice doesn't send SMS to or from +31 numbers, so this is moot for GV; for Voys it's relevant if you ask sales about +31 SMS.

Decision tree (TL;DR)

2024–2026 freshness anchors most articles miss

• 14 October 2024 — Voys publicly announces 100% transfer to steward-ownership (effective 6 September 2024).
• October 2024 — ACM begins enforcing the EU Digital Services Act for online platforms; raises baseline NL compliance expectations.
• January 2025 —VoIPGRID (32,000-customer Dutch white-label VoIP platform) rebrands to Voys Partners, consolidating Voys' NL footprint.
• February 2025 —Google folds SIP Link from a separate paid add-on into the Standard and Premier Voice tiers — one of the few NL-friendly Voice product changes since launch.
• 5 May 2025 — Microsoft Skype shutdown. Skype was founded in Tallinn but with significant Dutch engineering roots; the shutdown left credit-callable-out users without a direct replacement.
• Spring 2025 —Voys celebrates 10 years of Holacracy (adopted spring 2015) — unusual longevity for the model.
• H1 2025 — Voys ships native WhatsApp Business integration, citing 74% Dutch employee WhatsApp-for-work usage.

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