Metrigy Announces 6 Top Provider Winners in 2026 UCaaS MetriStar Award Program

Cloud-based communication tools continue to play a central role in how work gets done the world over, with more than 75% of businesses globally using unified communications as a service (UCaaS) solely or in a hybrid combination with an on-premises or private cloud hosted system, according to Metrigy’s soon-to-be-published global Workplace Collaboration MetriCast 2026 study.

UCaaS popularity stems from its ability to deliver cost-effective services with sophisticated product features for companies of all sizes and across verticals. Microsoft remains the undisputed leader on market share, but Cisco, No. 2 in market share, sits atop Metrigy’s UCaaS MetriRank 2026 ranking of the top 10 providers. It surpasses Microsoft in the MetriRank with high marks across other evaluation criteria, including the highest scores for market momentum and product mix, solid financials, and notable customer sentiment and business improvement scores. 

This latter criteria—customer sentiment and customer business success—serve as the basis for our annual MetriStar Award program, UCaaS among the product categories included. This week, in fact, we’re sharing the results of our 2026 UCaaS MetriStar Award program, which evaluates providers based on customer ratings and quantitative metrics that tie product usage to measurable business success. We drew this customer data from the above-mentioned Workplace Collaboration MetriCast study, this year with 1,437 participating companies globally.

In the study, participants report how their primary UCaaS providers impact business metrics like revenue, operational costs, and employee efficiency. Providers score an average of 199.3 points in our business success calculations. Improvements in employee efficiency account for 87.2 points of that average, making it an area where vendors perform exceptionally well. For example, 30.2% of companies report a significant increase in employee efficiency, and 43.6% report a modest increase. Additionally, 48.5% report a significant increase in revenue, while 58.7% report a modest increase, and nearly half report either a significant (13.2%) or modest (35.3%) decrease in costs. 

Participants also to rate providers on a 1 to 10 scale across various categories, such as AI capabilities, analytics, integrations, and reliability. The overall average customer sentiment score for UCaaS providers this year is 8.28. 

We group our MetriStar recognitions into three categories:

• MetriStar Top Provider – We gave this award to UCaaS providers that earned a customer sentiment rating of 8.28 or higher and drove above-average improvements in overall business metrics. The providers earning this recognition are 8×8, Cisco, Intermedia, RingCentral, Verizon, and Zoom.
• Top Business Success – We awarded this recognition to providers whose customers realized substantial business success metric improvements. Microsoft and Nextiva earn this recognition, and they stand out specifically for helping their customers improve employee efficiency. Revenue increase is a close second, followed by cost savings. 8×8 and Intermedia are tops for revenue gain, and Intermedia and RingCentral for cost reduction.
• Top Customer Sentiment – We awarded this recognition to providers that secured an overall customer sentiment score at or above the 8.28 average. Gamma and Google achieve this recognition.

Congratulations to the 10 UCaaS providers recognized in this year’s program!

Author(s)

Beth Schultz