The team that brought you the precursor to Google Voice is hoping lightning will strike again.

Dialpad Inc., developer of enterprise voice, messaging and conferencing systems that use the voice over internet protocol, is offering small businesses of five or fewer employees a full-featured business phone system at no charge. Ever.

Dialpad Free supports a single business phone number with five extensions. Features such as automated attendant response, voicemail, call recording, video calling, conference calling and screen sharing are included along with a free account on Dialpad’s UberConference audio/video conferencing system for each employee. “Think of it as almost Google Voice for small business,” said Dialpad founder and Chief Executive Craig Walker.

The freemium promotion steals a page from a tactic that Walker used more than a decade ago with his previous startup, GrandCentral Communications Inc. That company pioneered a VoIP service that enabled individual users to consolidate multiple phone numbers into a single number with the ability to selectively manage how calls were handled. GrandCentral gave away the service for free, creating buzz that eventually attracted Google LLC, which acquired it in 2007. GrandCentral’s technology still lives on as Google Voice.

Freemium business models have become commonplace since then, but Walker said the perceived value of this latest giveaway is high enough that it will stand out. “For the amount that a one- to five-person company pays to Ring Central, this will save them $250 a month, he said. Ring Central Inc.’s office phone plans range in price from $19.99 to $49.99 per user per month.

Dialpad Free will always be free to companies of five or fewer employees. The company hopes to make money from the promotion by selling its paid VoIP services – which start at $15 per user per month – to small businesses as they grow. “We make money by helping small businesses become large businesses,” Walker said. “We look at this as a marketing expense.”

Free outbound calling is limited to 100 minutes per month, whereas Ring Central’s lowest-tier plan provides for unlimited inbound and outbound calling and 100 toll-free minutes. Walker said the service will appeal most to small businesses that primarily field inbound calls. “The flower shop isn’t cold-calling people,” he said. Dialpad is also betting that people working in enterprises will use the freemium offer to test the service within their departments, giving the company’s enterprise sales force “a lot of air cover.”

The service launches today in the San Francisco Bay Area, covering area codes 415, 510, 650, 408, 925, 669, 628 and 707. Walker said the company plans to expand the promotion to “every U.S. market” by the end of next year.

Dialpad closed a $17 million funding round in September, bringing its total backing to $70 million. Prominent venture capitalist Marc Andreessen joined its board last year.

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