Aircall vs Dialpad
Side-by-side comparison — pricing, features, ratings, use cases. Find which VoIP fits you best.
🔍 Independently researched ·
📊 Data-driven
31/100
$30 starting
Small-to-mid-sized B2B sales and support teams that want an easy-to-deploy cloud phone system with solid CRM integration
💰 Pricing
Starting at $30
🔧 Features
✓ Ai Powered✓ Call Center✓ Workflow Automation✓ Crm Integrations✓ 21000 Companies
📋 Assessment
💪 Strengths
- Native CRM integrations: Aircall connects directly with HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, and Zendesk, enabling automatic call logging, screen pops with caller context, and click-to-dial. This eliminates manual data entry and ensures your team has the customer history at their fingertips, which can significantly improve efficiency and customer experience.
- Quick deployment: There's no hardware to install or configure. You sign up, and within minutes you can start making and receiving calls from your computer or mobile app. This is ideal for remote teams, as it allows agents to work from anywhere with an internet connection, and you can easily scale up or down as your team grows.
- Intuitive interface and smart routing: The dashboard is clean and easy to navigate, with drag-and-drop call routing, IVR menus, and skills-based routing that direct callers to the right person. The interface reduces training time—new agents can get up to speed quickly, and supervisors can listen in on live calls (whisper mode, call barging) to provide real-time coaching.
- Real-time analytics and AI-powered insights: Aircall provides detailed call metrics like volume, duration, and response times, helping managers monitor team performance. With the Pro plan, AI features like call summaries and sentiment analysis give you a quick understanding of each conversation, without having to listen to the entire recording, which is a huge time-saver for quality assurance.
- Mobile and softphone flexibility: The mobile app and desktop softphone allow agents to use Aircall on their own devices, keeping their personal numbers private. This flexibility is great for sales and support teams that need to be reachable on the go, and it simplifies remote work setups.
⚠ Watch out for
- Per-user pricing can balloon: Aircall charges per user, and if you have a large team that includes part-time or occasional agents, the costs add up quickly. For example, at $30 per user per month (billed annually), a 100-person team is spending $36,000 per year just on phone software—and that's before add-ons like AI features or additional numbers. This makes it less cost-effective for large organizations where not everyone needs a full phone license.
- AI features are gated behind higher tiers: While Aircall markets itself as an 'intelligent platform', the advanced AI capabilities—call summaries, sentiment analysis, and AI-based workflows—are only available on the Pro or Enterprise plans, or as paid add-ons. If you're on the Essentials plan, you're paying a premium for what is essentially a basic VoIP system, and the AI benefits that are a key differentiator are not accessible.
- Phone-centric, not an omnichannel solution: Aircall is explicitly focused on voice calls. It does not include email, chat, or social media messaging channels. Companies that want a unified omnichannel customer experience will need to subscribe to a separate helpdesk or communication tool (e.g., Intercom, Zendesk Support) and then integrate it with Aircall. This creates a fragmented setup and can increase overall costs.
- Limited customization without developer help: While the core features are easy to set up, advanced customization—like complex call flows, custom analytics dashboards, or deep API integrations—often requires developer assistance. Small businesses with limited IT resources may find this challenging, as some features might feel 'locked' without technical expertise.
- Mobile app limitations: While the mobile app is convenient, some users report that it lacks certain features available on the desktop version, such as full call monitoring for supervisors or more granular call routing options. This could be a drawback for teams that rely heavily on mobile operations.
🎯 Best for
Small-to-mid-sized B2B sales and support teams that want an easy-to-deploy cloud phone system with solid CRM integrations and call analytics without buying a full contact center suite.
🚫 Who should skip
Large enterprises or omnichannel support teams that require deeply customizable IVR, advanced workforce management, or native email/chat/social channels in the same platform.
📚 Learning curve
Minimal — setting up Aircall is as simple as logging in and importing numbers, with a clean UI that most agents get comfortable with within a week.
🧑⚖️ Verdict
Aircall is a solid choice for sales and support teams that rely heavily on phone communication and are already invested in major CRM platforms. Its ease of deployment and strong integrations make it a practical upgrade from legacy phone systems, but the per-user pricing and limited omnichannel capab
67/100
Free tier
Growing sales and support teams that want AI-powered conversation insights, real-time transcription, and sentiment analy
★ Best
💰 Pricing
🆓 Free tier available
Starting at $15
🔧 Features
✓ Free Tier✓ Mobile App✓ Ai Transcription✓ Ai Features✓ Api Available✓ Sso Support✓ Google Integration
📋 Assessment
💪 Strengths
- The real-time call transcription and AI call summaries are best-in-class. During a call, the transcription appears live in the softphone, and afterward, a concise summary is automatically generated that captures key decisions, action items, and participants. These summaries are searchable, which means you can quickly find what was discussed weeks later without listening to the entire recording. For sales reps and support agents, this eliminates the need to take manual notes, saving time and improving accuracy.
- The native integrations with Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 are seamless. Dialpad automatically syncs your calendar to show your availability, provides presence in the app, and offers click-to-call from anywhere in your email or calendar. For example, from your Gmail inbox you can click a phone number to call directly from Dialpad. This reduces friction for organizations that are already entrenched in the Google or Microsoft ecosystem, making adoption easier and more natural.
- The softphone user interface is clean and modern, with a responsive design that works well on both desktop and mobile. In contrast to traditional VoIP interfaces that feel dated and clunky, Dialpad's interface is intuitive, with a simple call dialer, searchable call logs, and quick access to voicemail. The mobile app is particularly well-executed, allowing you to receive calls on your cell phone with the same experience as the desktop app, which is ideal for remote teams.
- The AI-powered sentiment analysis is a valuable tool for sales and support teams. During a call, the system gauges the emotional tone of both the agent and the customer, flagging positive or negative moments. This provides real-time insights that can help agents adjust their approach on the fly, and it feeds into post-call reports for coaching. For sales managers, this is a powerful way to identify coaching moments without having to listen to every call.
⚠ Watch out for
- The most compelling AI features—real-time transcription, sentiment analysis, and AI summaries—are gated to the Pro and Enterprise plans. On the Standard plan, you get basic voicemail and call handling, but the AI capabilities that set Dialpad apart are absent. This means the entry-level price of $15 per month doesn't include the platform's most valuable functionality, which can be a dealbreaker for budget-conscious buyers.
- Contact center functionality is not bundled with standard phone plans. If you want to deploy Dialpad for a customer support team, you need to purchase separate Dialpad Contact Center licenses, which are more expensive. This means that a company wanting to use both the phone system and the contact center must manage multiple SKUs and a higher total cost. For small businesses that need both, this could become a financial burden.
- Number porting is not always fast. While Dialpad provides a smooth process, some users report that porting can take 5–10 business days or longer, and there is a risk of service gaps if the old carrier is canceled too early. This can be a significant inconvenience for businesses that rely on their phone numbers, and the uncertainty around timing is a practical concern during the transition.
🎯 Best for
Growing sales and support teams that want AI-powered conversation insights, real-time transcription, and sentiment analysis while staying deeply integrated with Google Workspace or Microsoft 365.
🚫 Who should skip
Budget-conscious buyers who only need basic phone calls, or enterprises with heavy contact-center needs, advanced workforce management, or deeply customized legacy PBX environments — those should evaluate Dialpad Contact Center or specialized competitors.
📚 Learning curve
Minimal — the interface is modern and familiar, most users can make calls within minutes, and AI features are automatic after enabling them on a paid plan.
🧑⚖️ Verdict
Dialpad is an excellent choice for sales and customer support teams that want to leverage AI to improve call intelligence and coaching, especially if they already use Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. However, if you only need a basic VoIP phone system and don't want to pay extra for AI features, y
📊 Use Case Suitability
Higher score = better fit. Scores from editorial review.
Use CaseAircallDialpad
Inbound Sales Call Handling90—
Aircall's intuitive routing, caller identification, and CRM integrations help sa
Customer Support Hotlines85—
Features like IVR, voicemail, and AI-powered call tagging allow support teams to
Remote Team Call Operations80—
Being fully cloud-based, Aircall enables distributed teams to make and receive c
Sales Call Coaching and Quality Assurance82—
Aircall's call recording, transcripts, and real-time sentiment analysis give man
AI-powered sales call coaching—94
Real-time transcription, sentiment analysis, and call summaries let sales manage
Customer support with live call insights—88
AI sentiment alerts and keyword spotting help agents respond to customer emotion
Distributed and remote team phone system—90
Native desktop and mobile apps plus Google/Microsoft integrations keep remote te
Small business with limited IT resources—85
Setup is fast, no dedicated phone hardware is required, and the intuitive interf
🧭 Which One Should You Pick?
Choose Aircall if...
- You are: Small-to-mid-sized B2B sales and support teams that want an easy-to-deploy cloud phone system with solid CRM integration
- 👍 Quick deployment without hardware — just sign up and start calling from your computer or mobile phon
- 👍 Purpose-built for sales and support teams with native integrations to HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive
- 👍 User-friendly interface with smart routing, click-to-dial, and live call monitoring that lowers trai
- 💰 From $30/mo
- ⚠ Trade-off: Pricing is per user and can become expensive for larger teams, especially if mos
Choose Dialpad if...
- You are: Growing sales and support teams that want AI-powered conversation insights, real-time transcription, and sentiment analy
- 👍 Best-in-class real-time transcription and AI call summaries that are accurate, searchable, and avail
- 👍 Native integrations with Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 for calendar sync, click-to-call, and pr
- 👍 Clean, modern softphone UI with responsive desktop and mobile apps, making daily use much easier tha
- 💰 From $15/mo
- ⚠ Trade-off: Advanced AI features like real-time transcription and sentiment analysis are gat
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
Does Aircall support international phone numbers and toll-free numbers?
Aircall provides local, national, and toll-free numbers in 100+ countries, and you can choose phone numbers from different countries. This is ideal for businesses serving international customers.
Does Aircall offer a free trial?
Yes, Aircall typically offers a 14-day free trial on most plans. During the trial you can test the product with a limited number of users and phone numbers.
🔗 More VoIP Comparisons
🔀 Explore Alternatives
📧 Save this comparison
We'll email you a link to this comparison. No spam.