5 Best VoIP Software & Tools 2024

Having used just about every single VoIP on the market over the past decade, Dialpad is the clear innovator in the space.

So much in-fact that I personally use Dialpad as my professional relationships number (work/angel investing/networking). This is because the mobile app actually feels like a modern SMS app, and is the most stable of the bunch.

The added perk is that I've integrated Dialpad with our CRM (Copper) so all texts and calls automatically log into the CRM (and even automatically create new leads in the CRM if the number doesn't yet exist in our CRM).

You'll see software like RingCentral (the 800lb gorilla in the space) claims to "integrate" with everything, but it doesn't integrate as you'd actually like it to (it's just marketing-speak), and the desktop + mobile apps are incredibly outdated on all fronts.

There's more modern VoIP solutions on the market like Aircall and JustCall, which do have better "native integrations", although they pale in comparison to the UI/UX of Dialpad + have no AI intelligence features like Dialpad does (sentiment analysis, AI call review, etc.).

If you're unable to justify the investment into a custom integration with Dialpad, you'll probably be better off with Aircall or JustCall. Although, if you're interested in using the best tool in the space (clear leader) and are open to investing in a proper integration with your CRM, Dialpad won't let you down.

Features & Differentiation

Rating: _B

Dialpad has invested a lot in the AI and sentiment analysis side of things, which makes it really stand of when comparing the top VoIP tools on the market.

When you move into the meeting side of things though, that's where Dialpad Meetings makes itself shown. The truth of the matter is that it's pretty great, and it's included in your subscription. The thing is, actually getting your team (and those you're meeting with) to all switch to Dialpad Meetings is the tough part. So when comparing Dialpad Meetings vs Google Meet for example, there's a ton of trade-offs.

In an odd way, Dialpad Meetings is a positive and negative to the "Features & Differentiation" category. In one part it's cool! In another part, it introduces confusion to anyone who is simply using Dialpad as their company VoIP. Should we also switch over our meetings? Well, the answer is probably no 😅 that said, we got into this more on the Dialpad Meetings page.

Integrations & API

Rating: _B-

Dialpad is in a bit of an odd boat here. They are quite selective about what apps they choose to build native integrations with, and you can't completely trust their site in determining if the integration exists. This at times makes us feel like they initially built the integration as an MVP v1 more for marketing purposes than anything (to be able to say "we integrate with this software" to check the box for a new buyer).

What we've seen though, is that integrations like their native Copper + Dialpad integration, while technically exists, it's incredibly buggy, doesn't do what you'd expect it to do (e.g. doesn't sync texts over to the CRM, just phone calls—any only sometimes). It also just doesn't work consistently.

So as much as Dialpad is our top pick when it comes to the best VoIP software category, we can't exactly recommend it when customers being asking us deeply about integration. Unless of course they are open to investing in the custom integration path, like the custom Copper + Dialpad integration that we built for ourselves and use.

Their API is decent, and they even have a Zapier connector (which we always appreciate), although it's quite complicated to get it to actually function how you'd like it to work.

Also, if you're hoping to trigger automatic SMS or MMS messages to send out via the API, look elsewhere. Dialpad is not trying to go down that path.

With all of that said, we recommend you check out Aircall if native integration is important to you, and more specifically checking out our Dialpad vs Aircall write-up to better understand the difference.

Regulatory Frustrations

I will note that A2P (Application to Person) messaging is starting to get worse and worse. Dialpad and other VoIP services used to function more like P2P (Person to Person) messaging, but because businesses have taken advantage of this, carriers and the government have stepped in.

The result? A worse experience and higher costs for everyone. Dialpad now charges on-top of your monthly fee for sending messages (although they will cover the first 250 per user/mo), with stipulations (e.g. local SMS, not international or messaging an application—think Google 2FA codes, yep, those now charge you $0.01.

At the end of the day, SMS/MMS and traditional calling services suck, and are somehow just getting worse. How we're now moving backward to paying per SMS sent, when using just about any other messaging platform is free, is just baffling (not to mention the 30%+ in additional regulatory fees everything costs).

With all the regulatory frustrations, this does seem like it's hitting every business (A2P) VoIP provider, so we need to put this to the side when simply evaluating Dialpad vs the others mentioned.

Final Verdict

If you need a VoIP in your business (you're calling customers/receiving calls or texts), then Dialpad is definitely one of the best solutions on the market.

With the regulatory downsides and paying per SMS sent, the upside is that using an A2P business VoIP tool, it enables API access, which allows you to do things like automatically logging SMS and calls + recordings into your CRM—something that will never exist when using a traditional P2P phone number.

We still continue using Dialpad here at Efficient App, as it is helpful to have a more work/business focused number for the occasional call with a customer and business-focused relationship tracking.

So if that's important to you, we recommend you give a business VoIP like Dialpad a shot. If you can get away with not using a phone service at your company, even better! Just don't let that happen if the alternative is your employees using their personal phone number at work. That is a regrettable decision 100% of the time.

Who is Aircall For?

If you're looking for one of the best VoIP solutions on the market and native, out-of-the-box native integration is important to you, then you'll be in good hands with Aircall would be your best bet.

While this might sound slightly confusing as we have Dialpad listed as our "Top Pick", that's because things get quite a bit more complex when you look holistically across the VoIP space. We for example chose Dialpad as the Voice over IP solution for our business, but as an integration company, we aren't afraid of building out a custom Copper + Dialpad Integration. That said, we know we aren't the average company, and to justify investing in that doesn't make sense for many companies.

Who Shouldn't Use Aircall?

If you're looking truly for the best and most enjoyable VoIP experience on the market, you might want to check out Dialpad vs Aircall. Dialpad is the most "native SMS/call" feeling mobile and desktop app. It also has many AI features like sentiment analysis, and even coaching, suggesting you slow down when talking too fast, or lets you know you're using many filler words.

So if you're looking for a VoIP that is a level up from just basic text and call functionality, and you don't mind too much about having the best native integrations (or are open to investing in a custom VoIP integration), then you might consider Dialpad instead of Aircall.

API & Integration

Rating: _B+

Aircall actually integrates natively with many of the best CRM software and tools on the market. This means out of the box, minimal setup required. So while the integration might not be the best we've seen, it accomplishes the goal of logging texts and phone calls into the other software, which is usually what teams are ultimately looking for when it comes to a VoIP integration.

They have a relatively robust API if you do want to go the custom route, integrating Aircall into other tools.

If you're more technical and are familiar with the best integration software on the market, Aircall actually uses Tray on the back-end to integrate with many of these tools natively. Which while that's not something we particularly love, it does seem to work well enough, and it has enabled them to build more native integrations out of the gate.

Differentiation in the CRM space is difficult, and that's where Close has decided to be known as the CRM with deep native call/SMS functionality.

While this may sound great out of the gate (especially if you're interested in VoIP integration), let's take a moment to discuss this, because you're most definitely paying the price for this.

They also built Close in a way where they really want you to spend most of your time in Close all day. Syncing in your emails and hoping you'll use their sub-par email client to triage through, versus using a more modern tool like Superhuman, or even Gmail.

This is where competitors like Copper have come in with a super unique approach, building out an exceptional Chromium extension which allows you to access your entire CRM from right within Gmail and Google Calendar.

Pricing

The first thing to note is that the lowest tier, coined "Startup" starts at $99 and gives you 3 seats (AKA a 3-seat minimum). Now this is reasonable if you actually have 3 seats to fill, only 1 or 2 though? The cost-per-seat is quite high.

With that, it's definitely one of the most restrictive in terms of functionality. It limits you to only one pipeline (which will be fine for many, but if you are planning to use your CRM for additional business processes outside of just sales, it won't be enough).

The one thing it does offer though is a "Power Dialer"—something quite unique to the CRM space of the others we have listed (which we'll go more into in the features section).

All-in-all, you're likely to find yourself on the Professional tier, as we've yet to work with a single company that needs only one pipeline (2 is normally the sweet spot—Sales + Onboarding/Project Management).

So with that in mind, you're again served with the 3-seat minimum, paying nearly $100/seat/mo. This on the other hand would get you the highest tiers of competing CRM's like Copper, not to mention no seat minimum.

So if your 1–2 seats, we highly recommend using an alternative, no questions.

Features

We have to give it to Close, they, unlike HubSpot, actually have decent email syncing functionality (which feels table-stakes for a CRM, but sadly, it's not).

For example, if you add an email address into the system (and you're using Google Workspace or Microsoft 365), it'll actually retroactively sync the emails into the CRM.

While it's not as deep or impressive as what Copper does for Google Workspace accounts (going an entire year back across everyone on your team + pulling in and organizing file attachments and calendar events), it's at least something, which we appreciate as compared to HubSpot.

This brings us to their auto-dialer. You can have it call through numbers in bulk, connect you when it hears something on the other end, and pause the dialer while you take notes. It's impressive in that regard, and we don't really have another tool/solution that we'd recommend for that which integrates in well to a CRM.

That said, you're very much committing to their baked in VoIP solution at that point (which brings with it it's own limitations, like no separate app or mobile VoIP access).

So if you considering something like Dialpad, JustCall, or Aircall alongside your CRM (like many should), think again—you're not getting that with Close.

Because they have their internal VoIP baked in at the core though, it does allow for some cool sequence features which allow you to automatically send out emails, then SMS messages on a cadence. While it can't auto-call in a sequence, it will create a task for you to call:

This is a more complex feature that not many CRM's allow for, because it's getting more into the sales enablement email marketing automation side of things that we've seen more reserved for tools like Reply.

Limitations

They seem to have only just launched an iOS only mobile app, which again is table-stakes for every other CRM on the market. All competitors such as Copper + HubSpot + Pipedrive have both iOS and Android mobile apps, for which have existed 5+ years at this point.

Final Verdict

If you hear the words "autodialer" and get super excited, this is probably the CRM for you. If you have a heavy sales motion that requires mass-phone calls, that's where Close really shines.

Otherwise, it's trying to be too many things baked into one, which might sound good at first, but upon diving in, you'll see that they don't integrate as well with other tools:

‍"We are your VoIP, you don't get to have a VoIP like Dialpad alongside us!"

The features they have feel more like a v1, more-so to check the marketing box, versus them being more thoughtful and well-iterated.

If you're using Google Workspace and considering Close (or HubSpot for that matter), we highly recommend checking out Copper instead.

The main value here comes from their baked in autodialer, either that's an integrated feature you'd be willing to pay the premium that Close charges for it, or you aren't.

Think of RingCentral as the "Salesforce" of the VoIP world. They "integrate" with almost everything (what that even means is many things...), does that mean it'll do what you want it to do? Great question! They have all the standard business VoIP features—company department lines, employee lines, SMS/MMS, IVR menus (press 1 for x department, press 2 for...). It's not a question of features—they've been around for a while.

Okay, that all sounds great! Right? But what's RingCentral like to actually use? Well, painful (I'm finding myself writing more and more about the "joy" component to using software). There's zero joy in using it. It feels like you're using archaic and unintuitive software. Why is this the case? Well, like Salesforce, since there are such gigantic enterprises on RingCentral, they are in that messy area where they really can't innovate much without upsetting their highest paying enterprise customers who ultimately just want things to "stay the same".

I've personally implemented RingCentral to a myriad of teams 6+ years ago (some of which are still using it to this day), and well, I regret it (now). At the time, we all got sold on their "native integration" marketing shpeal. Although, to be fair to past Alex—at the time RingCentral's largest competitors were not even cloud-based, so they were a huge upgrade at the time. The setup process at the time was (and still is) incredibly painful. They expect to be working with an IT department, not an agile team. So they used to be a great solution, but are really getting eaten alive by the more modern software like Dialpad, and Aircall.