We believe there are better options available in this category, read below to learn what this software does well, and what they could do better. ⤵
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The biggest question we get is: "Why should we use a VoIP solution in our business?"
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.
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For teams of all sizes looking for a modern AI-powered work phone (call + SMS) that can be integrated with other tools.
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integrate as you'd actually like it to (it's just marketing-speak), and the desktop + mobile apps are incredibly outdated on all fronts.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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The CRM for heavy call & sms—focused small and mid-size sales teams
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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