The 8 best CloudTalk alternatives for 2025

Frustrated with CloudTalk? You’re not alone. 

CloudTalk has several limits on its base plan, including no MMS, limited call recording storage, and no concurrent calls. If you want to upgrade and get access to all its features, you’ll find that it’s an expensive business phone option for small and growing teams. 

If you’re looking for a CloudTalk alternative, you’re in luck. There are plenty of options to choose from, depending on what you’re looking for in your business phone. In this article, we’ll cover eight of the best CloudTalk alternatives, including their prices, features, and limitations.

Comparing the top 8 CloudTalk alternatives

Curious how each CloudTalk alternative stacks up? Here’s a detailed breakdown of each alternative based on their basic calling and texting features:

CloudTalk alternatives comparison table

Provider	Starting price	Unlimited calling to US & Canada	SMS/MMS to US & Canada	Shared phone numbers	Additional phone numbers
CloudTalk	$19 per user per month	US and Canadian customers only, excludes toll-free calls	Requires upgrade	Ring groups only	Region-specific pricing
OpenPhone	$15 per user per month	️	️	️	$5 per number per month
JustCall	$19 per user per month	Unlimited inbound only (for local numbers)	Capped at 500 texts per user per month	️	️ (pricing not shared)
RingCentral	$20 per user per month	️	25 messages per user per month	️	$4.99 per number per month
Aircall	$30 per user per month	️	️ (local numbers only)	️	$6 per number per month
Freshcaller	$15 per user per month	❌	❌	️	Contact for quote
Nextiva	$20 per user per month	Requires upgrade	Requires upgrade	Requires upgrade	Requires the purchase of an additional user seat
Dialpad	$15 per user per month	️	US and Canadian customers only	️	Requires upgrade
Five9	$149 per user per month	️	Requires upgrade	❌	Toll-free numbers only

Keep reading as we break down each of these options in more detail below.

1. OpenPhone: The best alternative to CloudTalk for growing teams

*Nearly all virtual phone numbers share this problem. For safety reasons, companies like Facebook, Uber, and Google rarely let you authenticate accounts through a virtual phone number.

OpenPhone is an all-in-one business phone system for growing businesses. You and your team can use business numbers from the devices you already own (like your phone, computer, or laptop) and from any location with a WiFi connection.

With OpenPhone, all phone calls to the US and Canada are free and unlimited — no matter where you live. Plus, each plan comes with free SMS and MMS support to the US and Canada so your team can easily send photos, videos, and other files over text. 

Speaking of teams, OpenPhone makes it easy to collaborate with your coworkers even if you’re in different countries. Every member on your plan comes with one free local US, Canadian, or North American toll-free number so you can easily scale your phone service as you grow. 

Plus, shared numbers help you provide the best possible customer experience since you can split responsibility for all incoming calls and texts. You can even collaborate and assign tasks with internal threads to make sure no communications fall through the cracks.

OpenPhone provides an intuitive, user-friendly interface so you don’t need to spend lots of time training your team. All calls, texts, and voice messages with a contact are in a single view, which makes it easier for your team to catch up on conversations.

Unlike CloudTalk, you don’t have to worry about hitting call recording storage limits with OpenPhone. All media storage through OpenPhone is free and unlimited — there’s no need to pay for add-ons or upgrades.

Another CloudTalk add-on that comes included in OpenPhone’s Business plan: AI-powered features like unlimited high-quality AI call summaries and transcriptions and AI contact suggestions. CloudTalk charges you an extra $9 per agent per month to access its AI capabilities. 

OpenPhone’s AI agent Sona is also a more cost-effective option compared to CloudTalk. With Sona, you can automatically answer 50 calls at a flat rate, after which you’ll be charged per minute for additional calls. CloudTalk’s CeTe Voice Agent only charges you by the minute, which is a more expensive proposition.

Looking for other ways to build better relationships with your customers? With OpenPhone, you can:

• Save time texting customers with snippets that help answer common messages, auto-replies that set expectations while you’re away from your desk, and scheduled messages that ensure you always reach customers at the best time.
• Connect to more than 7,000 integrations already in your tech stack, including Zapier, Slack, HubSpot, and Salesforce.
• You can use IVR phone menus to help customers get where they need to go. Plus, you can use our simultaneous ring feature to ring multiple team members at once, which guarantees there’s always someone around to pick up the phone.

You can test OpenPhone for yourself at any time with our seven-day free trial.

Key features of OpenPhone

• One new local US, Canadian, or North American toll-free number per user on your plan is included; additional numbers are just $5 per month
• Unlimited calls and texts to US and Canadian numbers
• Group calling (also known as three-way calling) with warm transfer and hold options
• Automatic and on-demand call recording
• AI call summaries and transcriptions
• IVR (auto-attendant)
• Desktop and mobile apps (Android, iPhone, Windows, Mac)
• Texting automations with scheduled texts, snippets, and auto-replies
• Integrations with HubSpot, Salesforce, Zapier, Make, and Jobber
• API available to build custom integrations

OpenPhone pricing

OpenPhone offers three pricing plans to fit your business’s needs:

• Starter: $15 per user per month for unlimited calls and texts in the US and Canada, one free number per user on your account, voicemail transcriptions, automatic call recording, and more
• Business: $23 per user per month for phone menus (IVR), CRM integrations, group calling, and call transfers
• Scale: $35 per user per month for AI call tags, dedicated onboarding, and priority chat and email support

2. JustCall: Best alternative for outbound sales teams

JustCall is a cloud communication solution for ‘customer-facing teams,’ which means it’s designed for large customer support teams, call centers, helpdesks, and sales staff. You can create comprehensive outbound outreach campaigns with JustCall’s outbound sales dialer and its bulk messaging tools, which allow you to design targeted text campaigns to your customers. JustCall also lets you reach international customers by integrating with WhatsApp. 

While JustCall has several advanced features that are useful to outbound sales teams, it doesn’t quite cover the basics that growing teams need. JustCall limits your inbound and outbound calls on most plans. Outbound calls are limited to 1,000 minutes per user per month, and inbound calls are limited to 1,000 minutes per user per month on the base plan. JustCall also limits texting to 500 texts per user per month in its base plan. 

If you want to access JustCall’s sales dialer and bulk texting features, you’ll have to upgrade for those as well. The sales dialer is only available in its Pro plan, and it only offers three bulk texting campaigns in its base plan. 

One more downside of JustCall: all its plans have two-user minimums. You can’t just try it out for yourself before inviting your team.

Key features of JustCall

• Call forwarding
• Call tracking and recording
• Callback automation
• Appointment scheduling
• SMS, MMS, and WhatsApp messaging

JustCall pricing

JustCall’s pricing includes four options:

• Team: $29 per user per month for call forwarding, AI call transcriptions, 100+ integrations, and team performance analytics (two-user minimum)
• Pro: $49 per user per month for bulk SMS campaigns, the Salesforce integration, and live call monitoring
• Pro Plus: $89 per user per month for AI-powered SMS Co-pilot, real-time agent assist lite, and AI call scoring
• Business: Custom price for custom unlimited calling minutes and SMS, a dedicated success manager, single sign-on (SSO), and premium support

3. RingCentral: Best alternatives with desk phone rentals

RingCentral is a business cloud phone system that offers calling, texting, and video conferencing. If you’re running a physical business and believe you still need desk phones for employees (the best virtual phone solutions let your team use their business number from most computers, laptops, and smartphones), you can buy them directly from RingCentral.

Just keep in mind this is going to cost you — the cheapest desk phone from RingCentral costs $103, while the most expensive one costs $636. Plus, only the most expensive desk phones are compatible with video conferencing, so you have to be willing to pay up to use all of RingCentral’s features on your hardware.

Don’t want to purchase desk phones outright? You can choose to rent them for a set fee per month. However, you have to commit to a minimum two-year contract if you want to rent desk phones from RingCentral. 

Apart from RingCentral’s desk phone restrictions, you should also consider these major limitations:

• The basic plan only comes with 25 SMS messages per user per month.
• You can’t get unlimited toll-free minutes on any plan.
• They have strict data storage limits for voicemails, texts, and call recordings. Upgrading to the most expensive plan ($35 per user per month) only lifts the capacity limits, not the time-based retention limits. Messages still get erased after 30 days to 12 months, depending on the communication type.

Fortunately, plenty of RingCentral alternatives offer unlimited toll-free minutes and SMS messages.

Key features of RingCentral

• Unlimited calls in the US and Canada
• On-demand call recording (automatic requires upgrade)
• Built-in video conferencing features
• IVR
• Integrations with Google and Microsoft Teams

RingCentral pricing

• Core: $20 per user per month for on-demand call recording, 100 toll-free minutes, and 25 SMS messages per user per month
• Advanced: $25 per user per month for automatic call recordings, 1,000 toll-free minutes, and 100 SMS messages per user per month
• Ultra: $35 per user per month for ‘unlimited’ storage, 10,000 toll-free minutes, and 200 SMS messages per user per month

4. Aircall: Best alternative with international calling plans

Aircall is a cloud-based call center solution available in more than 100 countries. If you serve customers in multiple geographies, Aircall is the right option for you. 

If you’re not a global call center or a large multinational business, Aircall may be too challenging to set up for everyday use. For starters, automated texting features like SMS auto-replies and scheduled messages are only available via third-party apps or their messaging API. It also doesn’t offer any collaboration features so your team can immediately respond to customer requests or follow-up tasks after a call ends. 

Aircall also stretches your business communications budget. Each plan requires a three-user minimum, which drives up your phone costs. And if you want access to its AI features, you’ll have to purchase its AI Assist add-on, which is an additional $9 per user per month on top of its plans. 

With these drawbacks in mind, if you’re a fast-growing US or Canadian business with a small team, you may want to consider a CloudTalk alternative.

Key features of Aircall

• More than 100 third-party integrations
• API and webhook access
• Call recording
• Click to dial
• IVR

Aircall pricing

Every plan in Aircall’s pricing table requires a three-user minimum. Here are the options they offer:

• Essentials: $30 per user per month for IVR, business hours, call recording, and up to one year of call recording storage 
• Professional: $50 per user per month for unlimited access to call recording storage, queue callback, Salesforce integrations, and the Power Dialer 
• Custom: Get a custom quote for unlimited worldwide calls, access to API developer support, and custom analytics (25-user minimum)

5. Freshcaller: Best alternative for basic call center operations

Freshcaller is a call center software solution offered by Freshworks. If you’re looking to expand your team by adding a basic call center, Freshcaller can help get you started with contact center-focused features like call queues, wait queues, call transfers, call monitoring, IVR, and agent extensions. 

But for small and growing businesses that don’t need a contact center, Freshcaller is an expensive solution that lacks several business communication features:

• Outbound calls are charged by the minute, and incoming call minutes are capped in each plan. 
• Freshcaller has zero texting features and third-party integrations — you need to purchase another Freshworks product like Freshchat or Freshdesk to text your customers and connect your call data to your CRM, further increasing your costs. 
• Freshcaller charges per-minute fees for features like voicemail transcription, call recording, and conference calls:
  • Call recording charges of $0.0032 per minute are applicable when you record your calls.
  • Voicemails left by callers are chargeable per the region’s pricing. An additional charge of $0.004 per minute is applicable if you transcribe your voicemails.
  • A charge of $0.005 per minute applies when agents add other team members to conference calls.

With all these hidden fees, you may want to choose an alternate provider that doesn’t surprise you with add-on charges you might not anticipate.

Key features of Freshcaller

• Call queues
• Call transfers
• Parallel calling
• Inbound caller ID
• Call recording (additional charges)
• Call barges (requires upgrade)

Freshcaller pricing

Freshcaller has four plans for you to choose from:

• Free: $0 per agent per month to access paid inbound and outbound calls, inbound caller ID, custom greetings, conversation properties, and an inbox
• Growth: $15 per agent per month to access number porting, basic call queues, voicemail, and call transfers
• Pro: $39 per agent per month to access holiday routing, advanced call metrics, call center agent statuses, IVR, and call conferencing
• Enterprise: $69 per agent per month to access speech-enabled IVR, abandoned call metrics, and service level monitoring

6. Nextiva: Best alternative with social media messaging options

Nextiva is a business communications platform focused on multi-channel customer interactions. It offers digital-only communication plans focused on social media conversations and phone communications with calling and texting features. 

Nextiva is a solid option for digital-only ecommerce businesses that begin their customer service journey over email or social media support. Social media managers who are responsible for managing multiple accounts can bring all their audience interactions in one place. 

As a business phone option, however, Nextiva falls short for small and growing businesses. It doesn’t let teams share texts unless they upgrade to the Engage plan, which costs $40 per user per month. Texting is also unavailable from the base plan — even when you upgrade, you’re only allowed to send and receive 100 inbound and outbound texts per user per month.

Need third-party integrations to sync your call and text data? Nextiva has them, but they’re only available as add-ons, making it even more expensive as a business phone solution. Finally, Nextiva offers limited toll-free minutes and charges you for toll-free texting. 

With all these drawbacks, you’re better off looking at a more feature-packed CloudTalk alternative.

Key features of Nextiva

• Competitive social media monitoring
• Inbound and outbound voice calls (requires upgrade)
• Toll-free number (requires upgrade)
• Call routing (requires upgrade)

Nextiva pricing

Here are the four Nextiva pricing plans you can choose from:

• Digital: $20 per user per month for website live chat, messaging apps, social media channels, review management, and a digital service helpdesk
• Core: $30 per user per month for inbound and outbound voice calls, business SMS, video meetings, screenshare, file share, and call routing
• Engage: $40 per user per month for call center queueing, toll-free number and minutes, advanced reporting, website chatbots, and an MS Teams integration
• Power Suite: $60 per user per month for advanced IVR, intelligent routing, unified team interface, supervisor dashboards, and call transcriptions

7. Dialpad: Best for AI-based contact center training

Dialpad is a cloud phone service powered by artificial intelligence. The Standard plan comes with AI solutions for call transcriptions, post-call summaries, and even speech coaching (if agents are talking too fast or too slow).

But while Dialpad’s plans can help you train existing agents, they can’t help you grow or scale without upgrading. For example, you can’t purchase additional numbers on your account without paying for the Pro plan.

There’s also no way to set up auto-replies for your team unless you upgrade your plan. This means there’s no way for coworkers to set up instant responses while away from their phones or while experiencing higher-than-average call volumes.

Want to send text messages to your customers? There’s no way to do this unless you’re in the United States. And if you want to message customers outside North America, you have to upgrade to the Pro plan to unlock international SMS.

Dialpad’s heavy emphasis on AI means other call features are less competitive than other CloudTalk alternatives. Plus, it may be difficult to grow your team without spending extra on upgrades and add-ons.

Key features of Dialpad

• Unlimited calls in the US and Canada
• SMS and MMS support
• Live speech coaching
• Real-time call analytics
• Integrations with CRMs like Pipedrive, Zendesk, and Zoho

Dialpad pricing

• Standard: $15 per user per month for one business phone number per user, unlimited calls, and support for SMS, MMS, and group messaging
• Pro: $25 per user per month for additional local or international numbers, international SMS, and access to the open API and webhooks
• Enterprise: Get a custom quote for unlimited ring groups, unlimited office locations, and 100% uptime (100 user seat minimum)

8. Five9: CloudTalk alternative for large enterprise teams

Five9 is a contact center as a service provider, which is commonly abbreviated to CCaaS. The software primarily caters to enterprises looking to create a better customer experience with their inbound or outbound call center.

With Five9, you have the option of choosing a digital-only plan or a voice-only plan, depending on your customer communication channels. You can opt for digital and voice plans to provide a truly omnichannel experience. However, Five9 doesn’t share pricing for these combined plans, making it hard to estimate whether it falls within your budget. Five9 also forces you to adopt long contract terms, with standard three-year contracts in each of their plans. 

Five9 also requires you to purchase add-ons for basic business communication features. For example, you must upgrade for IVR, CRM integrations, and extra storage, even though Five9’s plans are already the most expensive compared to other alternatives in this list. Large enterprises might not have a problem paying these fees, but the same may not be true if you’re the business owner of a growing business.

Key features of Five9

• Support for chat, email, and social media (voice support requires upgrade)
• Record incoming and outgoing messages
• Quality management tools
• Interaction analytics
• Enterprise WFM

Five9 pricing

• Digital: $119 per user per month (36-month contract) for access to chat, SMS, email, and social messaging
• Core: $119 per user per month (36-month contract) for access to voice calling capabilities, recording, and the dialer
• Premium: Contact sales for a quote to access all the features of the Core plan, plus chat, email, and essential quality management
• Optimum: Contact sales for a quote to access all the features of the Core and Digital plans, plus essential quality management
• Ultimate: Contact sales for a quote to access all the features of the Digital, Voice, Workforce Engagement, and Analytics capabilities

6 reasons teams choose CloudTalk alternatives

Whether you’re evaluating CloudTalk as your business phone platform or you’re an existing CloudTalk customer looking for an alternative, you should know where CloudTalk falls short. 

Here are the seven major reasons teams choose CloudTalk alternatives:

1. MMS not available in the base plan: Want to send photos, videos, or GIFs to your customers over text? CloudTalk forces you to upgrade to access MMS messaging.
   
2. Limited call recording storage: CloudTalk only offers one month of call recording storage in its base plan. To access unlimited recording storage, you have to upgrade.
   
3. No integrations or API on the base plan: Looking to connect your CRM with your CloudTalk account? You’ll have to upgrade your plan to do that.
   
4. No concurrent calls on the base plan: Multiple team members handling calls simultaneously is par for the course with a business phone. Unfortunately, CloudTalk doesn’t think so — you’ll have to upgrade to access concurrent calls.
   
5. AI features cost extra: CloudTalk doesn’t include AI features in its plans, only as an add-on. Whichever plan you choose, you’re forced to pay an additional $9 per user per month to access AI call summaries and transcriptions and more AI features.
   
6. Voice agent charges: CloudTalk offers its CeTe voice agent with per-minute pricing. It can also only handle one call at a time unless you upgrade. 

The bottom line? CloudTalk’s base plan isn’t too friendly to small and growing businesses, which is why so many teams look for alternative VoIP solutions.

OpenPhone: The best CloudTalk alternative for small businesses

CloudTalk isn’t a fit for growing teams that want to work together from a shared number or text their customers without having to worry about hidden fees. If you’re looking to scale your business and streamline your team’s workflow without busting your budget, OpenPhone is the platform for you.

With OpenPhone, you can access teamwork and collaboration tools from any plan. Everyone on your team can use shared numbers to make or receive calls at the same time — no need to upgrade your plan or get an expensive add-on for concurrent calls. Plus, unlimited calls and texts in the US and Canada mean you can reach customers without having to pay per minute. International calls come with competitive rates so you can make informed decisions about monthly costs.

You can start building better relationships with your customers today by using OpenPhone’s seven-day free trial. You can sign up online in 15 minutes or less to confirm it’s a great fit and make calls as a team.