Dialpad competitors: the best alternatives

If you’re on the hunt for a new business phone system, Dialpad may be on your radar. Founded in 2011 by some of the people behind Google Voice, Dialpad is a unified communications platform that offers VoIP calling, text messaging, and video conferencing tools. And it’s all powered by artificial intelligence. But a smart platform isn’t necessarily the smartest choice for your team if it doesn’t offer the features you need. Where Dialpad falls short, Dialpad competitors may be a better fit for your needs.

We’ll explain what Dialpad has to offer (and what it doesn’t), then we’ll explore five Dialpad alternatives that may better suit your business.

What you need to know about Dialpad

Dialpad offers two main VoIP products: Dialpad Talk and Message. Dialpad also bundles the free, basic version of their video meeting service, called Meetings, with their VoIP products. Just like with most VoIP platforms, it’s easy to get started. You can access each of these services through a desktop, mobile app, or Google Chrome as soon as you sign up for an account.

Talk and Message are Dialpad’s core cloud phone services. You can get unlimited calling, SMS, and MMS in the US and Canada with any plan. With a Standard plan, you get access to several smart features like:

• Auto-attendant (IVR)
• Analytics
• Call and voicemail transcriptions
• Call recording
• Integrations with Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) and Office 365
• Speed coaching, which tells you if you’re speaking too fast or too slow

What leads businesses to seek out Dialpad alternatives

Unless you upgrade, you won’t be able to add more phone numbers for your users. This means creating multiple local numbers to build trust in your target markets is out of the question if you’re a solopreneur. The same goes for creating separate lines for your support and sales teams. An upgrade is also needed to send international texts and auto-replies.

Even if you do upgrade, you’ll still need to pay extra for helpful business features like toll-free numbers ($15-$17 per month).

Dialpad also only ports in one number on your account for free. If your team has multiple existing phone numbers, you can expect more upfront expenses when signing up for Dialpad. 

Dialpad pricing

Dialpad offers three pricing tiers for its business communications product, but you need to meet minimum user requirements to upgrade from its basic plan. Annual plans are discounted by $5 per user per month.

Standard

• $20 per user per month
• Includes weekday customer support

Pro

• $30 per user per month (You must purchase a minimum of three licenses)
• Unlocks 24/7 customer support, international SMS, auto-replies, and integrations with Zapier, HubSpot, Slack, Salesforce, and Zendesk

Enterprise

• Must contact for pricing (You must purchase a minimum of 100 licenses)
• Unlocks extensions and integrations with Azure, Okta, and OneLogin

The bottom line for Dialpad compared to Dialpad competitors

Getting the features you need on Dialpad often depends on costly upgrades — which you can’t even access without the right number of team members. With key integrations locked behind higher tiers and many features requiring add-on costs, Dialpad makes it difficult for businesses to get the most out of their phone systems.

6 Dialpad competitors & alternatives

If you want to save yourself from unnecessary upgrades or access advanced VoIP phone features with a small team, seeking a Dialpad alternative may be the way to go. Here are six Dialpad competitors you can consider and how they compare.

1. OpenPhone

OpenPhone is a modern, highly rated business phone app that works on almost all browsers including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Brave — as well as on desktop, iOS, and Android. Internet Explorer support is coming soon! 😉

Once you sign up, each of your team members can get one complimentary phone number of their own, whether it’s a US, Canadian, or toll-free number. But don’t feel limited to one number per user. No matter what plan you have, you can add additional numbers for $5 per month at any time.

OpenPhone is a lot more than just a business phone system — it’s a collaborative communication platform for your business. With shared phone numbers, you can assign unlimited team members to the same numbers and then work together on all your conversations. Leave internal notes to your teammates to make sure all your communication is on point. Anyone that has access to your shared number can make and receive calls or texts — no extensions or call routing needed.

OpenPhone is user-friendly and offers a variety of helpful business phone features with every plan, including many of Dialpad’s features and much more. These include:

• Unlimited calling, SMS, and MMS in the US and Canada
• International calls and texts at affordable rates
• Auto-attendant (IVR)
• Voicemail transcriptions
• Call recording
• Integrations with email, Slack, and Zapier
• Auto-replies
• Snippets (canned responses)

One of the key reasons thousands of companies recognize us as the #1 business phone on G2 (#humblebrag) is our customer service. Our support team is available every day including weekends (9 AM – 2 PM PST on Saturday and Sunday). 

OpenPhone pricing

OpenPhone offers three business-friendly pricing tiers with no annual contracts required.

Standard

• Starting at $13 per user per month
• Includes email and SMS customer support

Premium

• Starting at $20 per user per month
• Unlocks call transfer, logs and analytics, HubSpot CRM integration, the ability to share your phone number with as many teammates as you need, and more

Enterprise

• Custom pricing for a custom plan
• Unlocks a dedicated account manager to help tailor a plan to your team’s needs  

How to switch and port your number from Dialpad

Want to port your number from Dialpad to OpenPhone so you can keep the same phone number? The process is easy (and free)! Port in as many phone numbers as you need at no additional cost.

1. Create an OpenPhone account.
2. Submit a request to port your number in the OpenPhone app.
3. That’s it! We’ll take care of the rest.

How OpenPhone stacks up to the competition

OpenPhone’s plans make sense for businesses of any size, allowing your cloud phone system to grow with your business. Get must-have phone features while enjoying some of the best rates in the industry. Then, upgrade for more ways to help save you time, streamline receiving inbound calls across your company, and gain insights so you can make data-driven decisions.

2. Grasshopper

If you’re looking for a VoIP provider that’s fit for small businesses, Grasshopper is a popular choice. You won’t have to pay for upgrades to access more features, since every available feature is included with every plan. The caveat: Their platform and user experience are outdated. Grasshopper also lacks a ton of modern business phone features, like shared phone numbers, call recording, and integrations. Even with a top-tier plan, the most impressive features you’ll get include:

• Voicemail transcriptions
• Call forwarding
• Virtual fax

Grasshopper pricing

Grasshopper’s plans are tiered based on the amount of phone numbers and extensions included. Fair warning: The monthly costs are expensive — especially for a service that’s not built to scale past your small business needs.

Solo

• $28 per month
• Includes one phone number and three extensions

Partner

• $46 per month
• Includes three phone numbers and six extensions

Small Business

• $80 per month
• Includes five phone numbers and unlimited extensions

The bottom line for Grasshopper

Grasshopper may have been one of the earliest VoIP solutions. However, if you’re looking to streamline processes around calling and texting your business contacts, their platform leaves a lot to be desired.

Plus, as your team scales you’ll need to switch services when your business inevitably outgrows the VoIP platform. Check out our full guide to Dialpad vs Grasshopper.

3. Vonage

Vonage is a Dialpad competitor that offers voice and video calls on mobile and desktop apps. With a basic plan, you can access three key features:

• Unlimited calling in the US, Canada, and Mexico
• Unlimited SMS in the US (API required to send MMS messages)
• Unlimited team chat

Though Vonage’s features aren’t super robust with a starter plan, it is a Dialpad alternative that offers built-in video communication. However, your monthly costs aren’t always clear with Vonage. To access features most businesses need, like call recording and auto-attendant, you’ll need to purchase upgrades or add-ons.

Vonage does uniquely offer desk phone support with its second-tier plan, but with the world moving toward softphones and remote/hybrid work, this hardware compatibility is a somewhat outdated feature. Plus, you’ll still need to purchase the desk phones separately.

Vonage pricing

Vonage offers three core subscription plans, though you may bump into hidden fees with any of the three. Lower rates (starting at $14.99 per line per month) are only available to teams of 20 or more.

Mobile

• $19.99 per line per month
• Includes 24/7 customer support

Premium

• $29.99 per line per month
• Unlocks auto-attendant and CRM integrations (HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce, etc.)

Advanced

• $39.99 per line per month
• Unlocks call recording (15 hours max) and voicemail transcriptions

The bottom line for Vonage

Brace yourself for the fees. Vonage offers video, phone, and SMS features that can adequately replace Dialpad but runs into the same issue of excess add-ons and upgrades — the costs of which are not transparent at all. It’s really a toss-up between the two.

4. RingCentral

RingCentral has more advanced video features than Dialpad. Video doesn’t come standard, but an upgrade gets you access to video meetings for up to 100 participants.

On Dialpad, you’d have to pay $20 per user per month — on top of your normal subscription price — to bump your participant limit from 10 to 100 (the max). RingCentral can further support up to 200 participants with higher-tier plans.

On the flip side, RingCentral offers a pretty barebones standard plan compared to Dialpad and other business phone platforms. You’ll get minimal key features (just slightly more than Vonage) including:

• Unlimited calls and texts in the US and Canada (SMS only) 
• Voicemail transcriptions
• Document sharing

Though RingCentral has its perks over Dialpad — like additional phone numbers for $4.99 per user per month with any plan — it still pushes teams toward expensive upgrades to access the best VoIP phone features. Want call recording and a phone menu to route inbound calls? You’ll need a third-tier plan for that.

RingCental pricing

RingCentral is a pricey service with four available plans, though its most affordable plan isn’t available to everybody. Pricing is confusing, too. We’ve listed the monthly pricing for teams of one, but pricing drops about $10 per user per month for annual pricing or with teams of 2-10 — then second-tier pricing goes back up once you reach 11 users. (Still with us?)

If you don’t upgrade as you grow, you’ll be stuck with a worse deal than before.

Essentials

• $39.99 per user per month
• Maximum 20 users

Standard

• $49.99 per user per month
• Unlocks 24/7 support, phone menus, virtual fax, and integrations with Office 365, Google Workspace, and Slack

Premium

• $54.99 per user per month
• Unlocks call recording, analytics, integrations with CRMs, and an API for custom DIY integrations

Ultimate

• $69.99 per user per month
• Unlocks device status reports and unlimited storage

The bottom line for RingCentral compared to other Dialpad competitors

Small businesses (and even enterprises) can easily get priced out with RingCentral. A basic plan is costly for minimal phone features. Scaling businesses need a VoIP service that makes it simple to grow by adding numbers and teammates as needed. RingCentral’s confusing plans and pricing may not be a good fit for growing businesses.

5. Nextiva

Nextiva is a well-known Dialpad competitor that offers unlimited phone calls and video calls through its mobile and desktop apps. Though its basic plan doesn’t offer quite as many smart features, it’s otherwise pretty comparable to Dialpad with key features like:

• Auto-attendant
• Unlimited virtual fax
• Integrations with Outlook and Google Contacts

The downside? SMS and MMS — two critical business phone features in the modern world — do not come standard. You’ll have to upgrade to start texting and receive notifications like text via email. Texting is also only available through Nextiva’s mobile app.

Like RingCentral, Nextiva focuses on giving value through video conferencing features (like unlimited participants on their third-tier plan) at the cost of phone features. Call recording, voicemail transcriptions, and other features most businesses need on day one are only available through their premium plans.  

Nextiva pricing

With Nextiva, small businesses pay more than large ones, and annual pricing differs from monthly pricing. Here are the four plans you can choose from, with monthly pricing for 1-4 users listed. 

Essential

• $30.95 per user per month
• Includes 24/7 customer support

Professional

• $35.95 per user per month
• Unlocks video conferencing (250 participants), texting, and integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot, and Zendesk

Enterprise

• $45.95 per user per month
• Unlocks call recording, analytics, voicemail transcriptions, and integrations with Oracle Sales Cloud and Microsoft Teams

Ultimate

• $75.95 per user per month
• Unlocks automated surveys, ticket management, and customer journey analytics

The bottom line for Nextiva

Nextiva is another Dialpad competitor that struggles to shine without upgrades, which are costly and prioritize enterprise-level integrations over basic ones (like Slack and Zapier).

6. Google Voice

While Google Voice is one of the most talked-about virtual phone number providers due to the free version of their app. However, both their freemium and paid plans come with quite a few limitations. For one, Google Voice’s free version isn’t intended for business. You aren’t able to add a phone menu, share access with teammates, or use toll-free numbers. Google Voice’s free plan also isn’t available outside the US

Google Voice’s business phone system offering, Google Voice for Google Workspace, doesn’t support toll-free numbers and is only available to use in select countries. To be able to share responsibility for incoming calls, you’ll need to upgrade to your plan.

Another big challenge for teams: getting the proper context in conversations is time consuming. Calls, texts, and voice messages all live in separate inboxes in Google Voice.

Google Voice pricing

Google Voice for Google offers three plans:
Starter plan

• $10 per user per month
• max number of 10 users can be on your team to access this plan

Standard plan

• $20 per user per month
• can have unlimited users
• gives you access to ring groups and multi-level auto-attendants

Premier plan

• $30 per user per month
• gives you access to advanced reporting

On top of that, each plan must pay $6 per month for Google Workspace — even if you prefer other tools.

The bottom line for Google Voice

With Google Voice, you’ll need to read the fineprint and factor in some of the limits with their plans that don’t make their business phone solution particularly scalable. For a more in-depth comparison, check out our Dialpad vs Google Voice guide.

OpenPhone: The best alternative to Dialpad

There are many Dialpad competitors but few stand out. Those that offer any form of video, like RingCentral and Nextiva, often fail to deliver when it comes to your core phone needs. Many that don’t, like Grasshopper, won’t scale with you.

Here is how OpenPhone compares to Dialpad and the other competitors:

OpenPhone gets business phones right. You can access essential features, automation, and shared phone numbers without a massive amount of add-on costs or upgrades. And on top of that, you’ll get stellar call quality and rates that are hard to beat. Start your free trial of OpenPhone to experience the top alternative to Dialpad.

Emily Liu

Emily is a freelance business and marketing writer based in the desert, though her writing is anything but dry. Her passion is writing compelling, human-friendly content that helps growing businesses perform better.