Companies must invest in a business communications platform to grow. Many of them have turned to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) as a solution.
A VoIP provider enables companies to communicate with stakeholders, teams and customers around the world. Not only does it establish a connection with customers, but it also facilitates team collaboration.
It’s no surprise that almost 70% of employees use internet-based voice services like a VoIP tool or unified communications platform. VoIP services especially are cost-effective, ensuring employees can talk, message and collaborate.
One solution is Dialpad. It is a business communications platform for the modern employee. However, there are other options on the market.
In today’s article, we’ll examine Dialpad alternatives, the benefits of business phone systems and more.
A brief overview of business phone systems and their importance
A business phone system is a solution that enables large and small businesses to make and receive calls. It is the basic function of this technology.
There are several phone setups you can use to facilitate easier communication. Most companies go with VoIP.
According to research, 61% of companies are turning to a VoIP provider like Ringblaze. Why? Because this advanced technology come with many unified communications features such as:
- Call forwarding – your team members won’t miss any important calls. If they are away, they can forward calls to their personal phones.
- Call routing – this option automatically distributes incoming calls to the appropriate departments or agents. Call routing is a crucial feature for contact centers that want to minimize the time their customers spend on hold.
- Call recording – do you want to record an important call with a client or customer? A VoIP service will record your conversation and make it available to you.
- Business texting – companies need team chat tools to motivate and engage their employees. A VoIP service makes unlimited calling, business texting and collaboration easier for all.
The right phone setup can improve your company and the way your team works. Nowadays, employees demand remote work from their employers. You can make this possible with a cloud-based VoIP service.
This technology transmits both video and phone calls over the internet. Your employees can use it from anywhere, having access to team collaboration tools and taking calls from any device.
Let’s now examine its benefits.
Benefits of using business phone systems
The advantages of using business phone systems are:
- It’s cost-effective – cloud phone systems have made a communication platform more accessible to large and small businesses. You can use this technology at an affordable price. Calling features like call routing and call recording are available at a fixed monthly subscription price.
- It’s time-saving – the modern business communications system requires no on-premise installation. You don’t have to purchase expensive equipment and distribute it across your company. Everything is stored on the vendor’s servers, so you don’t have to do system maintenance.
- It unifies your communication efforts – you can simplify and unify your business communications. You don’t have to use separate solutions for intelligent call routing, call forwarding or team collaboration—all of the key features are there if you invest in one tool.
- It ensures you look professional – the beauty of technologies like VoIP is that you can use it anytime no matter where you are. Whether you’re working from home or office, call management options ensure you are always there for your customers and team members.
According to Forbes, business phone systems can make small businesses look big. Use this to your advantage!
Dialpad alternatives: How to choose the best one for your business
If you’ve decided to explore Dialpad alternatives, you should consider some things. There are many VoIP systems available that don’t require desk phones or on-premise equipment installation.
However, each system comes with different key features. You must analyze the tools before choosing your go-to contact center solution.
Here is what to keep in mind:
- Examine the rates – as a small business, you must use your budget wisely. The first step is to check a tool’s rate per user or month. Determine whether the pricing works for you.
- Check the dialing options – VoIP systems provide many ways to make and receive phone calls. Some systems let you connect to your existing personal or business phones. After that, they give you access to options like team messaging and collaboration, call recording and other call management features.
- Find collaboration features – the best system enables the team to receive phone or video conferencing calls, but also gives them access to collaboration features. They can work together, meet and interact. Some basic options you need are video conferencing and team messaging.
- Look at third-party integrations – at some point, you’ll probably want to use third-party integrations. The tool should allow you to connect to email marketing platforms, CRM software, other APIs, etc.
An overview of Dialpad phone system
If you’re reading this article, you’ve probably tried Dialpad but it doesn’t work for you.
Maybe you’re looking for a tool that loads faster, is simpler to use, and doesn’t cost as much as Dialpad. Like you, we’ve also been in that place and we’ve tried a lot of Dialpad alternatives to find the one that worked for us and what we need a business phone system to do. Since we couldn’t find an ideal solution, we decided to create our own tool — this is how Ringblaze was born.
Ringblaze is a super simple business phone service. Before we built it, we spent weeks researching and testing tons of different Dialpad alternative apps, some of which we’ll cover in this article. We’ve based this article on our own experience.
The apps we talk about in this article are the top Dialpad alternatives you can get in the market today.
Why do people choose Dialpad
There are a few reasons why people choose Dialpad. First, setting it up and getting it running is fairly easy. Because Dialpad allows you to make VoIP calls, create a customer, a sales or a web conference center, it can be used in a few different scenarios. Their user experience is okay and both mobile and desktop apps are reliable.
How we choose the best Dialpad alternatives
We examined four solutions that are alternatives to Dialpad. We chose them according to these criteria:
- Free trial: Every small business must have a chance to first try out a tool free of charge. This helps you determine if the tool is suitable for you and your needs.
- Features: We mentioned different features throughout the article. Your takeaway should be that the tool should include options that make work easier. It should serve as a unified communications tool that helps you handle phone calls, but also collaborate with your team.
- Pricing: Companies have fixed budgets, especially small businesses. We’re sure you have a budget for your VoIP system as well. That’s why we looked at the prices for each Dialpad alternative on the list.
- Our own experience: We tried the alternatives we mentioned in the article. Our goal was to determine what the advantages of using the tool were. We also wanted to see if there were any negative sides that might make the tool less appealing.
As you’ll see, we compared the four tools to Dialpad. If you’re a Dialpad user, this will help you determine how they differ from the tool.
The top four Dialpad alternatives
Okay, we told you why some people use Dialpad and which criteria we used to select our alternatives.
Let’s take a look at the top Dialpad alternatives available on the market right now. We hope that this list will help you find the one alternative that works for your needs.
Ringblaze
Ringblaze is our take on a business phone service and is currently one of the best Dialpad alternatives that you can get. With Ringblaze, we’ve created an app that people love using because it helps make their phone communication more simple and efficient. No matter what you do, Ringblaze will provide you with top-notch features and help you achieve unified communications.
Ringblaze’s features
Instead of offering a bunch of different features that will only confuse you, Ringblaze is designed to run in the background and help you focus on your business. Some of the standout features of Ringblaze include:
- Shared dashboard —No matter the industry you’re in, no one likes when their call is unanswered or misplaced. With Ringblaze, you don’t have to worry about that as all calls are kept in a single dashboard, allowing you or your team instant access to them no matter where their platform or location. With the shared dashboard feature, Ringblaze helps keep everyone on the same page. Unlike other competitors that charge a premium for this feature, it is included in all Ringblaze plans.
- Free toll-free calls — With Ringblaze, any of your customers, no matter where they’re located around the world, can call your toll-free phone number without paying a dime, allowing you to provide everyone with support or other inquiries.
- Fast deployment — While Dialpad can be set up in under an hour, Ringblaze can be set up in no time. Within just 15 minutes, you can start receiving your first call. You don’t need any additional desktop or mobile apps to get started with Ringblaze.
- Assign, forward, route and record calls — You can assign any of your calls in Ringblaze, ensuring that everyone knows which call is for them, which eliminates any confusion or lost calls. Any call can be easily forwarded or routed, which ensures that the caller gets their inquiry answered quickly. Calls can also be recorded making them available for training or other purposes.
- Unlimited phone numbers from 22 countries — With the unlimited VoIP phone number feature, you can reduce or even eliminate call termination costs.
Here is what the process looks like in three simple steps.
Ringblaze call widget implemented on your website
Ringblaze settings allow widget customization: choose color and placement
Customers call for free from all over the world
Ringblaze vs Dialpad — How are they different?
The main goal of Ringblaze is to provide our users with an easy-to-use product, whether you’re using it for customer support, sales teams, task management or any other scenario. Because of this, we’re focusing on creating features and optimizing our product in a way that makes using our product an enjoyable experience both for large and small businesses.
On the other hand, using Dialpad can seem complicated at times due to how many features they offer. At Ringblaze, balancing between features and usability is important to us. This is why our features are both simple and powerful to help teams work effectively.
When comparing the cost of Ringblaze and Dialpad, you can also see why Ringblaze is a much simpler and efficient choice. Unlike Dialpad which offers nine different plans, we keep it simple at just one — $15 per user a month (when billed annually), which can be paid on a month or year basis. We also offer a free trial.
Aircall
Aircall is a cloud-based call center software that can be integrated with a CRM. It works on desktop and mobile, allowing you to take calls anywhere.
Some of the standout features of Aircall include a power dialer, which can trigger different workflows and automation to minimize the downtime between two calls. Aircall also allows you to tag calls and provide more context to the next agent that speaks to the caller. There is also the live feed feature, which you can use to see the capacity of each agent and better balance their workloads and your overall resources.
Aircall is available in three different pricing plans. The Essentials plan starts at $30 per user per month when billed annually and it includes unlimited inbound calls (but not toll-free), call recording, voicemail and more. The Professional plan starts at $50 per user per month when billed annually and it includes all features from the Essentials plan plus a few more such as integrations, reporting and live call monitoring. A free trial is available.
There is also the custom plan which includes different features depending on your specific needs. The pricing of the custom plan is not available online and you’ll need to request a custom quote from their team.
See also: Aircall alternatives
Aircall vs Dialpad — how are they different?
When comparing the two apps, Dialpad is a bit easier to use. Some might argue that Aircall is primarily a cloud call center software which justifies its complexity but we believe it’s a valid comparison as Dialpad can be used in a call center environment.
Aircall is easier to set up as there is less work that needs to be done to get it running. Dialpad is 2 times cheaper than Aircall, but it’s still a valid alternative to Dialpad to consider.
For more information, check out our Aircall vs Dialpad overview.
Our experience using Aircall as a call center solution
Based on our experience, when making or receiving calls in certain regions, there are some connectivity issues. We have also noticed that when making outbound calls, phone numbers that appear are from a different region than ours which can be a huge issue for some.
Their support has also proven to be unreliable at times and based on what people are saying online, this is quite common.
Aircall summary
You should use Aircall if:
- You’re running a call center and are looking for an all-round solution
- Detailed analytics and reporting are important to your business
Grasshopper
Grasshopper is a virtual phone system that works by adding a business line and a virtual phone system to a personal phone, making it a great solution for those with simple setups.
Grasshopper offers toll-free numbers, call forwarding and multiple extensions support. Since it works on phones, there is a mobile app, as well as a desktop one. The apps can receive voicemails and send text messages. You can use Grasshopper to receive incoming virtual fax as PDF attachments in email, instead of having to rely on an actual fax machine.
At the moment, Grasshopper is only available in the USA and Canada in three plans — Solo, Partner and Small Business. The Solo plan is $26 per account per month and it gives you one phone number and up to three extensions. The Partner plan includes three phone numbers and up to six extensions, while the Small Business plan includes five phone numbers and no limit on the number of extensions. There is also a 7-day free trial.
Grasshopper vs Dialpad — how are they different?
With Grasshopper, all the features that you pay for are there for you to use, unlike Dialpad, which does require you to upgrade to a more expensive plan to use all the features. Grasshopper can be cheaper than Dialpad. It also offers vanity phone numbers, which can be an advantage to some users.
Our experience using Grasshopper as a business phone solution
Setting up Grasshopper was somewhat easy because it took us some time to figure out the different levels of user access. The call quality is sometimes poor and there have been a few instances where voicemails were randomly deleted. Caller ID doesn’t work every time, which could be a potential issue.
Grasshopper summary
You should use Grasshopper if:
- You’re a small business or a solopreneur based in the US or Canada (as Grasshopper is only available in these two countries) looking for a simple phone solution
- You need a cheap solution that can be set up quickly
For more information, check out our Dialpad vs Grasshopper comparison.
Vonage
Vonage is a communications platform that offers business phone setups, contact center solutions and communication APIs (think Twilio).
Some of the most useful features of Vonage include a virtual receptions feature that allows you to route calls to different people or departments. There is also a click-to-call button that can help your customers reach you more easily.
Vonage is offered in three different pricing plans based on the number of lines. Their Mobile plans start at $19.99 per month per line and includes unlimited calling, business SMS, and their app center.
The Premium plan also includes meetings, an auto-attendant feature and it starts at $29.99 per month per line. Their most comprehensive plan is $39.99 per month per line and it also includes call recording and visual voicemail. Vonage can be tested out in a 14-day free trial.
Vonage vs Dialpad — how are they different?
When comparing the two solutions, Dialpad is easier to set up but Vonage requires less effort to administrate.
Vonage offers a bit more features and integrations. However, their phone support is limited to accounts only accounts that have more expensive plans.
See also: Broadvoice vs Vonage comparison
Our experience using Vonage as a business phone solution
Vonage is easy to deploy and manage. However, if you run into any problems, jumping through hoops with their support to get to a real person can be a pain. Also, calls do fail at times and there is an echo when making calls.
Vonage summary
You should get Vonage if:
- You’re looking for a robust solution with a lot of features
- Have the budget to get the more expensive plans to unlock them
Dialpad alternatives: a quick recap
Here is a comparison table for the four Dialpad alternatives to make your decision easier.
| Free trial | Pricing | Features | |
| Ringblaze | Yes | $15 per user a month | Shared dashboard Call forwarding Auto attendant Team collaboration |
| Aircall | Yes | Essentials plan ($30/user/month) Professional plan ($50/user/month) Custom plan (tailored to a business) | Call routing Voicemail SMS business text messaging |
| Grasshopper | Yes | Solo plan ($26/user/month) Partner plan ($44/user/month) Small business plan ($80/user/month) | Call blasting Voicemail transcription Business texting |
| Vonage | Yes | Mobile plan ($19.99/user/month) Premium plan ($29.99/user/month) Advanced plan ($39.99/user/month) | Unified communications Video collaboration Call routing |
Wrapping up
Dialpad is a great business phone solution that is easy to set up and use, whether you need it for sales or a customer service center. However, if you’re looking for an even simpler tool that offers better features and a comparable pricing plan without any hidden costs, you should consider Ringblaze.
Sign up for Ringblaze now and start making better business calls in seconds.
Dialpad alternatives: FAQs
Is there a free version of Dialpad?
There is a 14-day free trial version of Dialpad. To keep using it, you would have to choose one of their business plans – Standard, Pro or Enterprise. The cheapest solution starts at 15$ per user per month
Is Dialpad the same as Google Voice?
No, Dialpad and Google Voice are not the same. Dialpad is an advanced VoiP provider that allows you to streamline your business communication and improve call center activity. Google Voice is a telephone service that provides U.S. phone numbers to Google accounts located in the United States. For more information, check out our Dialpad vs Google Voice comparison.
Interested in more Dialpad alternatives? Check out how Dialpad compares to OpenPhone.
Originally published on June 7, 2021, updated on September 22, 2022.
