Hassle-free phone solution alternative to Bandwidth (former Voxbone)

Twilio provides programmable communication tools for making and receiving phone calls, sending and receiving text messages, and performing other communication functions using its web service APIs. The solution suits both small and large businesses.

What makes Twilio unique?

Twilio is a reliable solution with a large international customer base.

It offers great call center tools such as:

• open API,
• a click-to-call feature,
• call recording,
• and one free local number per plan. 

It also offers usage-based pricing, which can be an advantage for small businesses.

What is Twilio missing?

Twilio is a popular communication platform, however, it lacks collaboration tools, pre-built integrations, and a user-friendly interface. It’s held back by the fact that it’s an exclusively web-based platform.

While CloudTalk supports international voice calling in over 160 countries, Twilio only offers numbers in 56 countries. Twilio is also missing many call center features, such as: 

• a power dialer,
• predictive dialer,
• preview dialer,
• call monitoring,
• or caller ID.

How is Twilio priced?

Twilio offers many different pricing models that customers can choose from depending on their needs.

For example, there is Twilio Flex, which costs $1 per hour per active user, or a $150 flat rate per user per month.

Twilio Conclusion

Twilio is a popular and well-known solution for a reason. It offers flexibility with generous per-hour pricing for ad-hoc users, plus an open API.

While the solution offers many great features,  they’re limited to only 56 countries (with CloudTalk, you can reach 160+ countries at local prices), and doesn’t offer automated dialers to help busy sales teams.

Vonage is among the best-known virtual phone providers in the world. They’ve been in the business for over 20 years and have established an enviable reputation as a market leader

What makes Vonage unique?

With Vonage, you know what you’re getting when you sign up. As arguably the most well-established player in the VoIP space, Vonage offers its customers stability and reliability in business communication.

A lot of great features come standard with Vonage, including phone calls, messages, an auto-attendant, CRM integrations, voice and video conferencing, and call forwarding services. 

What is Vonage missing?

Unfortunately for customers, Vonage has capitalized on its reputation by charging much more for its services than other comparable virtual phone software providers. 

Vonage pricing also includes many hidden fees that make the service far more expensive than expected.

This can be a real downside for small businesses that need to be more discerning about how and where they expend their resources.

How is Vonage priced?

All of Vonage’s plans require prospective customers to contact a Vonage representative in order to receive a pricing quote. 

Vonage Conclusion 

Vonage has achieved legacy status in the virtual phone software industry, and their platform is reliable, easy to use, and effective. However, the company’s basic plans come with limited features, and adding more features to your plan often incurs significant additional costs. 

 However, unless you’re willing to invest a significant amount of resources into your virtual phone software setup, we’d recommend looking elsewhere. 

GoTo Connect is a frequent go-to choice for scaling businesses. Let’s take a closer look at this VoIP provider’s offering, examine its strengths and weaknesses, and determine whether it delivers on its promises. 

What makes GoTo Connect unique?

Something every GoTo Connect will appreciate is the free-of-charge onboarding assistance you receive when you first join.

From that point, users can enjoy a strong mobile experience, great predictive dialers, and a reliable selection of knowledge base and training videos.

What is GoTo Connect missing?

One of the first downsides users will notice when using GoTo Connect is the solution’s lack of integrations.

There are a fair few features missing that you can expect to find with other providers, including call notes/tags, call masking, business hours, or even caller ID.

How is Go To Connect priced?

GoTo Connect offers users the choice of 3 plans, their pricing depending on how many agents you decide to onboard. For this comparison, we chose the 2-10 agent option, as it tends to be the most frequently used.

The Basic plan can support up to 20 users and costs $18 for annual and monthly payments alike.

Standard costs $29 regardless of payment frequency and can support unlimited agents.

The same applies to Premium, which will run you $43.

GoTo Connect Conclusion

GoTo Connect offers an approachable VoIP experience – both financially and from an onboarding standpoint. However, the lack of several key features and integrations might be reason enough to consider an alternative.

Zadarma has been providing VoIP services since 2006. They offer a cloud-based PBX system that can be customized to fit individual or corporate needs and features a software wizard to help customers achieve successful configuration quickly.

What makes Zadarma unique?

Zadarma is a strong solution, focusing on global, remote businesses of all sizes. It offers a wide range of features such as: 

• automated dialers,
• ACD,
• call logging,
• advanced monitoring,
• call recording 
• and customizable IVR. 

Its subscription-based model is easy to navigate, and the platform also integrates with many of the most popular CRM solutions, such as Zendesk, Salesforce or Zoho.

What is Zadarma missing?

Zadarma doesn’t offer a credit card-free trial, which is something most VoIP providers offer.

Instead, they have a free plan with limited features. Zadarma is also missing a wider range of integrations (they offer a very limited integration stack), and features such as call recording, call screening, or even call queues are lacking.

How is Zadarma priced?

Zadarma offers three pricing plans.

1. Their standard plan is free, but you still need to pay for call minutes, storage, and phone numbers.
2. They also offer an office plan for $18 per month.
3. A corporation plan for $36 per month. While these plans are more generous, none of them offer unlimited monthly phone calling minutes.

Zadarma Conclusion

While Zadarma offers many important features for call centers, it’s lacking a wider range of integrations, which can make agent workflow inefficient. As a comparison, CloudTalk integrates with 30+ apps out of the box and over a thousand more with Zapier. Zadarma is also lacking a free trial and unlimited calling minutes.

8×8 is an evergreen telephony solution with a strong focus on integrations and analytics. The provider is well-suited for enterprises, but lower-tier subscriptions also work for smaller organizations.

What is 8×8 missing?

Office is required: You need an office in the location where you want to call in order to get a number from there. 

Geographical restrictions for SMS: You can only use an SMS feature within the US and 8×8 does not cover costs for mobile numbers in Brazil.  

Integrations: 8×8 doesn’t partner with telco companies, which means that users can’t get native integration with certain solutions. For example, Whatsapp. Non-native integrations must be set up by the tech team.

Features: 8×8 is missing some features like call tagging for more efficient calling processes, call masking for protecting your personal information or API for connecting CloudTalk with any tool you love. Automation tools like IVR, skill-based routing or automated callback come only with high-tier plans. You have to pay extra in order to get call recording.

A crucial restriction, mainly for big international companies, is that there are regional constraints on unlimited calling. Users with the basic Express plan can only use unlimited calling in the US and Canada.  

How is 8×8 priced?

The cheapest, Express 8×8 plan starts at $15 for both monthly and annual subscription. Though, it only comes with basic features.

Higher tier plans will cost you from $24 to $44 per month, billed annually, and $28 to $57 billed monthly. These include more advanced features, such as multi-level auto attendant, and data history.

8×8 Conclusion

8×8 shines in analytics and integrations but stays behind in the amount of productivity features. There’s also a lack of flexibility to consider, and a few feature accessibility restrictions that may be dealbreakers for international companies. 

Price is affordable when you only need a basic Express pack, but for more advanced tools, you’ll have to reach deeper into your wallet.