Connect CloudTalk with powerful and easy one-click CRM and helpdesk integrations. Automatic 2-way synchronization makes that all your data are always up-to-date.
The best solutions don’t let you choose between quality and quantity. While Microsoft Office offers basic tools, CloudTalk has a ton of outbound and inbound voice, productivity, statistics, automation, and utility features with industry-top performance.
Examples of tools you’ll fall in love with:
Voice tools – our Conference calling improves teamwork and Call recording makes sure your agents offer the best service possible.
Automation tools – Workflow automation eliminates a lot of manual tasks and helps you speed up your processes. For example, after clients reach voicemail, they can receive automated text messages.
Productivity tools – CloudTalk’s flagship feature Smart dialer automatically compiles a list of numbers and lets you call through them in a single click.
Statistical tools – Our Call statistics provide comprehensive data on calls, agents and call queues in the same place.
Utility tools – All of your CloudTalk data will be stored in modern safe data centers with 24/7 monitoring, and our top-class security.
With over 160 international numbers, you can call globally, as a local. From virtually anywhere in the world. These numbers drastically reduce costs of international calling because they allow you to avoid extremely high calling fees.
With CloudTalk Go, you can be fully independent. From wires, from hardware, even from the office. As long as you have an internet connection, you can work from anywhere. All you need is a device, and a pair of headphones. With our CloudTalk Go mobile application, your contact center will always be right there — in your pocket and at your disposal.
CloudTalk offers 30+ comprehensive, built-in integrations, as well as countless other platforms connectable via Zapier or Integromat. Our two-way synchronization ensures that your data is always up-to-date – in all integrated systems.
So say goodbye to switching between platforms and hello to improved efficiency!
We will show you how to use the Cloudtalk desktop app, click to call feature and the smart dialer. We will also demonstrate CloudTalk’s dashboard features
“We are very glad to have an amazing team supporting us on Cloudtalk. It was a pleasant surprise. Our Account Executive always solves our questions and guides us through the entire process.“
You’ve seen the reasons why you should consider CloudTalk as your Microsoft Teams alternative.
After all, Microsoft Teams does have a number of limitations to worry about, including an absence of electronic signature for video conferencing.
But of course, there are plenty of fish in the sea, so to help you make a good and informed decision, we’ve collected the top X competitors on the market. In this article, we’ll discuss their strengths, weaknesses, and prices.
13 Best Microsoft Alternatives
So, without further ado, let’s take a look at the competition:
CloudTalk
Cisco
Avaya
Zoom
Skype
GoTo Meeting
3CX
RingCentral
8×8
#1 CloudTalk
Here’s why you should give CloudTalk a try:
High-quality calls with guaranteed latency and minimal jitter
Smooth workflow with our Intelligent call-routing tools
Callback feature that redials the number until connected with the agent
Redirecting calls during busy hours or when outside the office
The call masking feature keeps your personal number private
Plans start at $25/month with a free trial and demo.
Cisco is one of the biggest and most well-established companies on the market. As a consequence, its Webex applications for meetings and VoIP come with big expectations. But is it worth the money?
What makes Cisco unique?
One of Cisco’s biggest assets is its Unified Communications Managers (CUCM), which allows employees to share information and work in a single, consolidated workspace.
It offers a variety of essential tools and 3rd party integrations, including solutions from Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Google, Salesforce, and more.
What is Cisco missing?
Unfortunately, if you’re looking for a VoIP solution, you’ll have to get in touch with Cisco’s sales team because this option is only available for custom Enterprise plans.
And even then, it lacks several vital features, including:
Basic is free but lacks most of the VoIP features you’d expect.
Business starts at $25 per user per month or $270 annually.
Finally, for the Enterprise pricing, you’ll need to reach out to the sales team directly.
Cisco Conclusion
Cisco is a household name for a reason – its solution comes packaged with a variety of tools and features that you’ll be able to use to your advantage.
However, as a consequence of its reputation, you’ll need to pay extra. As such, it wouldn’t be a great choice for smaller, or even mid-sized businesses.
#4 Avaya vs. Microsoft Teams
Avaya is a cloud contact center built for remote teams. It has the potential to boost workplace efficiency by allowing agents and managers alike to easily engage in video conferencing and instant messaging. On top of that, it integrates with some of the most popular software tools on the market.
What makes Avaya unique?
Avaya also offers its customers advanced omnichannel capabilities, which allows them to provide quality interactions across voice and digital channels from a single desktop window.
Avaya has a wealth of helpful features for growing businesses. Access to local and toll-free numbers, automatic call recordings and speech-to-text functionality are just a few of the things that help Avaya users work more efficiently than teams using less feature-rich software.
What is Avaya missing?
Many Avaya users have complained about the software’s old-fashioned and difficult-to-navigate UI. The platform is also lacking in the automations department – it doesn’t offer any smart dialers, which can be a real problem for sales teams looking to reach out to prospects in the most efficient way possible.
Lastly, while Avaya does offer some international numbers, its offering is limited. Users are currently only able to acquire numbers from 40 countries.
How is Avaya priced?
Avaya’s most basic plan costs 11 euros per user per month.
Their intermediate plan costs 17 euros per user per month, and their more advanced plans cost 23 euros and 34 euros per user per month, respectively.
Avaya Conclusion
Taken as a whole, Avaya is a great option for those looking to implement a virtual phone system software at their business. It’s feature-rich, providing users with a cornucopia of tools that make their day-to-day workflows much more manageable. If you can get past their old-school UI, you’ll likely be happy with this service.
#4 Zoom vs. Microsoft Teams
When you hear Zoom, you probably connect it with meetings, webinars, and conference calling. No surprise there. Zoom is one of the biggest virtual meeting tools on the market. Yet, it’s not the cheapest one. Let’s look deeper at all advantages and disadvantages.
What makes Zoom unique?
Perhaps the biggest advantage is unlimited one-on-one and group meetings in all Zoom’s plans.
Yet, the meeting duration for their basic plan is only 40 minutes.
Furthermore, Zoom offers a nice, user-friendly interface, and up to 1,000 third-party integrations.
In Zoom Phone, you’ll also get useful automation tools like Click to Call.
What is Zoom missing?
Zoom is missing advanced dialing capabilities. While the platform offers many integrations, it lacks some of the most popular ones, like:
Zoom is a well-known robust virtual meeting tool. Over the years, it has built a strong reputation in the business world. Zoom is user-friendly, supports many third-party integrations, and provides advanced automation tools.
On the flip side, some important services only come as add-ons. Talking about that, Zoom’s prices are quite high.
#6 Skype vs. Microsoft Teams
Skype is one of the oldest VoIP competitors on the market. Despite that fact, it still has plenty to offer. Over the years, the platform has released a number of upgrades that make it a viable alternative.
What makes Skype unique?
One of Skype’s biggest strengths is its wide availability and ease of use across Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and more.
It offers very secure calls for up to 50 participants with a meeting recording feature.
In terms of VoIP, Skype can provide you with:
local phone numbers,
call forwarding,
and voicemail.
What is Skype missing?
Unfortunately, ever since Skype was acquired by Microsoft, many of its features got cut. As a consequence, the platform lacks many VoIP capabilities customers expect, including a help desk, webinars, activity tracking, notifications, integrations,or an API.
Customer support options are also quite limited, as there’s no phone support, 24/7 support, FAQs / Forum, or Training.
How is Skype priced?
Skype offers very affordable pricing, giving customers access to both monthly and pay-as-you-go plans. You can get started with skype for as little as $3.59 per month or $0.18 per minute.
Skype Conclusion
Skype is a great, affordable online conferencing solution. Unfortunately, that’s not enough to make it a great VoIP solution, too. The amount of missing features is too much of a glaring issue to ignore, and so, if you’re looking to power-up your call center, we urge you to look elsewhere.
#7 GoTo Meeting vs. Microsoft Teams
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.
#8 3CX vs. Microsoft Teams
3CX is a PBX phone system for office-based teams. It runs exclusively with Microsoft Windows or Linux, so MacBook users are out of luck.
It’s a relatively basic phone system, with simple features such as Live Chat and Call Recording. It does not however feature smart capabilities such as AI or real-time transcriptions.
What makes 3CX unique?
3CX’s biggest strength is its affordability.
It’s a bare-bones system, but one that can get the job done for small teams who aren’t interested in the bells and whistles that come with most smart calling software.
What is 3CX missing?
3CX lacks some of the features and integrations most businesses have come to expect when hunting for virtual phone software. For example, users cannot integrate 3CX with Pipedrive or Zapier, two of the most popular business software on the market.
3CX also doesn’t have any direct sales. It is only sold through distributors which can make the sales process, as well as the support process lengthy and costly.
How is 3CX priced?
3CX’s most basic plan is free.
Their first paid plan comes in at 175 euros per user per month, and their more advanced plans cost 296 euros and 330 euros per user per month, respectively.
3CX Conclusion
As we’ve mentioned, 3CX is a virtual phone software for businesses who are only interested in the basics. It leaves a lot to be desired in a lot of areas, so we recommend thinking about whether or not you might need something it lacks — like integrations with Pipedrive and Zapier — at a later date.
#8 RingCentral vs. Microsoft Teams
When you think about VoIP telephony solutions, Ringcentral is probably among the first ones that comes to your mind. No wonder, the company has been on the market for over 20 years and it has built quite a reputation for itself.
RingCentral has a great variety of features, and offers HD quality voice and video. The provider is a good fit for enterprises, since it offers omnichannel experience, lead qualification tools, as well as management, collaboration and performance features – all in a single software.
Let’s take a closer look at what makes RingCentral unique, what it’s missing, and more.
What makes RingCentral unique?
The platform has excellent video conferencing capabilities. Users get tools like whiteboard, screen sharing, breakout rooms, and a seamless scheduling process.
RingCentral also extensively supports team cooperation. The software offers a native task management system, and integrates with collaboration software, such as Monday.com.
RingCentral offers real-time metrics, so users can monitor the quality of service and enhance team productivity. Voicemail transcriptions allow users to find all information you need without having to always re-listen it.
There are unlimited inbound/outbound calls, business SMS, internal chat option, and international numbers from over 100+ countries.
What is RingCentral missing?
Despite all the positives, RingCentral does lack quite many essential tools that modern businesses require.
Features like:
native sentiment analytics,
Speech-to-Text transcription,
smart dialers
or Skill-based routing
are only included in Contact Centre Solution. The same goes for some agent management features, like monitoring.
Furthermore, RingCentral’s implementation can take as much as 90 days and involves an implementation fee.
RingCentral UI is also not always the friendliest.
How is RingCentral priced?
RingCentral’s pricing list starts with:
an Essential plan for $19,99 user/month billed annually, but it is limited to a maximum of 20 users.
Second cheapest, Standard plan will cost you $27,99 user/month,
and the list goes all the way up to an Ultimate plan for $49,99 user/month.
Keep in mind that in order to get all communication channels – phone calls, messaging and video conferencing – you’ll have to purchase the second most expensive, Premium plan ($34.99).
RingCentral Conclusion
RingCentral is an established name on the VoIP market and a reliable solution. It has great video conferencing and performance tracking capabilities, yet several essential features are limited.
#10 8×8 vs. Microsoft Teams
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 makes 8×8 unique?
There are 2 main advantages we want to highlight.
Analytics. The provider went far with their focus on tracking large-scale business processes.
The 8×8’s reporting system centralizes all data in a single place, so managers can make their teams more organized and speed up their workflow. You’ll also get real-time reports.
Comprehensive integrations with software like:
Salesforce,
Slack,
Microsoft Teams,
and many more.
Furthermore, 8×8 users get unlimited calling into 40+ countries. 8×8 telephony software comes with:
smart dialer,
click to call,
and call recording.
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.
Pricing for Contact Center Solution
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.
Microsoft Alternatives: The Final Verdict
We hope that you’re now a step closer to choosing the right provider.
Regardless of your company’s size or focus, CloudTalk is here for you. With 70+ features and integrations covering almost every niche, our affordable solution can help SMBs and enterprises alike. Give it a try free for 14 days and see for yourself!
And for more content like this, check out our site.
How do free trials work?
Simply send us your contact information and we’ll get you set up with a free, no-strings-attached CloudTalk trial. You can start dialing immediately and enjoy our full range of features and integrations for two fun-filled weeks.
What are your outbound call prices?
Each package includes one standard local or toll-free number for free. Prices of outbound calls vary. Please contact us for more details.
Who is a user?
Users work for your company and communicate with your existing and potential customers. You can add or remove users at any time and in just a few clicks. Users are agents, supervisors, analysts, administrators, etc.
How often can I change my billing plan?
Plans billed annually can only upgrade to a higher tier plan (e.g. From Essential to Expert). It’s not possible to downgrade on annual billing.
How else can I use CloudTalk?
CloudTalk can be used in many different ways: for customer support, as a contact center, or simply as an all-in-one virtual phone system. Our solution is also perfect for companies operating different e-commerce platforms at the same time, as the ability to set up separate customer support channels can make all the difference.
What about data safety?
The safety of your data is our topmost priority. CloudTalk uses third-party data centers with industry-standard certifications (Tier III+ or IV, ISO 27001, PCI-DSS). All facilities include physical protection. Interface is accessed through an encrypted SSL connection. You can read more on our dedicated security page.
Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
