Dialpad Review (2025): Smarter Calls, Smarter Teams

Dialpad sets itself apart from other top VoIP providers with built-in AI features like live transcription, automated call summaries, and real-time analytics – tools that can boost productivity and give your team clearer insight into every customer interaction.

But while its Standard plan starts from just $15 per user, per month, it lacks some key integrations and coaching tools found in competitors like RingCentral. In this Dialpad review, we assess how well its features, pricing, and support stack up against other competitors and who we think it’s best suited for.

Dialpad Review: Setup, Interface, and Navigation

One of the most immediately impressive things about Dialpad is how polished and modern its interface feels. From the moment you sign in, the platform is clearly built with accessibility in mind – a clean, uncluttered dashboard, intuitive navigation, and subtle colour cues make it easy to figure out where everything lives.

Quick setup and onboarding

Getting started with Dialpad is straightforward. After signing up, you’re guided through a quick onboarding sequence, which includes assigning phone numbers, adding users, and linking devices.

You can port over existing numbers during this process or choose a new local one with just a few clicks. For teams already using tools like Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, calendar and contact syncing can be activated straight away.

Dialpad also lets you download apps for Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and Chrome, but if you prefer not to, the web app is fully functional on its own.

Notably, all the programs have the same design across platforms (besides being streamlined or reshaped for different-sized devices). Admins can configure call routing rules, voicemail settings, and business hours directly from the browser without ever needing to dig through complex menus. That’s pretty standard for VoIP providers like RingCentral, though smaller, lower-cost companies often lack this unified approach.

Interface and navigation

The dashboard is designed around a central panel that highlights recent contacts, voicemails, and threads. On the left, a collapsible menu gives quick access to key areas: your inbox, contact centre data, messages, contacts, call history, and more. Everything is searchable from the top bar, and the whole experience feels consistent across both desktop and mobile.

As shown in the image above, Dialpad also places strong emphasis on real-time analytics. Call volume, user status, average call duration, and even AI-generated customer satisfaction scores are all visualised in a series of clear, colourful graphs from the get-go. These features are particularly useful for supervisors or team leaders managing busy inbound queues or sales pipelines.

We also like the lead Dialpad has taken from communication platforms through the use of #channels for different teams, groups, and projects within your company.

It allows company messages to be organised and specific to certain operations and it’s a little surprising that more integrated VoIP-Comms platforms don’t implement a similar setup, albeit, many have similar aspects with a less Slack-heavy influence (with RingCentral and Vonage you can create messaging teams, for instance, while 8×8 Work allows for public and private chat rooms).

AI tools baked into the UI

Another standout is how Dialpad integrates AI features natively into the interface. You’ll see live call transcription, sentiment tracking, and automated call summaries by simply turning on Dialpad AI during a call or configuring background settings – especially handy during back-to-back meetings or when handling multiple client accounts.

These tools feel like part of the core design rather than an afterthought or optional plugin, as with other software we’ve tested like GoTo and Vonage, or even (to a lesser extent) RingCentral.

Dialpad Review: Key Features

After setting up Dialpad Connect, the next step is to dig into the platform’s suite of features. Below, I’ll cover Dialpad’s standout tools in detail, highlighting exactly how they work, their ease of use, and why they’re valuable to your business, compared with other providers.

Calling and routing

Dialpad makes everyday calling straightforward. Initiating calls is easy: just use the keypad to dial numbers or quickly search for contacts by name. It’s worth noting that alongside unlimited calling in the US and Canada.

Once connected, transferring calls to team members is seamless, with clear prompts guiding the process.

You can also easily set business operating hours too, allowing calls to go exactly where they should at specific times (and direct calls outside those hours to a relevant voicemail).

For inbound call handling during operating hours, Dialpad offers several flexible routing options:

• Sequential routing: Calls route through agents in a fixed order. Ideal for priority-based answering.
• Round robin: Distributes calls evenly, cycling through available agents, one by one.
• Idle time routing: Sends calls to the agent who’s been free the longest, balancing workloads effectively.
• Skills-based routing: Directs callers to agents based on skills or specialisation, using IVR prompts.

Compared with competitors like Ooma, Dialpad provides similarly intuitive basics but adds more sophisticated options like skills-based and idle-time routing, features usually reserved for premium VoIP providers.

Integrated communication history and AI summaries

One of Dialpad’s standout capabilities is its deeply integrated communication history. Whenever you make or receive a call, Dialpad automatically pulls up your complete communication history with that contact. This includes:

• Previous calls
• Message threads
• SMS and MMS messages (included in all plans, unlike some providers)
• Missed calls and voicemails
• AI-generated call summaries and action items

This integrated approach means users never enter a call blind, instantly getting context around what was previously discussed or promised to a client.

Inside these person-to-person histories, Dialpad’s AI-driven summaries are particularly powerful. After each call, Dialpad’s AI generates a concise summary outlining the main topics discussed, critical action points, and even sentiment analysis of the conversation.

These summaries can be quickly reviewed before follow-up interactions, helping sales reps or customer service agents rapidly re-establish context with clients, even if the previous interaction was weeks or months ago.

Moreover, these call summaries and detailed communication histories can be effortlessly shared with other team members, or even externally with clients. This is invaluable for smooth transitions between sales representatives or customer support agents, say, if someone leaves the company or is away on annual leave, without the need to repeat past conversations.

AI features are something that many providers are now offering, but Dialpad was one of the first we spotted using them among our top VoIP providers in the US. And you can tell: Dialpad feels a bit more integrated than other platforms, as if it has worked out exactly what will improve the usability of their platform. RingCentral has many of the same features, but besides it, I’d struggle to suggest another platform that integrates AI features as comprehensively or smoothly.

Real-time transcription and multilingual support

Dialpad’s real-time call transcription is one of its most compelling features, particularly if your business handles a high volume of calls or needs precise records of client interactions. During calls, conversations are transcribed live and displayed clearly within the call interface. This feature doesn’t just stop at providing transcripts; Dialpad’s AI actively analyses calls, highlighting significant action points and moments of particular interest or customer sentiment.

In terms of language support, Dialpad goes beyond just English, providing real-time transcription in multiple languages, including:

• English
• Spanish
• French
• Japanese
• German
• Portuguese

This multilingual functionality significantly broadens the usability of Dialpad for international businesses or US-based companies serving multilingual customer bases. For teams managing multilingual communications, this instant transcription capability means that language barriers can be reduced, and helps to keep accurate record-keeping across different language interactions.

The accuracy of Dialpad’s live transcription appears impressive, according to our research. Even in cases with strong accents or quick speech, the software kept up admirably. The transcripts produced were clean, easily searchable afterwards, and could be exported or shared internally for record-keeping, training, or follow-up purposes.

AI-powered productivity features

Beyond just real-time transcription and call summaries, Dialpad has other built-in AI productivity tools, helping teams manage conversations more effectively and with greater insight. Here are the other standout AI-driven features you’ll get with Dialpad Connect:

Real-time sentiment analysis: During live calls, Dialpad’s AI not only transcribes the conversation but also actively analyzes the sentiment and tone of the discussion. The software intelligently flags conversations that are becoming tense or problematic, immediately alerting supervisors so they can quickly intervene if necessary.

Assist Cards: Additionally, Dialpad also provides what it calls Assist Cards, which pop up automatically during conversations to provide call agents with relevant contextual information or suggested talking points.

This is particularly valuable for sales or customer service agents who may be handling complex queries or needing quick reference materials, like pricing plan details or product specifications, without having to search elsewhere mid-call.

Custom Moments: Dialpad’s AI also features a capability called Custom Moments. Here, businesses can define specific words or phrases they want the AI to monitor during calls.

For instance, managers can set up Custom Moments around compliance phrases (“terms and conditions agreed”) or specific sales language (“special promotion mentioned”). Dialpad then automatically tracks and flags these moments in call transcripts, helping supervisors quickly audit compliance, track campaign effectiveness, or identify coaching opportunities.

SMS and MMS support as standard

Dialpad offers built-in SMS and MMS capabilities across all its US plans, allowing businesses to send and receive text messages (including video and image texts) directly from the same interface used for calls and meetings.

Each user has an allowance of 250 outbound messages per month included with their plan. For messages sent to external numbers, there is a character count limit of 1,500 and an MMS attachment size limit of 1 MB.

You can set up automatic responses that are sent whenever someone texts relevant numbers or even certain keywords and queries, too. And there are plenty of other ways to automate these text messages, too, such as campaigns for marketing or collecting customer feedback via SMS surveys.

The likes of Vonage and GoTo Connect (upon request to the administration team) also support SMS/MMS, with the former offering 2,000 messages per day, per account. It’s unclear how many texts are included with GoTo, however, since this varies by custom plan.

Sub-par video conferencing allowance

Dialpad offers video conferencing, called Dialpad Meetings, with all its Connect plans without additional cost. Meetings can host up to 10 participants and meet for 45 minutes at a time, with virtual backgrounds, unlimited audio recordings, and the ability to join a meeting across any device without downloading any apps.

However, while limitless audio recordings are a boon, compared with other platforms, the participant and time limits for meetings didn’t impress us. You can upgrade, with its Dialpad Meetings Business add-on for an extra £10 per user, per month, and improve these limits to 150 users and five hours of meeting time per call, but you’ll get greater meeting numbers included with the likes of RingCentral (up to 200 users), GoTo Connect (up to 250 users) and 8×8 Work (up to 500 users) out the box.

With its business tier add-on, you also get access to its AI meeting transcriptions, action item capture, and post-meeting summaries, plus unlimited video recordings, custom hold music, and meeting room hardware integration.

This all makes it feel like an essential add-on to us, as these AI tools are one of the main strengths of Dialpad, but that price tag can take your total cost above comparable plans elsewhere, bringing into question its value for money. If you stick to the free meetings, you’ll find better capabilities and overall value in this specific area, elsewhere.

JUMP TO: Our comparison between Dialpad and other VoIP plans

Advanced analytics and keyword tracking

Dialpad’s analytics suite goes beyond the basic call logs or volume metrics typically found in standard VoIP services. Its advanced analytics hub provides detailed, actionable insights into call performance, team productivity, and customer interactions – all visualised within a clean, intuitive interface.

Interactive summary data

On logging into Dialpad’s web-based analytics dashboard, users are immediately presented with a comprehensive visual summary of key performance metrics. This includes:

• Call volume trends: A visual overview of inbound and outbound call activity over time, helping managers quickly spot busy periods, identify trends, or allocate resources more effectively.
• Call breakdowns: Detailed breakdowns of inbound, outbound, and missed calls, with the ability to drill down into specifics like call duration, hold times, or customer wait times.
• Agent performance: Easy-to-understand visual data summarising individual and team performance, covering metrics such as average call duration, missed calls, responsiveness, and follow-up efficiency.

Most of these data points are clickable, allowing you to dig deeper into specific calls, teams, or time periods for granular insights.

Powerful keyword tracking and analysis

One feature that particularly stood out in Dialpad’s analytics toolkit is its keyword tracking. Users can search for specific keywords or phrases used in conversations, surfacing calls in which these terms appeared.

For example, suppose a sales manager notices multiple mentions of a particular competitor or a recurring client complaint. They can input that competitor’s name or the complaint keyword into Dialpad’s search tool and quickly see:

• Exactly how many calls contained this keyword
• Which agents or clients were involved
• When and how often the keyword was mentioned

The visual analytics instantly updates to reflect this keyword usage, providing clarity on customer concerns, competitor mentions, or emerging trends. This functionality offers tangible value, especially for businesses prioritising proactive customer support or wanting to analyse customer sentiment towards specific issues.

Actionable insights and reporting

All analytics data within Dialpad can be easily exported into common file formats (such as CSV) for use in broader reporting, presentations, or internal discussions. This simplifies reporting processes significantly, allowing integration of this critical call data into wider strategic discussions or customer relationship management (CRM) systems with minimal friction.

Moreover, Dialpad’s analytics dashboard supports the setup of scheduled automated reports sent directly to designated emails, keeping teams informed without needing to continually check the platform.

The likes of RingCentral and 8×8 do offer more advanced analytics, with greater analytical potential through a wider variety of sub-categories and ready-made reports. But Dialpad’s ease of use, immediate keyword search functionality, and seamless data export provide a uniquely user-friendly yet powerful analytics solution.

Cross-platform app and device support

Dialpad is available on a range of devices and operating systems, including Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and even Chromebook.

Impressively, from our research, the user experience remains consistent across all platforms, meaning your team won’t waste time figuring out new interfaces as they switch devices. Icons and menu placements remain identical on desktop and mobile.

One small detail I particularly appreciated was the ability to switch between devices mid-call without interruption. This kind of feature is crucial in today’s flexible working environments, enabling easy transition between working from home, commuting, or moving around the office.

Most competitors like Ooma and RingCentral also provide cross-platform support, but Dialpad’s execution is just as smooth as those two options, if not more than the former.

Desk phone options

Dialpad supports several desk phone brands, including Poly, Yealink, Cisco, Grandstream, and Mitel. That’s more choice than some providers like 8×8, which focus on Yealink and Poly device compatibility, but less than the Bring Your Own Device policy offered by GoTo. But considering the brands on offer here, it’s likely that your existing hardware (if you have any) is covered.

Dialpad don’t recommend that you use a desk phone not listed, as they can’t promise it won’t impact negatively on your end-user experience (or even compromise your team’s security). Worse still, if you need international calling, these phones will be considered insecure by Dialpad and won’t be permitted for use in this way.

Integrations with Dialpad

We wouldn’t say that third-party software integration is a major strength of Dialpad. While major CRM brands are covered, including Salesforce, Zendesk, and HubSpot, more niche providers like noCRM and HappyFox are not.

As such, businesses shopping for an integrated customer service solution may find better alternatives with highly compatible systems like RingCentral, which has over 500 ready-to-go app integrations at the time of writing (the industry leader in this regard). But ultimately, you’ll need to browse Dialpad’s App Marketplace yourself and see if its compatibility extent matches your needs.

Dialpad’s Pricing

Dialpad Pricing and Plans

Dialpad offers three core pricing tiers for US businesses: Standard, Pro, and Enterprise. Each is designed to scale with your team, from startups to complex enterprise environments. Pricing is transparent, and both the Standard and Pro plans come with a 14-day free trial, no credit card required.

Here’s how the plans compare, based on our research and Dialpad’s official feature list:

Are there any add-on costs or setup fees?

Unlike providers that charge extra for essential tools, Dialpad includes many commonly paid features, like voicemail transcription and AI call summaries, within the Standard plan. However, some capabilities are still plan-dependent:

According to our research, there are no mandatory onboarding fees, and most teams should be fully operational in under an hour via Dialpad’s straightforward setup process.

How does Dialpad pricing compare to other US VoIP providers?

At $15 per user, per month (billed annually), Dialpad’s Standard plan offers excellent value for small teams, especially when you consider it includes unlimited calling, AI meeting summaries, and built-in messaging. It’s more affordable than most RingCentral or GoTo entry-level plans, while offering stronger productivity tools right out of the gate.

However, teams that require live call coaching (like whisper and barge), advanced analytics, or customer support features may find themselves moving up to more full-featured options like RingCentral Advanced ($25/user/month) or 8×8 Work ($24/user/month), which include these tools natively.

Dialpad’s own coaching tools are reserved for its contact center and sales products:

• Dialpad Support starts at $95/user/month
• Dialpad Sell starts at $49/user/month

These are better suited for teams in customer service or outbound sales environments that need real-time coaching, dashboards, and SLA tracking.

Dialpad Review: Alternatives to Dialpad

Dialpad is an excellent choice for small to mid-sized businesses seeking built-in AI, messaging, and voice tools at a competitive price. But depending on your team’s priorities, there may be better-suited VoIP platforms.

Below is a table comparing top options at a glance before we dive into a comparison of two of the leading alternatives to Dialpad.

RingCentral: Best for integrations and advanced video conferencing

When compared with Dialpad, RingCentral stands out in areas like third-party integrations, built-in coaching tools, and large-scale video collaboration, making it ideal for growing teams that rely on CRM workflows and live training.

Where RingCentral beats Dialpad

• Integrations: RingCentral connects with over 500 apps, including deep CRM, helpdesk, and industry-specific tools. Dialpad’s integrations are more limited, and key options like Salesforce or Microsoft Teams require upgrading to the Pro plan.
• Video conferencing: RingCentral’s video platform (included in all business plans) supports up to 200 participants with robust features like breakout rooms, webinar modes, and recording. Dialpad’s conferencing tools are more lightweight and better suited to smaller internal meetings.
• Live coaching tools: Features like call whisper, barge, and monitoring come as standard in RingCentral’s Advanced and Ultra tiers. Dialpad focuses more on AI post-call summaries than real-time agent training.

Where Dialpad wins

• Pricing: Dialpad’s entry-level plan ($15/user/month billed annually) is more affordable than RingCentral Core ($20/user/month), especially for startups or small teams not yet needing advanced tools.

Best for: Medium to large US businesses that prioritize advanced CRM integration, extensive video collaboration, and live call supervision.

Zoom Phone: Best for businesses already using Zoom

Zoom Phone is a strong competitor to Dialpad, particularly for businesses already relying on Zoom Meetings or Team Chat. It combines VoIP essentials with simple management, excellent hardware support, and a clean, calming interface praised in our testing.

Where Zoom Phone beats Dialpad

• Interface and usability: Zoom’s interface was rated one of the most intuitive in testing, with users citing ease of navigation and visual clarity.
• Zoom ecosystem integration: If your team already uses Zoom for video, adding Zoom Phone creates a seamless communications stack without switching apps.
• Hardware compatibility: Zoom supports a wide range of desk phones and SIP devices, with flexible provisioning options. Dialpad supports hardware, but Zoom’s compatibility and setup tools are stronger.

Where Dialpad wins

• AI features: Dialpad’s real-time call transcriptions, automatic summaries, and sentiment tracking are more advanced than Zoom’s base-level call logging.
• Built-in SMS and messaging: While Zoom offers SMS, Dialpad’s messaging and team chat features are more tightly integrated into its core experience.

Best for: Remote or hybrid teams already using Zoom for meetings and collaboration, who want to unify their communication tools with minimal disruption.

How We Reviewed Dialpad