Aircall is a reliable cloud-based business phone system and call center solution. We recommend it for small teams with fewer than 100 agents who plan on staying small. It’s wealth of integrations and focus on interoperability make it an affordable option with advanced features that aren’t offered elsewhere at this price point. Just be forewarned that the tool can get expensive, and you won’t have access to some basic communication tools, like team chat.
How Does Aircall Compare to the Best Call Center Solutions?
Nextiva is our favorite call center solution for small businesses. Overall, it’s the perfect balance of price, advanced functionality, and ease of use. Its VoIP phone system is sufficient if you’re just getting started with a call center—yet it’s scalable to fit your needs as your business grows.
RingCentral is better for mid-sized and large call centers. It comes with more advanced features for bigger teams. That said, it can be unnecessarily complicated if you have fewer than 100 agents, which is why we recommend Nextiva if you’re just getting started.
Aircall is a solid alternative for small teams. If you have at least three users, Aircall’s entry-level plan actually comes with some advanced features you won’t get at the same plan tier from Nextiva.
With Aircall, you’re getting IVR (interactive voice response), smart flows, and additional integrations. But you’re missing basic features like team chat and internet fax, which are standard features with all Nextiva plans and most RingCentral plans.
It’s also worth noting that Aircall is no longer a good value once you start paying for add-ons. These add up quickly and can nearly double your cost per user.
Check out our full list of the best call center software to learn more about other options and how Aircall stacks up against them.
Aircall: The Good and The Bad
There are plenty of great reasons to consider Aircall for your call center. It’s easy to set up and onboard new users, making it a top choice for hybrid and remote work. Aircall is reliable and packed with productivity tools—especially for sales teams.
But Aircall isn’t perfect, and it’s actually missing a few UCaaS features for business communication. Support is limited, and it can get expensive if you’re not careful.
The Good
Simple setup and user onboarding: As a cloud-based phone system, Aircall is super easy to set up and doesn’t require any hardware. You can sign up and start making calls in a matter of minutes. Adding new users and managing numbers is just as easy, and everything can be managed through the Aircall app on desktop, iOS, and Android. You can even set up role-based permissions to control who has access to what information—all from a user-friendly admin dashboard.
Great for hybrid and remote teams: You can deploy and use Aircall from anywhere. This means your remote staff working in different time zones can all use Aircall from the comfort of their own homes—just as effectively as teams working in one or multiple offices. The software’s simplicity means you won’t need on-site IT support either. You can even use Aircall if you’re outsourcing your call center to remote contractors.
Tools for outbound sales: While Aircall can be used for a wide range of call center use cases, it really shines for outbound sales. In addition to power dialing and CRM integrations for improved productivity and personalization, Aircall has built-in tools to make your best sales reps even better. You can access reports for talk-to-listen rations, key topics, and AI-generated call summaries—all of which are great for training purposes. Aircall also supports call whispering so managers can provide tips to agents and offer advice during live calls.
Strong uptime rates and call quality: Aircall boasts an impressive 99.95% uptime rate. While this isn’t the best we’ve ever seen, it’s still unlikely that you’ll experience any downtime or unplanned outages. Aircall has seven data centers worldwide and redundancy on each level to eliminate single points of failure. They also work with local carriers in select markets and rely on the Opus codec infrastructure to ensure high quality—even when networks are unstable.
Team productivity tools: It’s clear that Aircall’s features are purpose-driven. Rather than just having extensive functionality for the sake of standing out, Aircall has tons of features specifically designed to boost the productivity of call center agents. You’ll benefit from IVR, custom business hours, custom call routing, click-to-dial, power dialing, shared contacts, and so much more. This ensures your team spends less time on mundane tasks and more time on the phone with real people.
CRM and helpdesk integrations: Aircall supports more than 100 integrations, which is high compared to other call center solutions on the market. But the CRM and helpdesk integrations are the most notable and widely used, as they really help simplify things for your team and allow you to provide better support to your customers. From centralizing data to increasing conversions and boosting productivity, your sales and service teams will love it.
Real-time modifications: Aircall makes it easy to adjust your call center options at any time with a single click. You can easily add or remove numbers, users, and devices to fit your ever-changing needs. These modifications don’t require any IT support or approvals from Aircall. So whether you’re expanding your team or testing new ideas, you can quickly make changes and start using what you need immediately.
Unlimited international calling (on select plans): You can get international phone numbers with any Aircall plan. But if you get a custom package, you can unlock access to unlimited calling worldwide. This isn’t something you’ll find from many other providers on the market, and there are definitely some contingencies. But any business planning to make a high volume of international calls should at least get a custom quote—as this could be an incredible value compared to paying per minute.
The Bad
Three-user minimum: This is far from a deal-breaker, but Aircall requires you to purchase a minimum of three licenses. Most businesses will need more than three licenses, making this a moot point. But for small businesses that just need one or two licenses, it instantly eliminates Aircall from contention. There’s no reason to pay for more than what you need when other tools on the market don’t impose a minimum.
Missing basic communication features: Aircall is packed with phone-related features. But it’s not an all-in-one communication suite. Team chat and internet fax are non-existent, even at the most expensive tiers. You can find other call center solutions that provide the same great phone features as Aircall and offer other business communication tools—even with entry-level plans. However, Aircall’s largely focused on interoperability with your existing platforms to keep it affordable for everyone.
Add-ons add up: At first glance, Aircall looks like a really great value. This is no longer the case once you purchase some add-ons, upgrade from the first plan, and pay monthly instead of annually. What starts at $30 per user per month can easily climb to $80 or $90. It’s tough for most businesses to justify that cost when you can get call center software elsewhere for a third of that price.
Limited support hours: Aircall offers support via phone, email, ticketing, and live chat. But you won’t always be able to reach them. Live chat is available 24/5, Monday to Friday, and the phone support hours are unclear (but it’s not 24/7). So you may find yourself waiting a couple of days to reach someone or get a resolution if you can’t self-help troubleshoot over the weekend or after hours.
Aircall’s Noteworthy Features
Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
Aircall is one of the few phone solutions on the market that come with IVR at every plan. This is something that’s often considered a premium feature and is either offered at higher tiers, as an add-on, or with dedicated call center solutions. So the fact that you can get with a plan that costs just $30 per month is definitely noteworthy, and it’s a must-have tool for any modern call center.
With Aircall’s call center IVR, customers are greeted with a custom welcome message and then prompted to use their keypad to reach the most relevant agent or department.
You can easily customize these options using Aircall’s dynamic visual editor. You’ll even have the option to set up multi-level IVRs to further specify the reason for a call. For example, a customer could first be routed to the billing department and then be asked whether they want to make a payment, dispute a charge, or speak to a live agent.
Power Dialer
Power dialing with Aircall is one of the best ways to improve productivity for sales teams. Reps can simply compile a list of numbers and then call all of them with a single click.
This ultimately helps sales agents dial more outbound calls per hour without manual entry. The dialer can even identify phone numbers on a prospect’s website and automatically add it to the call queue. Those numbers can also be automatically added to Salesforce or another CRM integration.
Call center dialers are premium features, and with Aircall, you need to be on the mid-tier Professional plan or higher to use the power dialer.
Click to Dial
Click-to-dial comes standard with every Aircall plan. As the name implies, reps can use this feature to make calls using a single click (as opposed to manually entering the number).
It’s a bit different from the power dialer, as the calls aren’t made automatically. But it’s still a huge time saver, especially for outbound sales teams.
You can use this feature to click a number on a lead’s website or in a prospect’s email signature to connect with them quickly. It also eliminates the need to switch back and forth between multiple screens, and you can jump right into conversations with potential customers.
Parallel Calls and Unlimited Concurrent Calling
Parallel calling means that call center agents can essentially be in two places at once, and there are plenty of potential use cases for this. You could put a caller on hold, dial another number, and then switch back and forth between both conversations with ease. This is great for getting additional context before you offer a solution but it could also be used to handle two support calls simultaneously—especially if you’re waiting for one caller to complete a task before you continue.
Aircall also allows unlimited concurrent calls, which means single agents or your entire team can handle more calls without having to purchase additional numbers.
For outbound calls, inbound calls, or both, there’s no limit to how many calls can be handled on a specific number.
Call Monitoring and Live Whispering
Live call monitoring helps with real-time quality assurance. Managers or VPs can quickly view all calls in a single place and listen in without interrupting the flow of a call.
Rather than waiting to hear a recording to correct a mistake later on, you can even whisper into an agent’s ear in real-time to help them close a deal or offer feedback. The customer won’t have any idea that this is happening, and it’s a great way to help your agents succeed.
You could also use this feature to ensure that your team is sticking to the script and just run spot checks from time to time to ensure calls aren’t going off the rails.
Aircall AI
Aircall AI is a paid add-on that starts at $9 per month. It’s a newer tool, but comes with several features under one roof. You can use this premium feature to get AI-powered call summaries, identify key topics, get talk-to-listen ratio reports, and more.
One unique feature of Aircall AI is the conversation center. This is a single page that has a filterable log of all your calls and voicemails. You can quickly search for and access all call recordings, transcripts, and voicemails with just one or two clicks. It’s a great way to identify relevant calls that need further review or access calls for training purposes and performance evaluations.
There are also a bunch of other AI features that Aircall is currently working on to release in the near future. This includes things like sentiment analysis, keyword tracking, call scoring, and coaching playlists.
Call Recording
Call recording comes standard with every Aircall plan. This is a nice touch, as other providers on the market only offer call recording at more expensive plan tiers or as a paid add-on.
By default, you’ll have access to one year of recordings, which should be more than enough time to use these for quality assurance, training, or compliance purposes. But if you’re on a professional tier or higher, you’ll have unlimited access to call recordings.
Another unique standout of Aircall is the ability to pause and resume recordings on demand. For example, maybe local regulations prohibit you from storing certain information about your customers. So agents could pause the recording while a caller is providing their payment information, social security number, or something else that requires a higher level of privacy.
Aircall Pricing, Plans, and Add-Ons
Aircall’s pricing is pretty straightforward. There are two main plans offered—Essentials (starting at $30 per user per month) and Professional (starting at $50 per user per month).
There’s a three-license minimum for both of these plans, and you’ll get a 25% discount when you sign up for annual billing.
The Essentials plan should be enough for most small teams, and it’s a good starting point for new call centers. But sales teams should strongly consider upgrading to the Professional tier. This unlocks Aircall’s power dialer, Salesforce integration, call whispering, and live call monitoring.
Aircall also offers customized plans and pricing for teams of 25 users or more. The only reason to consider this option is if you’re making a high volume of international calls, as the unlimited global calling option may end up being cheaper than paying based on usage.
Two paid add-ons can be optionally added to any plan:
- Aircall AI Add-On— Starting at $9 per month per license
- Analytics+ Add-On — Starting at $15 per month per license
The AI add-on is cool, but somewhat limited. Of the nine main features it’s promoted with, just three are currently live and the remaining six are “coming soon.” But this could be a good opportunity to lock in a lower rate for this add-on now, as that price might increase down the road as new features become available.
If you purchase either or both of these add-ons, they’ll be applied across all of your licenses. For example, you couldn’t just add them to one or two users. So keep this in mind for budgeting purposes.
Is Aircall Right for You?
Aircall works well for small call center teams. If you’re planning on staying small and don’t need any add-ons to get the most out of this tool, Aircall is a pretty solid value.
It also works well for hybrid and remote sales teams. There are plenty of built-in productivity tools and sales-specific features. Plus, the simple setup and ability to onboard users from anywhere works well for remote work.
You could also consider Aircall for international calling. You’d need to get a custom quote to prepare the cost, but getting unlimited global calling could potentially be more cost-effective than paying per minute.
If you’re looking for an all-in-one communication platform, Aircall won’t work for you. You’re not getting any faxing or team chat features, and it doesn’t really support omnichannel support. You should also look elsewhere if you want an all-in-one customer support solution. For Aircall to do this effectively, you’d need to integrate a third-party help desk software or ticketing tool.
It’s not the best option for teams that want the most advanced call center analytics at their fingertips. The standard analytics provided by Aircall leave plenty to the imagination, and you need to upgrade to a higher plan and pay for an add-on to really see your most important KPIs.
Overall, Aircall is still a solid option in the call center software space, and we recommend it for the uses mentioned throughout this review.
You can get started and learn more about Aircall here or check out our full reviews of the best call center software for alternative options.
