Five9 is an enterprise-level call center as a service (CCaaS) solution that works best for organizations with over 1,000 agents. It’s a cloud-based system that shines for its advanced analytics, integrations, and centralization of omnichannel communications.
Whether you’re running an inbound, outbound, or blended contact center, Five9 is powerful and versatile enough to accommodate all of your needs.
However, it’s definitely not for everyone, especially smaller teams and companies on a tight budget.
The Best Five9 Alternatives and Competitors
Nextiva, Genesys, and NICE CXone are viable alternatives to Five9. All of these can support enterprise needs with thousands of call center agents, although there are some differences between each one that make them better for particular situations.
We recommend Nextiva for most call centers. It’s hard to find a better value for omnichannel communication, especially from such a reputable and reliable provider.
Nextiva is also much easier to use and deploy compared to other call center systems at this scale.
Genesys stands out for its limitless scalability—accommodating global contact centers with tens of thousands of employees (or more). Beyond traditional voice calling, the platform is packed with advanced features, and it has really strong social communication tools alongside chat, text, and messaging apps.
NICE CXone puts a strong emphasis on call center compliance and advanced security, making it a great choice for industry-specific use cases. It comes with plenty of robust call-handling tools, AI-powered agent assistance features, built-in workforce management, and strong automation capabilities.
Our Take on Five9
Five9 is a solid call center solution and omnichannel contact center for organizations with lots of agents. It supports voice calling, email, live chat, SMS/MMS, and social media messaging—all of which work for inbound, outbound, and blended contact centers.
We really like the way Five9 packed so many advanced capabilities into a scalable cloud-based platform. It has so many cool features that empower reps to be more successful while simultaneously providing managers and decision-makers the information needed to optimize resources.
All of this ultimately translates to an improved customer experience.
Looking beyond the call-center-specific features you’d expect to see from an enterprise provider, Five9 really stands out for its advanced analytics and data visualization built into the system.
This is largely due to its recent acquisition of an industry-leader in this space, which allows Five9 to provide businesses with more of a holistic approach to call center management—all without having to purchase third-party tools to understand all of the data you’re collecting.
However, Five9 is far from perfect. It’s a complex solution that typically takes a long time to deploy. You can also expect a few speed bumps along the way as your team gets adjusted to the system.
It’s also notably more expensive than competitors that offer many of the same features. Check out our Five9 review for a more in-depth look at what we like and don’t like about it.
Five9 vs. Nextiva
Nextiva has the edge over Five9 for the majority of businesses.
First, Nextiva’s omnichannel contact center system is far more versatile. While we really only recommend Five9 to companies with at least 1,000 agents, Nextiva is one of the few providers in this category that can accommodate smaller or mid-sized contact centers and still work just as well with thousands of users.
Second, Nextiva is such a better value when you compare it side-by-side with Five9.
Nextiva’s omnichannel suite starts at $119 per month. This includes voice, chat, SMS, video, email, and more—plus a list of dozens of advanced features that support both inbound and outbound communication at scale.
Five9 starts at $175 per month. But this either gets you a voice-only or digital-only solution. Even when you get to Five9’s more expensive plan tiers, ranging from $235 to $325 per month, there are always some communication channels that are omitted.
So you could be paying double or nearly triple the price of Nextiva and still have to purchase separate add-ons for SMS and social messaging capabilities.
While Five9 definitely has better integrations and data visualization features, Nextiva does a great job in these areas. It’s hard to justify Five9’s pricing when Nextiva gives you so much more for a fraction of the cost.
Read our Nextiva review to learn more.
Five9 vs. Genesys
Both Five9 and Genesys provide limitless scalability through cloud-based deployments. Reliability and call quality are top-notch with either option, and there’s no shortage of features for different use cases.
But in terms of overall value and cost, Genesys is the clear winner. Its voice-only plan starts at just $75 per user per month, and its digital-only plan starts at $95.
You can bundle both of these together from Genesys for just $115, whereas Five9 charges $175 for just one or the other.
Both providers offer contact gamification tools, interactive voice response (IVR), powerful reporting, and workforce management features. One difference is that Genesys offers its AI-powered capabilities as a paid add-on, and Five9 includes them with a base plan purchase.
We find it hard to look past the fact that Five9 charges more than double the cost for its workforce management features. And that such an expensive plan doesn’t include texting or social messaging.
For a full breakdown, refer to our Genesys review.
Five9 vs. NICE CXone
If you’re a large company concerned about data security or industry-specific compliance, Five9 and NICE CXone are both top-tier options to consider.
It’s also worth mentioning that both of these platforms are cloud-based, and both of them are really good for companies interested in migrating to the cloud from an on-premise or hybrid deployment.
There are a lot of similarities between the two, but there are a few things that make them different from one another.
The first being that they leverage AI a bit differently. While there are definitely some overlapping use cases between them, we think Five9 has a better AI-powered agent assistance tool that provides real-time guidance, notes, post-call summaries, and more.
However, we like NICE CXone’s AI bots to automate processes and provide self-help to customers without having to connect with a live agent.
One isn’t necessarily better than the other; it’s just a matter of preference.
NICE CXone is also cheaper than Five9, which is a common theme in this guide. Plus, Nice CXone’s plans are packed in a way that’s easier to understand. You can choose what types of contact center agents you need (voice, digital, and omnichannel) or pick from one of three add-on suites for extras like quality management flows, AI forecasting, and more.
Check out our NICE CXone review for more information.
Five9 vs. 3CX
3CX is a solid Five9 alternative for businesses that prefer on-premises or self-hosted deployments over cloud-based contact centers.
With Five9, you don’t have a choice–it’s cloud-based with Five9 managing the entire infrastructure. That’s the way to go for most folks, but not everyone wants that. With 3CX, you’re in total control. You can power the system on your own servers, use your own cloud, or go with a hybrid option.
It can be a great choice if you have the technical resources to handle your own self-hosted deployment or have security and customization needs that require your own infrastructure.
3CX can get really messy if you attempt this across multiple locations, plus you’re on your own if you run into issues or experience outages. However, there are third-party service providers that can help you set up and manage a 3CX solution if you are positive you need the flexibility but don’t have the know how.
If you’re interested in self-hosting your call center, read our 3CX review to learn more.
Five9 vs. RingCentral
If you’re a midsize business, RingCentral may be a better fit for you. It’s incredibly popular, with many 100 to 1,000 agent deployments across its customer base.
What’s really interesting about these two providers is that they both launched around the same time (RingCentral in 1999 and Five9 in 2001). However, RingCentral has amassed over 400,000 customers since its inception, whereas Five9 sits at around 3,000 customers and 250,000 agent seats.
This is likely due to the fact that Five9 specializes in enterprise systems and there are far fewer of those in the wild.
RingCentral is just so well-rounded, though. It’s cheaper, reliable, trustworthy, and secure—plus it’s packed with all of the features your call center needs to succeed. Simply put, most organizations won’t outgrow RingCentral, either.
One area where Five9 has an edge is its analytics and built-in data visualization features. RingCentral has strong analytics, too, but Five9’s really in a league of its own in this regard.
Check out our RingCentral review for more information.
Five9 vs. Dialpad
If you have a mid-sized organization with remote contact center agents, Dialpad should be on your radar. It’s not quite as scalable as Five9, but you can still use it with hundreds of agents.
You’re not getting nearly as many integrations with Dialpad as you are with Five9. But it accommodates many of the tools your team is likely using. Since it’s much more affordable than Five9, we won’t fault Dialpad too much for its lack of interoperability.
One unique standout of Dialpad is the way that AI has been fully integrated into its contact center software.
From AI-powered chatbots to AI quality assurance scorecards, speech-to-text, sentiment analysis, call routing, and more, Dialpad is one of the most powerful tools at its price point.
It’s particularly good for outbound sales teams. And with sales-specific plans starting at just $60 per month, it’s a steal compared to Five9—especially if you don’t need all of the extra analytics and data visualization capabilities.
Read our Dialpad review to learn more.
Five9 vs. Talkdesk
Talkdesk is easier to implement than Five9, and the learning curve isn’t quite as steep.
This makes it a better option for smaller to mid-sized and even scaling SMEs that are after a highly customizable solution that doesn’t take weeks (or months) to implement.
Talkdesk has exceptional call-handling capabilities, making it a top choice for inbound call centers. You can use its intuitive visual builder to customize call flows and customer journeys—all without any technical skills or custom coding.
This is a nice touch for organizations that don’t have the time or IT resources to build these flows from scratch.
With that in mind, Talkdesk’s reporting isn’t even close to the same level as Five9. Custom reporting isn’t available until the top-tier plan, and you won’t have access to outbound dialers until you reach this level, either. Five9’s dialers are available with more plans (although they’re more expensive).
Take a closer look at our complete Talkdesk review if it sounds like Five9 is too advanced for your business or if you have fewer than 1,000 agents.
Five9 Alternatives: The Final Verdict
Five9 is a high-quality cloud contact center solution that can easily handle the needs of large organizations with thousands of agents. While it’s one of the most expensive systems in this category, its built-in data visualization and analytics capabilities are better than the competition.
In other scenarios, Five9 takes a back seat.
Nextiva is more versatile and cost-effective than Five9, especially if you want to run an omnichannel contact center through phone, SMS, live chat, and social messaging. It also offers affordable options for small businesses and a full range of simple business phone systems if you don’t need all the contact center functionality.
Genesys and NICE CXone are also built to accommodate companies with thousands of call center reps.
Genesys notably powers some of the largest contact centers in the world and NICE CXone puts extra focus on accommodating industry-specific compliance needs.
If you prefer an on-premise deployment and want to self-host a call center on your own servers, 3CX might be what you’re looking for.
RingCentral, Dialpad, and Talkdesk are better for midsize companies and SMEs looking for something less complex. Each has its highlights and potential drawbacks, but they’re relatively on the same level.
Check out our favorite call center software and business phone systems for a deeper dive into more Five9 alternatives.
