Dialpad vs. Aircall: communications and contact center evaluation guide

What to consider when evaluating business communications platforms

Dialpad and Aircall are both cloud-based communications platforms used by sales and support teams. Both offer voice calling, CRM integrations, and analytics, and both have invested in AI features in recent years. This guide focuses on Dialpad Connect and Dialpad Support on Dialpad's platform compared to Aircall.

Where the platforms may differ is in channel coverage, how AI is integrated into live interactions, what contact center capabilities are available, and how the platform scales with a team's needs over time.

This guide covers some of the criteria worth examining.

AI in the interaction

AI features vary considerably across calling platforms, both in what they offer and when they activate. Post-call transcription and summaries have become common, but the more meaningful question is what AI can do during the conversation itself.

Questions to ask:

• At what point does the platform's AI activate, and what can it act on in the moment?

• Does AI provide real-time guidance for agents during live calls, or primarily post-call analysis?

• How does AI inform coaching, quality management, and team performance over time?

• Does the platform draw on proprietary data to inform its AI, and if so, how does that affect accuracy and relevance?

AI agents

Both Dialpad and Aircall have invested in AI agent capabilities for handling inbound interactions. As with most AI features in this category, what vendors mean by the term and how deeply it is implemented can vary.

Questions to ask:

• Can the AI agent handle multi-turn conversations and reach resolution for appropriate issue types, or is its scope primarily routing and handoff?

• When an AI agent escalates to a human agent, what context carries over, and is it enough for the agent to continue without asking the customer to repeat themselves?

• How can teams configure, test, and validate AI agent behavior before deploying to customers?

• How does the platform support ongoing optimization of AI agent performance over time?

Channel coverage

Aircall is focused primarily on voice and SMS. If your team also needs video meetings, team messaging, or broader digital channel support alongside calling, it is worth confirming which channels each platform supports natively and whether those are included across plans.

Questions to ask:

• Which channels does the platform support natively, and which (if any) require a separate tool or integration?

• Can internal team communications and customer-facing communications be handled in the same platform?

• Do AI capabilities apply across all supported channels, or primarily on voice calls?

Conversation intelligence

Conversation intelligence and customer conversation data can surface meaningful operational signal for sales and support teams. Where platforms can differ is in what they do with that data, and when.

Questions to ask:

• What percentage of interactions does the platform analyze, and how does that affect what teams can learn at scale?

• At what point do insights become available, and how quickly can teams act on them?

• How can managers, supervisors, and business stakeholders access those insights?

CRM and business tool integrations

CRM integration depth is often a deciding factor for sales and support teams. It is worth evaluating not just which CRMs a platform supports, but how deeply the integration works.

Questions to ask:

• Does the platform log calls and activity automatically in the CRM, or does that require manual steps?

• Can agents see customer data from the CRM during a live call?

• Does the platform support the specific CRM and helpdesk tools your team already uses?

Contact center capabilities

Aircall is positioned as a business phone and customer communications platform. For teams with more structured contact center requirements, it is worth evaluating how much depth each platform offers.

Questions to ask:

• What routing, queueing, and supervisor visibility capabilities does the platform support?

• Are quality management and workforce management capabilities available, and at what tier?

• How does the platform handle omnichannel support if customers contact via multiple channels?

Reporting and analytics

Reporting needs vary by team: sales managers want pipeline and call performance visibility, support managers need queue and resolution data, and business leaders want strategic insight.

What to evaluate:

• Are analytics available across plans, or gated to higher tiers?

• Can reports be segmented by agent, team, queue, and time period?

• Does the platform surface AI-generated insights proactively, or primarily in response to manual queries?

Deployment and administration

How quickly a platform can be deployed and how much ongoing administration it requires are worth evaluating early in the process.

Questions to ask:

• How long does it realistically take to go live, and what does vendor support look like during that period?

• Can operational changes be made by a non-technical administrator?

• As your team grows, how does the platform scale without requiring significant reconfiguration?

Security and compliance

Communications platforms handle sensitive customer and business information, and compliance requirements vary by industry and geography.

Look for:

• Data handling and residency. Where is data stored, and does the platform support data residency requirements for the regions where you operate?

• Compliance certifications. Common certifications include SOC 2, ISO 27001, and GDPR readiness. For healthcare use cases, HIPAA-ready infrastructure may be required.

• Role-based access and audit logging. Can access to recordings and transcripts be restricted by role? Is there an audit trail for administrative actions and data access?

Dialpad's security and compliance posture is documented at the Dialpad Trust Center.

Disclaimer: This comparison is based on publicly available information as of the date of publication. Features, pricing, and capabilities of third-party platforms are subject to change. This content is provided for informational purposes only.

Updated July 2026