The best progressive dialer software offers smart auto-dialing solutions so agents are only connected to a live person, not a busy signal, disconnected number, or answering machine. Key features include campaign management, agent scripting, and third-party integrations, streamlining outbound calls and targeting the most qualified leads. Monthly pricing starts at around $18, but most providers offer custom quotes for unique call center requirements.
Based on our evaluation, the best progressive dialer software providers are as follows:
- CloudTalk: Best overall for global sales campaigns
- Five9: Best for customizable dialing modes
- RingCentral Contact Center: Best for integrated contact center and unified communications (UC)
- Vonage Contact Center: Best for seamless customer relationship (CRM) integrations
- Talkdesk: Best for artificial intelligence (AI)-powered agent assistant tools
- Freshdesk: Best budget-friendly voice-focused call center
- NICE CXone: Best for self-service automation capabilities
Best Progressive Dialer Software at a Glance
Progressive Dialer Software | Monthly Starting Price (per User) | Key Features | Free Trial | FSB Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | $25 |
| 14 days | 4.65 out of 5 |
 | $149 |
| ✕ | 4.48 out of 5 |
 | Contact the sales team for a quote |
| ✕ | 4.45 out of 5 |
 | Contact the sales team for a quote |
| ✕ | 4.43 out of 5 |
 | $75 |
| ✕ | 4.29 out of 5 |
 | $18 |
| 21 days | 4.25 out of 5 |
 | Contact the sales team for a quote |
| 60 days | 4.21 out of 5 |
CloudTalk: Best Overall Progressive Dialer Software
What We Liked
- Unlimited call recording storage
- 70+ advanced calling features
- Smart dialer creates single-click call queues
Where It Falls Behind
- Lacks MMS feature
- No company directory
- Custom reporting is only available at the custom plan
CloudTalk Monthly Pricing (per User)
- Starter: $25 for one local number, one month recording storage, call queue, voicemail, automatic call distribution (ACD), and ring groups
- Essential: $30 for SMS, unlimited call recording, business hours, custom greetings, interactive voice response (IVR), callback, skills-based routing, workflow automation, integrations, and advanced analytics
- Expert: $50 for VIP queues, smart dialer, power dialer, call monitoring, and wallboards
- Custom: Contact the sales teams for a quote, custom reporting, and unlimited outbound calls (flat-rate)
- Free trial: 14 days
CloudTalk is our overall best progressive dialer system, supporting global sales campaigns with its selection of over 160 international phone numbers. It allows businesses to connect with customers overseas using a local presence. If your company’s external number lacks coverage or portability, use the automatic outbound caller ID feature to switch your company’s foreign number to a local one to reduce outbound call charges.
CloudTalk offers a variety of outbound dialing modes to fast-track your sales process. Its flagship feature, the Smart Dialer, works with the click-to-call extension to scan a website, CRM, or help desk tool for phone numbers and transforms them into clickable links. These numbers can be dialed or automatically added to the call queue.
On the downside, CloudTalk doesn’t offer MMS support for its text messaging feature. If your outbound campaigns involve sending multimedia text messages, consider a provider like Five9, which provides SMS/MMS channels on its entry-level plan.
CloudTalk Features
The CloudTalk Campaigns feature expedites call center interactions by providing agents with ready-made scripts and questionnaires. (Source: CloudTalk)
- Real-time customer card: Automatically displays the caller information as soon as the agent receives an incoming call notification alert without needing to search for it. This includes the caller’s history of calls, chats, tickets, orders, and agent notes.
- Campaigns: Create outbound campaigns with questionnaires, scripts, customer information, and buttons to quickly register call results (sold, interested, or skip). This helps in enhancing agent efficiency and monitoring campaigns in real time.
- After-call work: Allows agents to complete action items after a call ends, including logging call notes, sending follow-up emails, or assigning call tags.
Five9: Best for Flexible Dialing Modes
What We Liked
- Various pricing options
- Rich add-on features
- Flexible and customizable platform
Where It Falls Behind
- More expensive than competitors
- No free trial or feature comparison list
- Complex reporting capabilities
Five9 Monthly Pricing (per User)*
- Digital: $149 for digital channels (chat, email, SMS/MMS, and social messaging), recording, and workflow automation
- Core: $149 for voice channel, dialer, and blended inbound/outbound
- Premium: $169 for chat, voice, email, and quality management
- Optimum: $199 for everything in Premium and workforce management
- Ultimate: $229 for everything in Optimum and interaction analytics
*Other pricing options are available, including custom quotes and pricing based on named agents, concurrent users, and pay-per-use.
Five9 joins our list of the best progressive dialer software providers due to its wide range of custom dialing modes. To accommodate different outbound calling requirements, its dialer system supports progressive, preview, predictive, power dialer, and agentless auto-dialer. Configure the settings for dropped calls and call-progress detection to adjust the dialer based on your business goals while remaining compliant with industry regulations.
In compliance with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), Five9 developed the manual touch mode, which removes the system’s capacity to auto-dial. This requires agents to manually initiate a call, ensuring compliance with the TCPA. Other outbound capabilities include campaign management, agent scripting, screen pop, and answering machine detection.
Given Five9’s extensive offerings, users must anticipate its monthly plans are higher than most providers. It has a monthly starting fee of $149, which is relatively more expensive than Freshdesk, Talkdesk, and CloudTalk. If you’re looking for a cheaper Five9 alternative, consider Freshdesk, which offers a free version with basic call center capabilities and low-cost plans starting at $18 per user, monthly.
Five9 Features
Five9’s agent assist allows agents to skip notetaking and focus on the interaction. (Source: Five9)
- Web callback: Capture requests from website visitors who want a return phone call from your sales reps. Contact hot leads instantly or schedule callbacks based on outbound campaign settings.
- Agent call center scripting: Define a series of agent-entered responses and worksheet questions to guide agents through a predictable, branching conversation. This allows agents to deliver messages tailored to the purpose of each call.
- Screen pop: Once the agent connects with a call, a screen pop appears on their desktop with the caller’s profile and contact history, which the agent can edit and reference.
RingCentral Contact Center: Best Integrated Platform for Agent & Customer Interactions
What We Liked
- Skills-based routing is a standard feature on all plans
- Integrated communications platform
- Supports 30+ digital channels
Where It Falls Behind
- Unpublished pricing
- Outbound dialers require add-on purchases
- CRM integration adapters require extra fees
RingCentral Contact Center Monthly Pricing
Below are the plans available. However, you need to contact the sales team to request a custom quote.
- Essentials: Skill-based routing, IVR, real-time dashboards, call recording, and integrated unified communications
- Standard: 30+ digital channels, advanced call recording, and advanced omnichannel analytics
- Premium: Quality management and screen recording
- Ultimate: Workforce and performance management
RingCentral Contact Center is a full-featured progressive dialer system with unified communications as a service (UCaaS) integration. While most solutions charge additional fees for cross-company collaboration, this provider bundles its business phone solution with its contact center offering. From user presence, shared directory, and call conferencing, agents can solve issues faster by connecting with product experts across the company.
RingCentral’s dynamic outbound contact center supports a list of automated dialers, including manual, preview, progressive, and predictive. The drag-and-drop scripting builder lets you incorporate various script elements and create an interactive flowchart to guide agents and callers through the right pathways.
Unfortunately, RingCentral users must pay an additional fee for a CRM integration adapter. This add-on feature provides a single environment for managing customer interactions. If you’re looking for a contact center with prebuilt adapters for popular CRM solutions, choose Five9. It offers an integrated experience for Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Zendesk, giving you a single-pane sales and customer service platform.
RingCentral Contact Center Features
RingCentral integrates with the popular CRM platform Salesforce. (Source: RingCentral Contact Center)
- Call deflection: Program your IVR to transfer incoming callers to an alternative digital channel instead of waiting in a queue. The caller can switch to a different channel but has the option to proceed with the call.
- List management: Enhance dialing speed by removing duplicates, reshuffling the list, and adding new leads on top of the list. Reduce the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) risk by scrubbing your list to remove mobile numbers and Do Not Call (DNC) registrants.
- Call blending: Provides the option to start an outbound call campaign when incoming call traffic is low or switch to inbound calling when customer lines are busy. This allows customers to call you back or prioritize callbacks over outbound calls when necessary.
Our RingCentral Contact Center review further explores its standout features, usability, and customer support.
Vonage Contact Center: Best for CRM-integrated Dialer Software
What We Liked
- A la carte services
- Feature inclusions depend on the CRM system used
- Extensive add-on options
Where It Falls Behind
- Limited integrations
- Lacks pricing transparency
- Integrated UC costs extra
Vonage Contact Center Monthly Pricing
Below are the plans available. However, you need to contact the sales team to request a custom quote.
- Priority: Screen pop, call recording, IVR, skills-based routing, analytics, dashboards, and dashboards
- Premium: Dynamic routing, queued callback, whisper coaching, post-call survey, and application programming interfaces (APIs)
Vonage Contact Center provides businesses greater control over the type of features they need to enhance their contact center functionality. Along with its prebuilt plan, choose from various add-ons to include in your subscription, such as post-call surveys, screen recording, and UC capabilities. This removes the need to upgrade to high-level tiers and access advanced features like AI assistant, speech analytics, and workforce management.
Vonage uses intelligent dialing capabilities that integrate with popular CRM tools, giving agents the insights they need to personalize calls. You can also dial directly from your CRM and leverage report data to create dial lists for targeted campaigns.
Vonage charges a separate fee for its integrated UCaaS and contact center experience. However, you must purchase this add-on on top of the prebuilt plan. If company-wide collaboration is important for you, check out RingCentral Contact Center. All its contact center plans include built-in UCaaS integration without extra charges.
Vonage Contact Center Features
Prevent callers from getting stuck in the IVR maze with Vonage dynamic call routing. (Source: Vonage)
- Dynamic routing: Capitalize on your CRM data to identify the best routing strategy. Direct callers based on priority, interaction history, or an existing case.
- Coaching capabilities: Vonage offers a variety of coaching tools to mentor your team. These include secret monitor, whisper coaching, three-way mode, call recording, and screen recording
- Multiple voicemail drop: Upload multiple voicemail messages and pick which one to play on an outbound call. When the agent reaches the customer’s mailbox, they can automatically leave a voicemail to move forward with the next call.
Learn more about Vonage’s powerful omnichannel solution in our Vonage Contact Center review.
Talkdesk: Best for AI Agent Tools
What We Liked
- Extensive AI-powered agent assistance tools
- Intuitive interface
- Custom quote for various industries
Where It Falls Behind
- Displayed fees are based on a three-year contract; lacks option for monthly payments
- Digital engagement only supports chat, email, and SMS
- No mobile app for the base plan
Talkdesk Monthly Pricing (per User)*
- CX Cloud Essentials: $75 for intelligent call routing, virtual agent, live dashboards, reporting and analytics, API access, and knowledge management
- CX Cloud Elevate: $95 for screen recording, digital channels (chat, email, and SMS), mobile app, automated notifications, and quality management
- CX Cloud Elite: $125 for custom reporting, compliance solution, and performance management
- Experience Clouds: Custom quote for industry-specific solutions, 100% uptime, and any two add-ons from these options: WFM, customer experience analytics, agent assist, and proactive outbound engagement
*Displayed rates are based on a three-year contract.
Talkdesk leverages AI to provide personalized, intelligent customer service. Ideal for high call volumes, Talkdesk offers a wealth of AI-powered agent assistance tools to automate the entire customer journey. These include knowledge management, virtual agent, and automatic summaries. Its flagship feature, AI Trainer, allows supervisors to improve the suggestions agents receive on their screens during calls.
When it comes to outbound calling needs, Talkdesk Dialer offers additional features to boost agent connect rates and drive better proactive engagement. It employs an intelligent algorithm to dial multiple calls per agent based on abandon rate setting and real-time connect rate. Other outbound functions include flexible list management, campaign metrics, and do not call (DNC) rules.
At this time, Talkdesk’s digital engagement only supports chat, SMS, and email. A better alternative will be NICE CXone if you want to expand your customer interaction channels, whether through email, social media, or messaging platforms like WhatsApp.
Talkdesk Features
Send automatic text messages to customers every time an event is triggered.
(Source: Talkdesk)
- Local caller ID: Talkdesk automatically selects the best phone number and area code based on the customer location to display on the outbound caller ID. This builds trust with recipients and increases the answer rate.
- Proactive notifications: Proactively engage and anticipate customer needs with event-triggered SMS notifications. Configure rules for each notification and its content to deliver personalized messages. Use it for bill payments, shipping status, order confirmations, and appointment reminders.
- Branded and verified calling: Create a 32-character custom message to be displayed on the recipient’s phone when making an outbound call. Add your registered number, company name, logo, and reason for calling to improve the answer rate.
Freshdesk: Best for Low-cost Call Center Plans
What We Liked
- Free-forever version and affordable plans
- Free incoming call minutes on all plans
- Unlimited concurrent calls
Where It Falls Behind
- Call transcription and chatbot are locked at the Enterprise plan
- Additional charges for number porting
- Many key features require an upgrade to the highest tiers
Freshdesk Monthly Pricing (per User)*
- Free: Free for unlimited concurrent calls, call blocking, caller ID, call notes, custom greetings, and call metrics
- Growth: $18 for 2,000 incoming call minutes, hold music, voicemail drop, queue transfer, business hours, call recording, call masking, and voicemail transcription
- Pro: $47 for 3,000 incoming call minutes, IVR, agent extensions, call monitoring, custom reports, power dialer, and queue callback
- Enterprise: $83 for 5,000 incoming call minutes, call transcriptions, voicebot, omnichannel routing, speech-enabled IVR, and abandoned call reports
- Free trial: 21 days
*Discounted annual plans are available.
Freshdesk is your go-to call center phone system if you’re looking for a feature-rich yet affordable option. It is the sole provider in this list with a forever-free version and affordable monthly plans starting at $18 per user, with access to ticket management, agent productivity, workflow automation, and a knowledge base. At only $83 per user, monthly, Freshdesk unlocks all its enterprise features, including monitoring and advanced routing.
To leverage your outbound marketing campaigns, Freshdesk offers a variety of tools to find more leads and increase sales opportunities. These include a power dialer, voicemail drop, click-to-call browser extension, outbound caller ID, and call notes.
One disadvantage of Freshdesk’s enterprise tier is that it locks many commonly used features, such as call transcriptions, omnichannel routing, and speech-enabled IVR. If you want to avoid the cost of upgrading to higher-level plans and prefer the flexibility of a custom call center solution, choose Vonage. This provider lets you add features, capabilities, and digital channels a la carte.
Freshdesk Features
Freshdesk enables you to attach multiple call tags to a single call. (Source: Freshdesk)
- Call tagging: Label the outcome of your inbound and outbound calls to ensure greater visibility into the type of conversations in your call center. Choose from a list of default tags (i.e., interested, not interested, or follow up) or create your own.
- Smart escalations: Set up fallback rules to redirect phone calls when the entire team is unavailable. Automatically route calls to voicemails, wait queues, nested call queues, or callbacks.
- Call lifecycle: Capture up to 50 events related to a phone call for instant visibility of the customer’s entire call journey. Identify key metrics like answer time, total call duration, call handle time, and the number of transfers made.
NICE CXone: Best for Digital Self-service
What We Liked
- Powerful self-service capabilities
- 250+ out-of-the-box metrics
- Supports 30+ digital channels
Where It Falls Behind
- Unpublished pricing
- Steep learning curve
- Monthly estimated price is up to $100 per feature
NICE CXone Monthly Pricing
Below are the plans available. However, you need to contact the sales team to request a custom quote.
- Customer Engagement:
- Digital: ACD digital agent and digital channels
- Voice: ACD voice agent, self-service IVR, 5GB storage, and standard recording
- Omnichannel: ACD digital/voice agent, self-service IVR, 5GB cloud storage, and advanced recording
- Essentials: Self-service IVR, 5GB cloud storage, advanced audio recording, screen recording, and quality management
- Core: Workforce and performance management
- Complete: Customer interaction analytics and customer feedback analytics
- Free trial: 60 days
All plans include 90+ prebuilt reports, softphone, agent desktop, and unified administration
NICE CXone is a customer experience software with an extensive array of digital self-service tools. With Enlighten XO, understand customer intents, workflows, and agent tasks across channels to spot automation opportunities. Proactively serve customers by pre-empting inbound calls before they reach out to your business and build bots for more personalized interactions.
The CXone Personal Connection provides a patented, no-pause predictive dialer with dynamic list management that helps agents reach the right prospects using digital and voice channels. Choose from flexible compliance options and dialing methods to create a proactive outbound campaign.
NICE CXone may be overkill for smaller call center operations that don’t need advanced, high-level features to support low-volume interactions. Alternatively, Freshdesk offers a more straightforward and affordable solution for outbound call centers with basic call management requirements.
NICE CXone Features
Real-time interaction guidance displays the agent’s sentiment score and suggestion summary. (Source: NICE CXone)
- AI routing: Predict the best match between agents and customers in real time. It uses agent behaviors, client-provided information, and performance data to instantly connect callers to the agent with the best-predicted performance.
- Real-time voice authentication: A voice biometric technology automatically verifies customers in the first few seconds of the conversation. Skip the time-consuming process of interrogation and let callers skip straight to service.
- Interaction guidance: Provides agents with real-time coaching through embedded desktop tips based on spoken words, soft-skill behaviors, and customer satisfaction (CSAT) metrics.
How We Evaluated the Best Progressive Dialer Software
We examined various outbound contact center software with multiple dialing modes. To come up with our expert scores, we rated each provider based on pricing, features, ease of use, and customer support. Learn how we evaluated the best progressive dialer software providers by clicking on the tabs below:
10% of Overall Score
We reviewed the prices of dozens of outbound progressive dialer solutions, including discounts for annual prepayment and multiple user subscriptions. Plus, we looked for the number of available plans and checked the affordability of each provider’s entry-level tier.
30% of Overall Score
We examined each provider’s general features like automatic call distribution (ACD) and omnichannel support. We also prioritized solutions with call monitoring capabilities and reporting and analytics.
20% of Overall Score
For niche features, we considered the type of outbound dialing modes and the number of third-party integrations. Similarly, we awarded additional points for high-level features like workforce management and virtual assistant.
10% of Overall Score
We assessed the user-friendliness of each call center platform by exploring it ourselves and checking user reviews from reliable websites. We considered if there are learning curves during the setup and configuration phase.
10% of Overall Score
We checked each provider’s customer support channels, including phone, live chat, email, help desk, and community forum. Additional points are given if all support channels are available 24/7.
20% of Overall Score
We assessed each provider’s overall quality and performance by looking at its standout qualities and value for money. We also considered their level of popularity and user-friendliness.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
A predictive dialer is best for handling high volumes of outbound calls. It dials multiple numbers at once to ensure agents remain occupied. A progressive dialer, on the other hand, makes one call at a time only after the agent becomes available. This is ideal for personalized business-to-business (B2B) outbound sales campaigns.
Fundamentally, outbound call centers offer four types of dialers: preview, progressive, predictive, and power. Many providers develop their own automatic dialer to cater to a specific function or use case. An example would be Five9’s TCPA Manual Touch Mode and CloudTalk’s Smart Dialer.
Business-to-business (B2B) outbound calling, also known as B2B telemarketing, is a form of marketing where a business initiates a phone call to another business to market a product or service. This is widely used in industries like healthcare, finance, and software as a service (SaaS).
Bottom Line
Modern call centers use digital dialing technology to run a successful outbound call campaign. With various dialing modes available, it is important to consider how each one works and which call center features complement them for better call outcomes. In this case, progressive dialers are ideal for businesses that want to optimize the agent’s talk time and enhance connection efficiency.
We pick CloudTalk as the best progressive dialer software due to its extensive global phone number support, allowing businesses to access new markets for sales campaigns. At a starting fee of $25 per user, monthly, you get key call center features like unlimited call queuing, automatic call distribution (ACD), and an intuitive call flow designer. Sign up for a 14-day free trial to explore its unique offerings.
