6 Best Five9 Alternatives & Competitors
Corey McCraw is a staff writer covering VoIP and Unified Communications. Corey has over a decade of experience in marketing, tech writing, and corporate communications and has even penned content for the former First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move initiative.
This article is part of a larger series on VoIP.
The best Five9 alternatives enhance call center operations by providing advanced features, such as prebuilt integrations and omnichannel routing options. The platforms range from voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) systems with call center capabilities to contact center as a service (CCaaS) offerings with quality, workforce, and performance management tools.
We evaluated the top Five9 competitors based on voice and omnichannel features while looking at overall costs for various use cases:
- Freshdesk: Best overall for companies wanting built-in help desk software and omnichannel features
- Nextiva: A top pick for businesses and call centers with U.S.-based teams and customers
- RingCentral: A scalable solution for global business and workforce expansion
- 8×8: Recommended for organizations wanting unlimited international calling
- Dialpad: Budget-friendly software with intelligence tools for small teams
- Nice CXone: A great option for businesses with high call volumes
Five9 & Alternatives at a Glance
Five9 & Alternative Providers | Starting Price | Call Center Features | Free Trial | FSB Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | $149 per month |
| ✕ | |
 | Free; paid plans start at $18 per user, per month |
| 21 days | 4.78 out of 5 |
 | $30.95 per user, per month |
| 7 days | 4.75 out of 5 |
 | $29.99 per user, per month |
| 15 days | 4.71 out of 5 |
| $15 per user, per month |
| 30 days | 4.38 out of 5 |
 | $20 per user, per month |
| 14 days | 4.28 out of 5 |
 | Estimated $100 per month |
| 60 days | 4.18 out of 5 |
Freshdesk: Best Overall Five9 Alternative With Built-in Help Desk Software
Overall Score:
4.78 / 5
What We Like
- Robust support desk ticketing software
- Social media integrations
- Phone numbers available in over 90 countries
What's Missing
- Doesn’t offer unlimited calling plans
- Lacks workforce management (WFM) and optimization tools
- Screen sharing and remote desktop control are only available with third-party integrations
How It Compares to Five9
- Freshdesk offers a free version, perfect for small teams and freelancers, and omnichannel plans start at $35. Five9 doesn’t provide free or inexpensive VoIP packages, with bundled plans starting at $149.
- Email and social media help desk ticketing come standard with all Freshdesk versions, including the free plan. Five9’s entry-tier package doesn’t support email and chat messages.
- Five9 provides 24/7 customer service with all subscriptions, whereas Freshdesk doesn’t have phone or chat support on the weekends.
Freshdesk, formerly Freshcaller, is an excellent solution for customer service teams wanting built-in support desk tools. It offers scalable multichannel capabilities, affordable pricing, and feature-rich plans. You can create tickets and monitor interactions while updating your self-service knowledge bases.
Solopreneurs and small groups can use the free version to support customers through Twitter and email. Upper-tier packages empower agents and customers with Freddy AI, so you can develop bots to support customers around the clock and assist agents during calls.
However, only omnichannel subscriptions include VoIP phone features, like call recording and an interactive voice response (IVR) system. Also, Freshdesk doesn’t provide unlimited domestic calling like other Five9 alternatives. If you’re already using ticketing software and want unmetered calling, consider RingCentral, as it integrates with popular help desk software, including Zendesk and ServiceNow.
Freshdesk Pricing at a Glance
Support Desk
- Free: It’s free for an unlimited number of agents, and features include email ticketing, knowledge bases, embeddable contact forms, Twitter integration, and analytic dashboards
- Growth: $18 per user, per month for shared inboxes, agent productivity tools, advanced Facebook and Twitter integrations, API access, and customer relationship management (CRM) integrations
- Pro: $59 per user, per month for customizable customer satisfaction score (CSAT) surveys, WhatsApp integrations, multilingual tickets and knowledge bases, and advanced reports
- Enterprise: $95 per user, per month for change management tools and artificial intelligence (AI) bots with 5,000 sessions per month
Omnichannel
- Growth: $35 per user, per month for 2,000 incoming call minutes, unlimited concurrent calls and call queues, call recording, email tickets, web messaging, and Twitter and Facebook integrations
- Pro: $71 per user, per month for 3,000 incoming call minutes, real-time call summaries, IVRs, IVR CSAT surveys, co-browsing, chat transcripts, call monitoring, and multilingual support
- Enterprise: $119 per user, per month for service-level monitoring, abandoned call metrics, approval workflows, speech-based IVR, and email bots
*Freshdesk pricing is based on monthly payments. Select annual billing to save $3 to $20 per agent, per month.
Freshdesk Features
Create a no-code bot for your call center. (Source: Freshdesk)
- Freddy AI: Increase agent productivity while satisfying customers with smart assistant AI tools. Build bots to automatically respond to emails and social media messages or recommend agent responses.
- Self-service: Decrease your call center costs by offering your customers self-service tools. Freshdesk provides a self-service portal for frequently asked questions (FAQs) and lets you turn a community forum topic into a help desk ticket.
- Call routing: Configure a single-level, multilevel, or speech-enabled IVR system. Like RingCentral and 8×8, Freshdesk Omnichannel has multilingual support. You can also route callers according to time zone-based schedules.
Nextiva: Best Five9 Alternative for U.S.-based Teams & Customers
Overall Score:
4.75 / 5
What We Like
- Contact center versions have built-in QM and workforce management tools
- An 800-number and toll-free minutes come with all business communication plans
- The VoIP call center software offers unlimited call queues
What's Missing
- Contact center plans don’t include business phone service
- Doesn’t offer international phone numbers
- Pricing for call and contact center solutions isn’t available online
How It Compares to Five9
- Both Five9 and Nextiva provide 24/7 customer support.
- Short message service (SMS) is an add-on feature with Five9 plans, whereas it comes standard on Nextiva’s contact center Premium, Optimum, and Ultimate packages.
- Nextiva doesn’t provide global phone numbers or workforce support. In comparison, Five9 works in many countries worldwide.
- Nextiva offers less expensive VoIP plans with unlimited calling, and it integrates with the contact center software, making it scalable for small businesses. Five9 doesn’t have plans at lower price points.
Nextiva is one of the best business phone systems for U.S.-based teams, and it’s the only Five9 competitor offering free professional greetings for auto-attendant greetings. Upper-tier VoIP plans include call recording, voice analytics, and sales pipeline management. Nextiva also provides VoIP call center software and introduced omnichannel contact center subscriptions in 2021.
Contact center services integrate with Nextiva’s business phone software and provide intelligent virtual agents, self-service IVR, workforce management (WFM), and workforce optimization (WFO) tools. Nextiva’s VoIP call center solutions consist of two plans with skills-based routing, an IVR, and call recording.
Unlike RingCentral, Nextiva doesn’t include business phone numbers and services with its contact center plans. Nor can you buy global phone numbers or use Nextiva service outside of the U.S. and some parts of Canada. If your team works worldwide or you want unmetered calling, consider RingCentral or 8×8, as both offer contact center solutions for building a global presence.
Nextiva Pricing at a Glance
Business Communications*
- Essential: $30.95 per user, per month for unlimited one-to-one voice and video calling, an auto-attendant, unmetered internet fax, 1,500 toll-free minutes, and team messaging
- Professional: $35.95 per user, per month for a multilevel auto-attendant, short message service (SMS), 250 call pops, customer relationship manager (CRM) integrations, 3,000 toll-free minutes, and video conferencing with 250 participants
- Enterprise: $45.95 per user, per month for enterprise-level integrations, call and video recording, voice analytics, unlimited call pops, and 12,500 toll-free minutes
- Ultimate: $75.95 per user, per month mobile-friendly customer survey tools, including survey landing pages, analytics, and short links
*Nextiva pricing is based on one to four users with monthly billing. Annual and volume-based discounts are available.
Contact Center
Nextiva Contact Center plans require a custom quote and don’t include VoIP phone service:
- Core: Call recording, web browser and mobile apps
- Premium: Chat, email, SMS, and QM features
- Optimum: Enterprise-level QM and workforce management tools
- Ultimate: Includes a complete workflow automation suite
VoIP Call Center Solutions
- Pro: Starting at $50 per user, per month for unlimited call queues, call recording, and intelligent automatic call distribution (ACD)
- Enterprise: Starting at $100 per user, per month for advanced queue management
Nextiva Features
Nextiva’s Call Center Wizard makes configuring one or more locations easy. (Source: Nextiva)
- Set up wizards: Use the NextOS setup wizard to configure call groups, auto-attendants, and call flows. The call center wizard lets you configure one or more basic, standard, or premium call center locations.
- Intelligent routing and agents: Reduce agent workloads and the average time to resolution with self-service tools and bots. Intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) collect customer data before your agents pick up the phone, and the IVR system lets callers use voice or keypad inputs to choose from menu options.
- Nextiva Cospace: Nextiva’s Cospace app provides spaces for projects, teams, or departments. Users can share files and links, chat as a group or one-to-one, and participate in audio and video conference calls.
RingCentral: Best Five9 Alternative for Scaling a Global Workforce
Overall Score:
4.71 / 5
What We Like
- Contact center plans include RingCentral MVP capabilities, such as free domestic calling
- Team and one-to-one chat and collaboration tools accessible on all plans
- Multilingual IVR and auto-attendant menus are available
What's Missing
- Contact center CRM and support desk integrations require an additional fee
- Pricing for RingCentral Contact Center published online
- RingCentral’s entry-tier plan doesn’t include unlimited internet fax
How It Compares to Five9
- Five9 offers performance management and gamification features via add-on packages. In contrast, RingCentral includes these tools on Contact Center Ultimate.
- SMS comes standard with RingCentral MVP, whereas it’s an optional add-on with Five9.
- Five9’s highest-plan tier includes interaction analytics. This feature is only available as an add-on to RingCentral Contact Center packages.
RingCentral is a scalable VoIP phone system with business and contact center plans. As your company expands, you can add international direct inward dial (DID) and virtual numbers in more than 100 countries and support a global workforce with multilingual applications. It differs from Nextiva because RingCentral supplies unlimited calling with contact center packages, whereas Nextiva requires a separate VoIP subscription.
However, RingCentral doesn’t offer unlimited calling to international locations. If you’re paying too much for calling globally, check out 8×8. Like RingCentral, 8×8 supports a global workforce with multilingual tools and has international virtual and DID numbers. Explore differences between these providers in our RingCentral vs 8×8 comparison.
RingCentral Pricing at a Glance
RingCentral MVP*
- Essentials: $29.99 per user, per month for up to 20 people, unlimited minutes, business SMS, team messaging, visual voicemail, and document sharing
- Standard: $37.99 per user, per month for unlimited internet fax and audio conferencing for up to 1,000 people, multilevel auto-attendant, and video conferencing with up to 100 participants
- Premium: $44.99 per user, per month for video meetings with 200 people, hot desking, automatic call recording, real-time analytics, and call monitoring
- Ultimate: $59.99 per user, per month for endpoint alerts, device status reports, and unlimited cloud storage
*RingCentral MVP pricing is based on two to 20 users with monthly billing. Prepay annually to save up to 33%.
RingCentral Contact Center
RingCentral Contact Center packages require a custom quote:
- Essentials: Free domestic calling, ACD with skills-based routing, more than 90 real-time reports, over 300 APIs, and basic call recording
- Standard: Advanced voice recording and more than 30 digital channels for omnichannel routing
- Premium: Screen recording and quality management tools
- Ultimate: Performance management and WFM tools
RingCentral Features
Engage employees with performance management tools. (Source: RingCentral)
- Global customer and employee tools: RingCentral uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to analyze customer intent and recognize more than 72 languages. International agents can set their preferred language settings to view the mobile app and online account in their local language.
- Omnichannel routing: Like Nice CXone, RingCentral Contact Center works across more than 30 digital channels, including live chat on your website, Facebook Messenger, and SMS. Mobile software development kits (SDKs) ensure your company can communicate across current and emerging digital channels.
- Performance management: Use analytics to identify customer needs and gamify the agent experience. Dashboards include data from several sources, such as your CRM. In addition, you can award reps with badges and prizes for completing challenges.
8×8: Best Five9 Alternative for Unlimited International Calling
Overall Score:
4.38 / 5
What We Like
- Auto-dialers and integrated CRMs can increase your outbound dialing capacity
- Can mix and match subscriptions for different users
- Unlimited ring groups with all X-Series packages
What's Missing
- QM tools are only available as an add-on to X6 and X7 subscriptions or standard with X8
- Can’t send international text messages
- Fewer integrations than Nice CXOne and RingCentral
How It Compares to Five9
- 8×8 X-Series plans include unlimited domestic calling and unmetered calls to up to 48 international locations. Five9 charges per minute for all calls.
- Both systems support global customers with virtual and DID numbers.
- 8×8 Contact Center packages include preview, progressive, and predictive dialers. Five9 only offers a predictive auto-dialer.
We named 8×8 as the best service for VoIP international calling because it’s the only alternative to Five9 offering unlimited calls to 48 countries. The X-Series plans provide similar feature sets found with Nextiva, Dialpad, and RingCentral but add unmetered calling, making it an excellent option for saving money with higher global call volumes.
8×8 also helps your sales teams reach local and international customers faster, thanks to its predictive, progressive, and preview auto-dialers. You’ll pay an additional fee to add this feature to RingCentral or Nice CXone] services.
Unlike RingCentral and Dialpad, 8×8 doesn’t support outbound international texting. It locks social media integrations behind X7 ($110 per user, per month) and X8 ($140 per user, per month) plans. In contrast, Freshdesk Omnichannel plans include Twitter and Facebook integrations and start at $35 per user, per month.
8×8 Pricing at a Glance*
Business Communications
- Express: $15 per user, per month for up to 10 people for unlimited calling in the U.S. and Canada, auto-attendant, music on hold, video conferencing with 100 people, team messaging, and visual voicemail
- X2: $32 per user, per month for unlimited calling to 14 countries, CRM and help desk integrations, call queues, and a multilevel auto-attendant
- X4: $57 per user, per month for supervisor analytics, unmetered calling to 48 countries, call monitor, whisper, and barge
Contact Center
- X6: $85 per user, per month for skills-based call routing, customer experience journey mapping, IVR, post-call surveys, and queued and web callbacks
- X7: $110 per user, per month for omnichannel capabilities for social media and email customer support and co-browsing
- X8: $140 per user, per month for quality management (QM) tools, speech and text analytics, and screen recording
*8×8 X-Series plans are based on monthly billing. Prepay annually to save up to 25%.
8×8 Features
View interactions and identify coaching opportunities with 8×8’s quality management features. (Source: 8×8)
- Auto-dialers: Improve sales campaign performance using preview, predictive, and progressive dialing modes. These tools check with Do Not Call (DNC) lists before calling and automatically display contextual customer information to agents.
- Quality management (QM): Provide consistent customer service by monitoring 8×8’s QM tools. It streamlines the coaching process by allowing supervisors to search and sort interactions to find opportunities and view team and individual progress in real time.
- Multichannel communications: 8×8 Contact Center lets you translate chat conversations in real time and route social media interactions to the right agent. Your staff can co-browse during voice and chat conversations. Also, 8×8 supports dynamic email queues that route customers according to agent skills, priority, and schedules.
Dialpad: Best Five9 Alternative for Budget-friendly Voice Intelligence Tools
Overall Score:
4.28 / 5
What We Like
- Call recording and a multilevel auto-attendant come with the entry-tier package
- All subscriptions include call monitoring and customer sentiment tracking
- Speech coaching and agent screen capture are standard features
What's Missing
- Lacks WFO (workforce optimization) and WFM (workforce management) tools and integrations
- Many features are locked behind the Enterprise plan requiring 100 users
- Contact center subscriptions charge per-minute fees for inbound and outbound calls
How It Compares to Five9
- Dialpad’s business communications software provides real-time transcriptions and call summaries with all subscriptions. Five9 places these features under its Agent Assist add-on package.
- Both providers offer 24/7 support via phone for contact center plans.
- Five9 supports advanced, enterprise-grade QM and WFM/WFO capabilities. Dialpad doesn’t offer quality, performance, or workforce management tools.
If you have a small business and require services for less than 100 users, Dialpad is an excellent call center solution. Unlike other Five9 competitors, Dialpad supplies key automation and artificial intelligence (AI) features on its base plan for $15 per user, per month with annual billing. You’ll pay more than double for comparable RingCentral, Nextiva8x8 subscriptions with AI capabilities.
These AI-driven tools, called Voice Intelligence (VI), reduce agent after-call work by generating summaries and action lists from conversations. They also give supervisors access to real-time insights about how customers feel during interactions and assist agents by providing additional information related to spoken phrases or keywords.
Contact center plans include 24/7 customer support and integrate with ServiceNow, Zendesk, and Service Cloud. They also support up to 500 callers in a queue compared to 525 with Nextiva Contact Center subscriptions. However, Dialpad lacks an auto-dialer and limits ring groups to 25 (unless you have 100 or more users). 8×8 provides three types of auto-dialers and unlimited ring groups.
Dialpad Pricing at a Glance
Business Communications*
- Standard: $20 per user, per month for unlimited calling and SMS, voicemail transcription, multilevel auto-attendants, speech coaching, and three ring groups
- Pro: $30 per user, per month for a minimum of three users for international phone numbers and texting, CRM integrations, 25 ring groups, hold queues, and APIs
- Enterprise: Request a quote for a minimum of 100 licenses for unlimited ring groups, single sign-on (SSO) integrations, and extensions
*Dialpad prices are based on monthly payments. Choose annual billing to save $5 per user, per month.
Contact Center
Dialpad’s pricing for its contact center plans is customized:
- Pro: A three-license minimum for unlimited SMS, call monitoring, help desk integrations, automatic call recording, and 25 hold queues
- Enterprise: A 100-license minimum for a 100% uptime service level agreement (SLA) and custom dashboards
Dialpad Features
Dialpad’s VI delivers valuable insights into every conversation. (Source: Dialpad)
- Customer sentiment tracking: Although Dialpad lacks CSAT surveys offered by Five9 competitors like Freshdesk, it analyzes live calls so supervisors can view sentiment in real time and step in when needed. Customer sentiment tracking uses AI to identify keywords and phrases and categorize them positively or negatively.
- Speech coaching and real-time assist: Help agents in real time with Dialpad’s speech coaching tools. These activate when an agent talks too fast or speaks unclearly. You can also create real-time assist (RTA) cards to recommend actions related to a specific topic.
- Voice intelligence for calls: Capture key details during phone calls and show real-time transcriptions at the start of every call. Dialpad’s VI generates action items, call highlights, and searchable call summaries.
Nice CXone: Best Five9 Alternative for Teams With High Call Volumes
Overall Score:
4.18 / 5
What We Like
- Features an open cloud foundation, allowing custom applications and integrations
- Over 50 prebuilt reports tracking more than 200 key performance metrics (KPIs)
- International phone numbers in over 130 locations
What's Missing
- The pricing structure is complex with hundreds of combinations, and you’ll need to speak to a sales rep to get a custom quote
- Requires more of a learning curve than other alternatives
- Lacks entry-level plans suitable for small businesses
How It Compares to Five9
- Nice CXone offers a lengthy 60-day free trial with hands-on support, whereas Five9 doesn’t provide a free trial.
- Both platforms cater to large enterprises with high call volumes and could be overkill for small businesses.
- Five9 and Nice CXone offer most features a la carte and require a custom quote.
Nice CXone, formerly NICE inContact, stands out as one of the best predictive dialer providers for large sales and customer service teams. Omnichannel capabilities help businesses track conversations from a single dashboard, and workforce management tools keep labor costs under control without sacrificing the customer experience.
In addition, the NICE Employee Virtual Attendant (NEVA) assists agents in real time and is an advanced version of Dialpad’s AI offerings. Although Nice CXone has fewer APIs thanRingCentral, both providers support omnichannel routing for more than 30 digital channels. Also, Nice CXone offers a self-service builder, conversational AI tools, and robust agent knowledge bases.
Nice CXone’s advanced features help call centers leverage customer and conversation data from many channels. However, the cost may be prohibitive for small businesses with lower call volumes. Other solutions like Dialpad or Nextiva are less powerful yet still deliver interaction data for quality management, scheduling, and agent performance monitoring.
Nice CXone Pricing at a Glance
Nice CXone offers custom packages with bundled and a la carte features. The pricing is based on the number and type of features, users, and contract length. A base package costs around $100 per user, per month. Contact Nice CXone for a custom quote.
- Customer Engagement: Choose from digital, voice, or omnichannel options with ACD digital and voice agents, self-service IVR, standard audio recording, and more than 90 reports
- Contact Center Essentials: Deliver support on digital channels with advanced audio recording, quality management, and screen recording tools
- Contact Center Advanced: Optimize scheduling and productivity with workforce and performance management reporting
- Contact Center Complete: Understand customers with in-depth customer feedback and interaction analytics
Nice CXone Features
Advanced WFM tools help high-volume call centers optimize staffing levels. (Source: Nice CXone)
- Workforce management: Forecast your scheduling needs based on specific skill sets. Then compare data from your ACD (automatic call distribution) and update schedules accordingly. Nice CXone WFM features use more than 40 algorithms to improve forecast accuracy.
- Recordings: Nice CXone records agents’ screens, voice calls, and digital channel interactions. All data resides in a central, searchable location. You can store recordings to meet regulatory requirements and monitoring purposes for QM.
- Self-service builder: Like Freshdesk, Nice CXone provides tools for developing self-service options, such as the CXone Bot Builder. The drag-and-drop tool lets you train bots to recognize industry terms and test them with actual users.
How We Evaluated the Best Five9 Alternatives
Five9 competitors offer general and advanced features, including AI-based tools, call routing options, and omnichannel support. Prices for voice services range from $15 to more than $100 per user, per month. We compared the capabilities and costs of each platform to determine the best use cases and standout features.
Learn how we evaluated the best Five9 alternatives by clicking on the tabs below:
10%
Pricing
40%
General Features
30%
Advanced Features
20%
Expert Score
10% of Overall Score
Prices vary by provider and are based on per-user fees, add-on services, and call volumes. We reviewed monthly costs and plan customization options while rating services with cheaper annual pricing higher than those without.
40% of Overall Score
Omnichannel-friendly tools with IVR and ACD systems earned high marks, as did platforms with three-way and conference calling features. We also assessed data collection and insights offered by call analytics, reports, and dashboards.
30% of Overall Score
We gave points to call center software with social media integrations and SMS messaging. Plus, we evaluated workforce management tools, including employee engagement and optimization capabilities.
20% of Overall Score
We looked at the ease of use for implementation, training, and on-the-job communications. Alternatives with standout features, like advanced AI capabilities or multilingual tools, earned points. We also considered user reviews and the overall value for the money.
*Percentages of overall score
Bottom Line
Scale your customer service and sales support using call center software with automation and AI-driven insights. Look for user-friendly tools that allow your team to communicate and track conversations, and explore ways the platform uses data to fuel better employee and agent experiences.
Freshdesk earned 4.78 out of 5, making it our top Five9 alternative. It’s the only option with a free version and built-in support desk ticketing software. Freshdesk Omnichannel plans provide speech-enabled IVR systems, CSAT surveys, and chatbots. Plus, it has a 21-day free trial, giving your team plenty of time to check out all that Freshdesk offers.
