Aircall alternative
A Aircall alternative for small teams
Aircall handles the calls and connects to other tools for everything else. A team that wants its calls on the same record as its cases and deals, without a separate per-seat phone bill, can take calls in ContactRoll and pay Twilio by the minute and by the number.
Aircall and ContactRoll, need by need
Aircall is a business phone system that works in the browser and connects to a CRM or help desk. It is priced per license, with at least three licenses, and includes unlimited calls in the US and Canada. [1]
| What a small team needs | Aircall | ContactRoll |
|---|---|---|
| Contacts, companies and a deals pipeline | Not sold; Aircall connects to CRMs such as HubSpot, Pipedrive and Zoho. [1] | Every plan, Free included; Free has one pipeline. |
| Support email as cases in a shared queue | Not sold; it connects to help desks such as Zendesk. [1] | Every plan, Free included: each email opens a case anyone can take. Free has one support address of your own. |
| Knowledge articles and a public help center | Not sold. [1] | Every plan, Free included. |
| Calls in the browser, with recording and transfer | Yes: recording, warm transfer, queues, ring groups and hold, with unlimited US and Canada calls and one number included. [1] | Every plan, Free included, through your own Twilio account: call groups, voicemail, recording, hold and transfer. |
| A phone menu for callers | Yes, on Essentials. [1] | Plus, from ready-made templates, with owner-first ringing and warm transfer. |
| Marketing email to about 2,000 people | Not sold. [1] | Every plan: 500 marketing contacts and 500 emails a month on Free, 2,000 marketing contacts on Standard, 10,000 on Plus. |
| Automation | Smart routing and queue callback on Professional. [1] | Plus: automation flows. Standard and Plus: sequences started by what a customer does. |
| Roles and who sees what | Role-based permissions on every plan. [1] | Every plan: nine ready-made roles and scopes. Plus: roles of your own. |
| An API and webhooks | Yes. [1] | Plus. |
What it costs a team of five, and of ten
Aircall Essentials for calling with a phone menu and recording. A CRM, a help desk and marketing email would be other products, not priced here. List prices, per month, paid yearly, in US dollars, before tax.
| What the team buys | 5 people | 10 people |
|---|---|---|
| Aircall Essentials, $30 a license (3 at least) [1] | $150 | $300 |
| A CRM, a help desk and marketing email [1] | Not sold | Not sold |
| Aircall, for its part, about | $150 | $300 |
| ContactRoll Plus, $59 a person | $295 | $590 |
| ContactRoll Standard, $29 a person: the CRM, support cases, calling with call groups, recording and cold transfer, and marketing email to 2,000 | $145 | $290 |
Calls only. Each number after the first is $6 a month; international calls and taxes are not included. ContactRoll’s calls are billed by Twilio to your own account, with no markup: for example, 2,000 minutes a month in the browser, half of them recorded, with one number, come to about $34 at Twilio’s published US rates (a call put on hold or transferred also pays Twilio’s conference minutes). Try your own numbers in the calling cost calculator.
For a team of 3 people or fewer, ContactRoll Free costs nothing: 1,000 contacts, one pipeline, one support address, calling through your own Twilio account, and 500 marketing emails a month (Free’s limits). Aircall has no free plan; it offers free access to try it first. (Aircall’s pricing page, read .)
Where Aircall is strong
- One price includes unlimited calls in the US and Canada and a number, so the bill is the same every month. [1]
- A phone menu and recording on the entry plan, with warm transfer, queues and ring groups. [1]
- More than 250 integrations, in Aircall’s words, including HubSpot, Zendesk, Zoho and Pipedrive on Essentials. [1]
Switching from Aircall
Aircall’s workspace and dashboard do not export contacts; Aircall Support sends a CSV file of all your contacts on request. [2]
Then import the file into ContactRoll as a CSV file (save it as CSV first if it came out in another format). Each column is matched to a field by its name, and you can change any match before importing. ContactRoll shows, row by row, what the import would do before it writes anything, and people who unsubscribed stay unsubscribed.
Import your contacts from a CSV file walks through it, and the CSV contact cleaner merges repeated addresses first if your file has them.
Questions
Is calling in ContactRoll cheaper than Aircall?
It depends on your minutes. ContactRoll’s calls are billed by Twilio by the minute: for example, 2,000 minutes a month, half of them recorded, with one number, come to about $34 at Twilio’s published US rates, and a call put on hold or transferred also pays Twilio’s conference minutes. Aircall’s price is per license and includes unlimited US and Canada calls. The calling cost calculator puts your own numbers side by side.
What does a call in ContactRoll need?
Your organization’s own Twilio account, connected once by an administrator, and a browser with a microphone. Twilio bills that account for every call, with no markup from us, and recordings play on the customer’s case.
Sources
Every Aircall figure above, with the page it was read from and the date. Prices change, so check Aircall’s own pages before deciding. Aircall and every other product named here are trademarks of their owners, named only to say which product is described.
- Aircall, pricing: https://aircall.io/pricing/, read 2026-10-14.
- Aircall Support, deleting or exporting contacts in bulk: https://support.aircall.io/hc/en-gb/articles/19515206050461-Deleting-or-exporting-contacts-in-bulk, read 2026-10-14.
- Twilio, Voice pricing for the United States: https://www.twilio.com/en-us/voice/pricing/us, read 2026-10-14.