Dialpad pros and cons: An honest look for small businesses in 2026

Considering signing up for Dialpad to support your customers or business communications needs?

This guide digs into where Dialpad excels, along with where it struggles to keep up.

The pros and cons of Dialpad at a glance

Dialpad is a mature, AI-heavy platform with real strengths and real trade-offs. Which side you land on depends almost entirely on how big your team is and what you need it to do. 

Here’s the breakdown:

Pros

• AI coaching features for contact centers (add-on)
• Voice and video in one place
• Desk phone support
• AI call transcript, summaries, and analytics on every plan
• Local numbers in 50+ countries

Cons

• Add-on costs for basic functionality (toll-free numbers, SMS, porting)
• Key features locked behind expensive tiers (integrations, international texting)
• Billing is a nightmare
• Confusing and clunky UI
• Poor customer support
• User minimum for higher-tier plans
• Limitations with shared numbers make your team work more
• Less personalized auto-replies

What can Dialpad do?

Founded in 2011, Dialpad is a business communications platform with a focus on artificial intelligence (AI). It enables businesses to make calls, send messages, and host video meetings with customers. 

For the full picture of features and fit, see our Dialpad review.

Key features of Dialpad

Dialpad offers several features for businesses looking for a communications platform:

• Free calling in the US and Canada (and your billing country)
• Desktop and mobile apps and Chrome extension
• Shared phone numbers
• Voicemail transcriptions
• Real-time assistant features like assist cards (requires upgrade or purchasing an optional add-on)
• Interactive voice response (IVR)
• Automatic call recording  
• Business app integrations (requires upgrade except for Google Workspace)
• International calling and texting support (you have to pay for outbound and inbound calls and SMS)
• Built-in, self-serve A2P 10DLC registration for texting US customers
• Dialpad AI voice agent

Dialpad pricing

Dialpad offers a range of different products: Connect, Support, Sell, and AI agent.

We’re focusing on the Connect product here since it’s their primary offering for small businesses. The Dialpad Support plans start at $80 per user per month, and the Dialpad Sell plans start at $39 per user per month. For the full breakdown, read our guide to Dialpad’s pricing and plans.

Dialpad Connect has the following plans:

• Standard: $15 per user per month to access unlimited calling, unlimited Dialpad Meetings for up to 150 participants, SMS/MMS, call routing, and team messaging
• Pro: $25 per user per month* to access a customer success manager, CRM integrations (Salesforce, Zendesk, HubSpot, Zoho, and more), and the Microsoft Teams integration
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing to access 99.9%, unlimited office locations, and unlimited ring groups (departments)

*Three-user minimum required, bringing the starting cost to $75 per month

Pros of using Dialpad

Let’s start with the good stuff. If you manage a large customer service team and want to focus on training and monitoring your reps, or if you need traditional desk phones in your office, Dialpad is a solid option. 

Here are the benefits of using Dialpad in more detail:

1. AI coaching features (add-on)

Dialpad is one of the few business communications providers offering AI coaching features to customers. Coaching is available as an add-on to the Sell and Support plans.

Dialpad’s AI scorecards automatically evaluate how your reps perform based on whether they answer the questions you listed in the scorecard. You don’t have to manually QA calls and can scale quality standards for larger teams. Keep in mind you can’t access scorecards on Dialpad’s mobile app, which may cause issues if you work a lot from your phone. 

Plus, Dialpad’s AI CSAT automatically analyzes your support conversations to predict customer satisfaction based on keywords and phrases shared in your calls. It segments this data for each rep so you can see who needs help providing a better customer experience.

2. Voice and video in one place

Most customer communications tools only offer calling and text messaging solutions, not video. Dialpad offers all three services so you can communicate with customers how you like. 

Dialpad’s real-time transcription tools also work on video calls, which is perfect if you can’t turn on your mic during a video conference. 

3. Desk phone support

Like Nextiva and RingCentral, Dialpad lets you purchase desk phones and headsets for your team. If your team comes into an office or has a hybrid working environment, this might be right for you. 

But if you want to use Dialpad for its video conferencing features, desk phone compatibility won’t matter much. Even if it does, you should be aware of its limitations:

• Dialpad places a custom configuration on all Obihai and Polycom desk phones (some phone features become unavailable).
• You can’t add different firmware to a Dialpad desk phone.
• Do Not Disturb functionality is not available on room phones.

Keep in mind, though, most other virtual phone services work on computers, laptops, smartphones, and other devices. Desk phones are less convenient for most small businesses (especially when you factor in upfront costs).

4. AI call transcript, summaries, and analytics on every plan

Dialpad offers call transcripts and summaries on every plan, so your team can stay organized after every call. You get a searchable transcript, summary, and action items in the conversation inbox. 

You’ll also get AI-powered analytics and reporting on any Dialpad plan. The dashboard shows real-time and historical metrics for call volume, handle times, and missed call rates. You can also use their heat maps to identify your busiest times for inbound calls. 

5. Local numbers in 50+ countries

If your business talks to customers abroad, Dialpad makes it easy to show up locally. You can get phone numbers in more than 50 countries, so international customers see a familiar area code instead of a foreign one. That tends to increase answer rates and saves your team the cost of separate regional carriers. For companies with real overseas presence, it’s one of Dialpad’s genuine strengths.

Who is Dialpad best suited for?

Dialpad is a strong fit for a specific kind of buyer. Think large contact centers with dedicated QA teams that live in call analytics and coaching. Or offices committed to traditional desk phones. Or high-volume sales teams that want AI scorecards and real-time assist built in.

If that sounds like you, most of the cons below matter far less. But if you’re a small team that mainly needs reliable calling and texting, read on.

“We have tried a handful of other phone systems and had issues with all of them. Unfortunately, they are built for hundreds of people in a call center, not two people in different offices. This makes it so the most basic tasks are over-engineered, causing us more headaches. Quo has simplified our workflow since switching from Dialpad and MightyCall.” — Brandon Neff, Owner / Operator of Quality Exterminators

Cons of using Dialpad

Unfortunately, Dialpad’s cons far outweigh its benefits. The biggest limitation of Dialpad is that it locks its best features behind its most expensive tiers and places user minimums on those plans. As a result, customers end up paying much more than they might expect.

Something else you should look out for? Poor user navigation and customer support — multiple existing and past Dialpad customers have shared their frustrations in both these areas.

Here’s a closer look at Dialpad’s disadvantages: 

1. Add-on costs for basic functionality

You’ll get charged extra for toll-free numbers, texting over a certain limit, and porting: 

Toll-free numbers

Dialpad’s toll-free numbers start at $15 per number per month, and calls cost $0.02 per minute for incoming calls. You also have to pay additional setup fees depending on what you buy.

Another major issue: Dialpad won’t let you send or receive text messages with toll-free numbers. If you only have a toll-free number, be prepared to lose your texting functionality, or plan to upgrade to a more expensive plan so you can buy an additional local number. And if you try to send a text message from a toll-free number, Dialpad will automatically send it from your local number, whether you want to or not.

SMS

Dialpad SMS is available on direct and shared lines, but it can get expensive. Let’s take a closer look:

• You’re charged for each message delivery attempt, including messages that are sent, delivered, and undelivered. This can get costly when you’re spending money sending texts that customers aren’t receiving
• If you successfully register your SMS campaign with The Campaign Registry, Dialpad will cover the cost of the first 250 outbound messages you send. After that, you need to pay $0.008 per outbound SMS and $0.024 for outbound MMS messages. If you aren’t registered, the fee per message is even higher

Porting numbers

Dialpad’s Standard plan limits you to one phone number in your account. To use multiple numbers, you’ll need to upgrade to their Pro plan. 

As a point of comparison, you can use Quo’s Starter plan with as many numbers as you want. Once you’ve confirmed Quo is a good fit during a free seven-day trial, you can port your numbers in for free. Each user on your plan gets one local US, Canadian, or North American toll-free number. If you need another number, each number is $5 per month.

2. Key features locked behind expensive tiers

Dialpad forces you to pick its more expensive plans. While the Standard plan is serviceable, it doesn’t offer features like Slack and Zapier integrations or international texting.

Let’s take a closer look:

• Dialpad has native integrations, but even basic ones like Slack and Zapier are locked behind upgrades. You only get Google Workspace with their Standard plan. 
• Want to send messages to international customers? You’ll need to upgrade your plan to access an international number, which is inconvenient. And since no one on your team can get additional phone numbers on their base plan, you’re practically required to upgrade to the Pro plan.

So, do you have to upgrade to Dialpad’s Pro plan? No.

But are you missing essential features most businesses need? Yes.

Having multiple numbers shouldn’t be a reason why you upgrade from one provider’s plan to another.

3. Billing is a nightmare

According to multiple Dialpad customers, Dialpad’s billing is confusing to understand and challenging to navigate.

Here’s an example:

“…Dialpad has started charging us for every single inbound call we receive. There was no notice that this change would be occurring and I have received nothing to tell me what these call rates are. Our annual expense of $720 has now blown out to about $5,000. That’s a 7-times increase. Overnight with no notice.” – G2 Review

This and other billing issues start with Dialpad’s plans. For example, Dialpad’s Pro plan for its Business Communications product costs $25 per user per month when billed annually. But take a look at the fine print: the Pro plan requires a three-user minimum — which means it starts at $75 per month.

To make matters worse, multiple customers say they’ve been charged by Dialpad long after they canceled their contract. Here’s a recent review with the Better Business Bureau:

“Dialpad was informed about cancellation on multiple occasions months before annual renewal was due. I received confirmation of cancellation, yet Dialpad still ran the credit card on file for annual renewal.” – BBB Complaint 

This isn’t the only review like this. Check out Dialpad’s BBB page for similar reviews regarding charges after account cancellation. 

4. Confusing and clunky user interface

Dialpad was founded in 2011, and it seems the years have caught up with its design.

Customers complain that Dialpad is confusing and clunky to use.

Here are a few examples:

• Basic tasks like adding a phone number to your account take several steps to complete. Plus, the company uses lots of similar-sounding terminology, which makes it hard to navigate its interface. For example, it’s tough to say whether a small business needs to use “Contact Centers” or “Departments” in Dialpad.
• With shared numbers, you can’t see which team members have responded to incoming texts in the shared inbox unless you toggle into a separate folder on the Dialpad app.

This sort of overengineering makes Dialpad feel bloated.

It makes sense why Dialpad is a G2 Leader in the Enterprise category for VoIP Providers — this is heavyweight software built for large enterprises — not a lightweight, easy-to-use tool for startups and small businesses.

5. Poor customer support

If you need great customer support to keep your phone system online, Dialpad isn’t the right tool for you.

Dialpad customers have complained about poor quality of customer service on both G2 and Reddit.

One Dialpad review says: “Most of their dev has skewed towards supporting enterprise clients so there’s very little support or feature add on the SMB side.” For example, to make sure Dialpad resolves your critical issues quickly, you’ll need to upgrade to the Enterprise plan since it’s the only one that offers priority routing. Otherwise, you’ll wait in a queue regardless of how urgent your support request is.

6. User minimum for higher-tier plans

If you need to access advanced business features but don’t have a large team, you may want to find a Dialpad alternative. Many popular features are only available if you upgrade, and each plan has a user minimum, which can get costly. For example, the Pro plan costs $25 per user per month and requires a minimum of 3 users, which starts at $75 per month. And the Enterprise plan has a minimum of 100 users.

7. Limitations with shared numbers make your team work more

If team collaboration is important to your business to solve customer issues, Dialpad may not be the right fit. Its shared phone numbers come with many limitations. For example: 

• Only admins assigned to a shared line can access call recordings, which slows down how fast reps can respond to customers and each other.
• Only the primary number on a shared line can send or reply to texts, even when a customer messages a secondary number on that line.
• Operators can’t block spam or unwanted numbers on a shared line themselves — only an admin can.

8. Less personalized auto-replies that don’t hold your customers’ attention

Want to send personalized auto-replies to your customers that make them feel seen and heard? You can’t with Dialpad since there’s no way to send auto-replies that contain different messages. For example, if a customer calls you or leaves a voicemail, they will expect a response that’s specific to them, letting them know exactly what to expect next.

Plus, for direct lines, you can only send auto-replies when Do Not Disturb is on (or if the customer sends a message outside your personal working hours). If you want to set up auto-replies to ensure missed calls and potential customers don’t slip through the cracks during business hours, you’ll need to use another phone solution, like Quo.

“Coming from Dialpad, which was extremely difficult to use and hard to find where different settings were located, Quo has done everything I wanted Dialpad to do and has done it better.” — Quo user on G2

Verdict: Is Dialpad worth it?

Dialpad’s pros are real: AI on every plan, strong voice intelligence, and a low entry price. Its cons hit small teams hardest: seat minimums, billing surprises, and add-ons and upgrades for basic features. If you run an AI-driven contact center or sales team with enough seats to clear the minimums, Dialpad earns its place. If you’re a small team that mainly needs reliable calling and texting, a simpler platform will cost less and get you live faster. 

Need a Dialpad alternative?

Small teams that mainly need reliable calling and texting, fast setup, and predictable pricing tend to shortlist lighter platforms. Teams that need heavy AI sentiment analysis or a full contact center tend to stay in the Enterprise tier.

See the full shortlist in our best Dialpad alternatives guide or compare Quo vs Dialpad directly.

FAQs