How is this telecommunications ranking decided?

Mechanically. The 12 approved telecommunications listings on this page are sorted by their published rating, highest first, with the number of ratings behind each score as the tie-break and the product name as a final tie-break so the order is stable. Those ratings are aggregated from public sources, not collected from Softwr readers, this site hosts no reviews, so the order is a summary of what is already published elsewhere, not a verdict of our own. Nothing on this page is paid placement.

Is this list re-ordered for enterprise?

No, and it would be dishonest to imply otherwise. The catalogue records no data about which team sizes or roles each tool suits, so the ranking is the same published-rating order as the unsegmented list. What the enterprise framing changes is which of the figures below matter most. Enterprise buyers rarely pay a published price. The listings here with an unpriced tier are the ones with a sales motion, and those are the ones that will quote.

How much does telecommunications software cost?

Across the 12 telecommunications tools listed here, paid plans start between $0.01 and $149 a month, with a median entry price of $29.99. The most expensive single tier published in the category is $229 a month (Five9). 1 of 12 also publish a $0 plan.

What is the cheapest telecommunications software?

Among the ones that charge, Twilio has the lowest published entry price at $0.01 a month. Cheapest and best value are different questions: check which tier the capability you need actually appears in before you compare starting prices.

Is there free telecommunications software?

Yes, 1 of 12 tools in this category publish a plan priced at $0. Each of those also sells paid tiers above the free plan. A tool is only counted as free here when it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence, or a starting price of zero, a free trial does not count.

What features should telecommunications software have?

Judging by what vendors put in their own published pricing tiers, the most frequently named capabilities in this category are analytics (3 of 9 tools that publish plan detail), ivr (3) and quality management (3). Treat those as the category baseline. Anything named by only one vendor, such as advanced features or call recording, is a differentiator rather than a standard, so it is worth deciding whether you need it before it narrows your shortlist to one.

How is telecommunications software usually billed?

subscription (7), freemium (1), usage-based (1), counted across the 12 listings on this page. The distinction that costs money is per-seat versus flat: a per-user plan at the same headline price scales with your headcount and a flat subscription does not. 4 of 12 tools also keep at least one tier unpriced and sold by quote.

What does telecommunications software actually cover?

The 12 tools on this page do not describe themselves the same way. The subject tags they carry most often are enterprise (6), ai (4), communication (3), contact-center (3), voip (3). That spread is the honest answer to what the category means in practice: it is not one product shape, and two tools filed under telecommunications may overlap on very little.

How many pricing tiers do telecommunications tools offer?

9 of 12 tools here publish a plan breakdown, and the median one has 3 tiers. 6 of 12 publish three or more. More tiers is not generosity, it usually means the capability you are buying for sits two rungs above the advertised price, so price your shortlist at the tier that contains it.

How many telecommunications tools are listed on Softwr?

12 approved telecommunications listings appear on this page, including 8x8, Aircall, Dialpad, Five9. Each links to a full breakdown with its pricing tiers and plan detail, and the category can be filtered by price and sorted by rating above. You can also read the shortlist view at /best/telecommunications, which ranks the same set by published rating.

Telecommunications · ranked shortlist

Best Telecommunications software for Enterprise in 2026

12 approved telecommunications listings, ordered by published rating with the method stated below rather than assumed. Enterprise buyers rarely pay a published price. The listings here with an unpriced tier are the ones with a sales motion, and those are the ones that will quote.

Tools ranked: 12
Entry price range: $0.01-$149
Publish a $0 plan: 1 of 12

How this ranking is derived

The sort key

Published rating, highest first. Ties break on the number of ratings behind the score, then on product name so the order never depends on what the API happened to return first. That is the whole rule, there is no weighting, no score of our own, and nothing paid: no sponsored slot runs on these pages.

Where the ratings come from

No listing in this set carries a rating, so the order falls back to name. Those scores are aggregated from public sources rather than collected here, Softwr hosts no reviews of its own, which is also why no rating on this page is marked up as ours in structured data.

What the pool is

Approved telecommunications listings, capped at 20 per page; 12 came back for this one. It is not the whole market, and a tool being absent means we hold no record of it rather than that it failed a test. The unranked full set is on the telecommunications category page.

The ranking

Each entry lists why it sits where it sits, drawn from its own published rating and pricing.

#1
8x8
Highest rated here
Enterprise-grade unified communications
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $29.99 a month, with no free plan.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
2 tiers
Tags
communication, Enterprise, voip, unified
8x8 breakdown Compare with Aircall
#2
Aircall
Cloud phone system for modern business
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $30 a month, with no free plan.
Billing
Model not published
Tags
cloud-phone, modern, integrations, sales
Aircall breakdown Compare with Dialpad
#3
Dialpad
Cloud phone and voice communications
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
Billing
Model not published
Tags
communication, voip, analytics, Remote Work
Dialpad breakdown Compare with Five9
#4
Five9
Intelligent cloud contact center
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $149 a month, with no free plan.
- 4 published tiers, topping out at $229.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
4 tiers
Tags
cloud, contact-center, ai, outbound
Five9 breakdown Compare with Genesys Cloud
#5
Genesys Cloud
Experience as a Service
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $75 a month, with no free plan.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $140.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
3 tiers
Tags
Enterprise, contact-center, experience-as-a-service, ai
Genesys Cloud breakdown Compare with NICE CXone
#6
NICE CXone
The world's leading cloud contact center
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $71 a month, with no free plan.
- 4 published tiers, topping out at $110 plus a tier sold by quote.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
4 tiers
Tags
Enterprise, contact-center, wfo, ai
NICE CXone breakdown Compare with OneSignal
#7
O
OneSignal
Customer engagement and messaging, without the complexity
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
Billing
freemium
OneSignal breakdown Compare with RingCentral
#8
RingCentral
Unified communications platform for enterprise
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $24.99 a month, with no free plan.
- 2 published tiers, topping out at $34.99.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
2 tiers
Tags
communication, voip, Enterprise, unified
RingCentral breakdown Compare with Talkdesk
#9
Talkdesk
Cloud contact center for innovative enterprises
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $65 a month, with no free plan.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $125.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
3 tiers
Tags
cloud-native, ai, modern, Enterprise
Talkdesk breakdown Compare with Twilio
#10
Twilio
Cloud communications platform for SMS, voice, and video
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $0.01 a month, with no free plan.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
Billing
Model not published
Published tiers
1 tier
Tags
communications, sms, voice, video
Twilio breakdown Compare with Vonage
#11
Vonage
Communications API platform for messaging and voice
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $0.05 a month, with no free plan.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $100 plus a tier sold by quote.
Billing
usage-based
Published tiers
3 tiers
Tags
communications, sms, voice, API
Vonage breakdown Compare with Whereby
#12
Whereby
No downloads, no logins - just video meetings that work
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $6.99 a month.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $11.99.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
3 tiers
Tags
video-conferencing, browser-based, meetings, no-download
Whereby breakdown

What telecommunications software costs

Counted from the published pricing of the 12 listings on this page. A tool counts as free only where it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence or a starting price of zero.

Cheapest paid plan: $0.01Twilio
Median entry price: $29.99across 10 priced
Dearest entry price: $149Five9
Publish a $0 plan: 1of 12

Paid telecommunications plans in this set start anywhere from $0.01 a month for Twilio to $149 for Five9. The median entry price across the 10 tools that publish one is $29.99, half of them start below that figure and half above it.

Entry price is not the ceiling. The dearest published tier anywhere in this category is Five9's at $229 a month, 1.5× the highest entry price on the page. Read the top of each ladder as well as the bottom, because that is where you land after two years of growth.

1 of 12 publish a $0 plan, and every one of those also sells a paid tier above it. 9 tools have no free tier of any kind.

4 of 12 keep at least one tier unpriced and sold by quote, which in practice means the number you end up paying at the top end is not on this page or on theirs.

Twilio pricing Five9 pricing Five9 plans

How these vendors bill

The billing model each of the 12 telecommunications listings publishes, counted. Two tools at the same headline price are not the same purchase if one of them charges per seat.

subscription: 7
freemium: 1
usage-based: 1

Separately, 4 of 12 publish at least one tier with no price attached. Those are sold by quote, so the top of the ladder is negotiable, and unknowable, until you talk to sales.

What comes as standard, and what you pay extra for

Every capability named in a published pricing tier by any of the 9 telecommunications tools here that break their plans down, counted once per vendor. This measures what vendors choose to advertise as a selling point, not everything the software does, an absence below is silence, not a missing feature.

Named most often

Analytics , 3 of 9
IVR , 3 of 9
Quality management , 3 of 9
Recording , 3 of 9
Voice , 3 of 9

Named by fewer

Advanced AI , 2 of 9
Advanced analytics , 2 of 9
Full suite , 2 of 9
Premium support , 2 of 9
Video conferencing , 2 of 9

Named by exactly one vendor: Advanced features, Call recording, Custom pricing, Digital engagement, No monthly minimum, SMS, voice, video, messaging. Those are differentiators rather than table stakes.

What “Telecommunications” covers in practice

The subject tags that recur across these 12 listings, with the number of tools carrying each. A category label is a filing decision; this is the closer read of what is actually filed under it.

Enterprise6
ai4
communication3
contact-center3
voip3
API2
cloud-native2
communications2
modern2
sms2
unified2
voice2

Carried by a single tool: AI-Powered, browser-based, developer-tools, innovative, meetings, outbound, sales, video. If one of those is the reason you are here, the category page is the wrong lens, go straight to that product.

How to choose between them

Four things the numbers above should change about your shortlist.

Start with the free tiers if there are enough of them

1 of 12 telecommunications tools here publish a $0 plan, which is enough to run a real trial without a purchase order. A free tier is worth more than a free trial when you are evaluating: a trial expires on the vendor's schedule, a free plan expires when you outgrow it. The thing to check before you commit is which of the capabilities below sit above the free line, starting with analytics, the single most frequently named capability in this category's published tiers.

Read the spread before you read the features

$0.01 to $149 is a $148.99 spread on entry price alone, and a spread that wide is never about polish, it is about who the vendor built for. Tools at the bottom of this ladder are priced for one person or a small team; tools near $149 are priced for a department with a procurement process. Decide which of those you are before you compare capability, or you will shortlist four tools that were never competing for the same buyer.

Check which tier you actually land on

6 of 12 tools here publish three or more tiers, and the median vendor in this category ships 3 of them. The advertised price is the first rung, and the things teams tend to need, analytics, ivr, quality management, are named in higher plans far more often than in entry ones. Price your shortlist at the tier that contains what you need, not at the tier on the pricing page's left edge.

The billing model matters more than the headline number

This category splits across 3 billing models: subscription on 7 listings, freemium on 1, and 1 other arrangement across the rest. A per-user price and a flat subscription at the same headline figure are not the same purchase, the first one grows with headcount and the second does not. Multiply by your real team size before you compare two numbers side by side.

Compare telecommunications tools directly

Every pairing below is a full comparison: the same checklist applied to both, so a gap in one is a gap in the other.

Go straight to the numbers

Build your own comparison See the shortlist instead

Questions people ask about telecommunications software

Answered from the listings on this page, and nowhere else.

How is this telecommunications ranking decided?: Mechanically. The 12 approved telecommunications listings on this page are sorted by their published rating, highest first, with the number of ratings behind each score as the tie-break and the product name as a final tie-break so the order is stable. Those ratings are aggregated from public sources, not collected from Softwr readers, this site hosts no reviews, so the order is a summary of what is already published elsewhere, not a verdict of our own. Nothing on this page is paid placement.
Is this list re-ordered for enterprise?: No, and it would be dishonest to imply otherwise. The catalogue records no data about which team sizes or roles each tool suits, so the ranking is the same published-rating order as the unsegmented list. What the enterprise framing changes is which of the figures below matter most. Enterprise buyers rarely pay a published price. The listings here with an unpriced tier are the ones with a sales motion, and those are the ones that will quote.
How much does telecommunications software cost?: Across the 12 telecommunications tools listed here, paid plans start between $0.01 and $149 a month, with a median entry price of $29.99. The most expensive single tier published in the category is $229 a month (Five9). 1 of 12 also publish a $0 plan.
What is the cheapest telecommunications software?: Among the ones that charge, Twilio has the lowest published entry price at $0.01 a month. Cheapest and best value are different questions: check which tier the capability you need actually appears in before you compare starting prices.
Is there free telecommunications software?: Yes, 1 of 12 tools in this category publish a plan priced at $0. Each of those also sells paid tiers above the free plan. A tool is only counted as free here when it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence, or a starting price of zero, a free trial does not count.
What features should telecommunications software have?: Judging by what vendors put in their own published pricing tiers, the most frequently named capabilities in this category are analytics (3 of 9 tools that publish plan detail), ivr (3) and quality management (3). Treat those as the category baseline. Anything named by only one vendor, such as advanced features or call recording, is a differentiator rather than a standard, so it is worth deciding whether you need it before it narrows your shortlist to one.
How is telecommunications software usually billed?: subscription (7), freemium (1), usage-based (1), counted across the 12 listings on this page. The distinction that costs money is per-seat versus flat: a per-user plan at the same headline price scales with your headcount and a flat subscription does not. 4 of 12 tools also keep at least one tier unpriced and sold by quote.
What does telecommunications software actually cover?: The 12 tools on this page do not describe themselves the same way. The subject tags they carry most often are enterprise (6), ai (4), communication (3), contact-center (3), voip (3). That spread is the honest answer to what the category means in practice: it is not one product shape, and two tools filed under telecommunications may overlap on very little.
How many pricing tiers do telecommunications tools offer?: 9 of 12 tools here publish a plan breakdown, and the median one has 3 tiers. 6 of 12 publish three or more. More tiers is not generosity, it usually means the capability you are buying for sits two rungs above the advertised price, so price your shortlist at the tier that contains it.
How many telecommunications tools are listed on Softwr?: 12 approved telecommunications listings appear on this page, including 8x8, Aircall, Dialpad, Five9. Each links to a full breakdown with its pricing tiers and plan detail, and the category can be filtered by price and sorted by rating above. You can also read the shortlist view at /best/telecommunications, which ranks the same set by published rating.

Keep reading

Neighbouring categories

Adjacent in the same taxonomy, not a ranking.

How this ranking is derived

The sort key

Where the ratings come from

What the pool is

The ranking

8x8

Aircall

Dialpad

Five9

Genesys Cloud

NICE CXone

OneSignal

RingCentral

Talkdesk

Twilio

Vonage

Whereby