Vonage alternative
The Vonage alternative for teams that dial a list
Vonage Business Communications is a business phone system sold in three tiers - Mobile at $19.99, Premium at $29.99 and Advanced at $39.99 an extension a month - and none of them contains a dialer. For an outbound desk the deciding document is not the pricing page at all, it is the acceptable use policy: iterative dialing sits on the list of impermissible uses of Vonage calling plans, telemarketing needs written pre-approval, and call or contact centre work is routed to Vonage Contact Center, which is quote-only. The unlimited calling has a number behind it too - 3,000 outbound domestic long-distance minutes an extension a month, pooled across every line on the account.
No card required. No seat minimum.
The short version
- No Vonage Business Communications plan describes a power, auto or predictive dialer. The word appears once across their product pages, in the Vonage Contact Center Priority feature list, footnoted "capabilities supported by CRM".
- Their acceptable use policy names iterative dialing, telemarketing without written pre-approval, and contact centre use outside a pre-approved Vonage platform among the impermissible uses of its calling plans.
- Unlimited domestic calling is defined by usage: aggregate outbound domestic long-distance calling above 3,000 minutes an extension a month, pooled across all lines, is listed as a trigger for review.
- CRM integration starts on Premium at $29.99. The Mobile plan at $19.99 has no App Center at all.
- The App Center lists 27 integrations. Of the ten investor CRMs only Left Main REI is reachable, and only because Left Main is built on Salesforce.
smrtPhone vs Vonage
The Vonage alternative, feature by feature
Every Vonage figure below was taken from Vonage’s own public pricing pages . Prices change; check theirs before you decide.
| What matters when you dial |
|
smrtPhone |
|---|---|---|
| What it is built for | Companies replacing an office phone system | Teams making outbound calls and texts from a CRM |
| Dialing a list | No. No dialer on any VBC plan | Yes. smrtDialer, 1 to 4 lines, with AI voice detection |
| Price a seat | Mobile $19.99, Premium $29.99, Advanced $39.99 an extension monthly | $29 a seat, plus smrtDialer at $50 or $90 |
| What the acceptable use policy excludes | No. Iterative dialing, telemarketing without written pre-approval, and contact centre use outside a pre-approved Vonage platform | Yes. Nothing. Outbound dialing is the product |
| What unlimited means | Partly. Unlimited, with 3,000 outbound domestic long-distance minutes an extension a month named in the policy | 500 minutes a seat, then $0.03. Unlimited at $99 a seat |
| Where a dialer does exist | Partly. Vonage Contact Center, quote-only, with the capability depending on your CRM | Yes. On the same seat, as an add-on at $50 or $90 |
| Texting | Partly. Included, with no published allowance and Campaign Registry fees on top | Yes. SMS and MMS in every seat, 1,000 segments, then $0.02 |
| The phone system underneath | Yes. Call flows, extensions, a virtual receptionist and call groups | Yes. Call flows, inbound teams and departments, voicemail, business hours, warm transfer, conference calling and call monitoring |
| Desk phones, video meetings and team chat | Yes. All three, from Premium up | Not sold. Desktop, mobile and browser |
| CRM integration starts at | No. Premium, at $29.99. Mobile has no App Center | Yes. The $29 seat |
| Native CRM integrations | Partly. 27 in the App Center, including Salesforce, HubSpot, Dynamics, NetSuite, Zoho and Zapier | Yes. Podio, GoHighLevel, Left Main REI, InvestorFuse, DataSift, Realeflow, Invelo, Carrot, Tape and Salesforce |
| Investor CRMs it does not cover | No. Podio, GoHighLevel, InvestorFuse, DataSift, Realeflow, Invelo, Carrot and Tape | Not applicable |
| Where the record lives | Your CRM, where it is one of the 27 | Yes. Your CRM. Calls and texts write to it |
| Call recording | Partly. On demand, 15 hours a month, on Advanced at $39.99 | Yes. In the seat |
| Numbers | Partly. One local number, waived for the life of the account | 1 a seat, then $2 to $5 each |
| Outbound list compliance | Not described on the pricing page | Yes. DNC and DNT lists, DNC applet, DNC API, A2P 10DLC and automatic opt-out, in the base seat |
| Leaving | No. Annual plans carry early termination fees of up to the total price of the contract | Yes. Month to month. Cancel it yourself |
The other side
When Vonage is the better choice
Vonage carries things smrtPhone does not: VoIP desk phones on people's desks, unlimited video meetings for up to 200 people, team messaging and single sign-on, all in the same subscription. Unlimited domestic calling comes on every plan too, where we include 500 minutes a seat and meter the rest at $0.03. Its App Center also includes Zapier, which smrtPhone does not offer at all. Its own Capterra profile is 4.0 from 321 reviews. If your phone work is answering and coordinating across an office rather than working a list, none of the policy limits on this page will ever reach you.
- Single sign-on is a requirement your IT team has set.
- You want VoIP desk phones on people's desks.
- Video meetings and team messaging belong on the same bill.
- You need Zapier, which smrtPhone does not offer.
- Your calling is inbound and conversational rather than list work.
If you are buying a company phone system
A lot of people comparing these two want what Vonage is: desk phones and extensions across an office, a virtual receptionist answering the main line, unlimited video meetings, team messaging and single sign-on, all on one bill. smrtPhone runs the phone system underneath - call flows, inbound teams and departments, voicemail, business hours, warm transfer, conference calling and call monitoring - but it sells no desk phones, no video meetings and no team chat. If those three are the point of the purchase, the products to weigh are Vonage, RingCentral, Nextiva, 8x8, Zoom Phone and Dialpad.
This page is for the narrower case: a team whose day is outbound calls and texts to a list, with the record in an investor CRM, needing a dialer, a texting allowance, and a policy that does not describe their work as impermissible.
Straight from the reviews
What Vonage users complain about
Recurring themes across Vonage’s own public review profiles, each one set against what smrtPhone does about it.
- 4.0/5
|
What reviewers report
|
What we do about it
|
|---|---|
| Contracts that auto-renew before you can leave | Month to month at a published price. The yearly rate is a discount, not a lock |
| Early termination fees for cancelling | No termination fee, and a 14-day trial before you pay anything |
| Not being able to reach anyone to cancel | Add, remove and rotate seats yourself, whenever your team changes |
| Support that answers slowly, or through a menu | Chat, email or a scheduled Zoom, handled by the smrtPhone team directly |
| Charges appearing that nobody explained | Every price published: the seat, the dialer, the numbers, and the per-minute and per-segment rate |
Why outbound teams end up somewhere else
-
The policy described their work as impermissible
Vonage's acceptable use policy lists iterative dialing among the impermissible uses of its calling plans, puts telemarketing behind written pre-approval, and says call or contact centre use belongs on a pre-approved Vonage contact centre platform. A desk working a bought list is describing the thing that list excludes. smrtPhone is built for exactly that work, with DNC and DNT lists, a DNC applet and API, A2P 10DLC and automatic opt-out in the base seat.
Outbound is the product -
Unlimited turned out to have a number on it
The unlimited calling on every VBC plan is bounded in the same policy: aggregate outbound domestic long-distance calling above 3,000 minutes an extension a month, pooled across all lines, is named as a trigger for review, and typical usage is defined as the calling pattern of at least 95% of their customers on that plan. One caller working a list passes that inside a month. smrtPhone meters plainly at $0.03 a minute after 500 a seat, or $99 a seat for unlimited with no policy test behind it.
500 minutes, then $0.03 -
The CRM was not in the App Center
The App Center carries 27 integrations - Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics, NetSuite, Zoho, Apptivo, Bullhorn, JobDiva, Clio, ConnectWise, Zendesk, Zapier and the rest - and it starts on the Premium plan rather than the entry one. Of the ten investor CRMs only Left Main REI is reachable, and only because Left Main is built on Salesforce. Podio, GoHighLevel, InvestorFuse, DataSift, Realeflow, Invelo, Carrot and Tape are not there.
Ten native CRM integrations
Built into the CRM you already run
Calls, texts, recordings and dispositions land on the record they belong to, with no connector in between.
Verified reviews
What smrtPhone users say
Everything above is our claim. This is not: these are reviews left on Capterra, where most reviewers are real estate investors.
- 4.7/5
-
5 out of 5. Under 6 months in
Its ability to dial on 4 different lines simultaneously that no other dialer in the market has.
Chad F. Founder, real estate -
5 out of 5. 2+ years in
Integration with Podio and the ability to customize every aspect.
Ryan J. Founder, real estate -
5 out of 5. Under 6 months in
What I like most about SmrtPhone is how responsive and helpful their support team is. In fact, there have been instances during my onboarding that they have proactively reached out. They make the learning curve very easy to overcome.
Brendan P. CEO, real estate
What switching actually involves
Numbers port. Work out first what you would be leaving behind: if the desk phones, the video meetings and the team chat are how the office actually runs, smrtPhone replaces none of those three, and the sensible arrangement may be to keep both rather than swap one for the other.
- Port your numbers. They move with you. Nobody has to learn a new number.
- Connect the CRM. Calls, texts, recordings and dispositions start writing to the record.
- Rebuild your call flows. Routing, ring groups, business hours and the DNC applet.
- Run both for a few days. Then move the dialing over once the logging looks right.
How long the port really takes
- Porting takes one to three weeks once the paperwork is in and confirmed. It is faster when your current provider sits on the same underlying carrier we do, and slower if the paperwork comes back rejected over a detail that does not match your carrier record.
- Support does the work. You start it from live chat and the team handles the submission.
- Do not cancel your old provider until the port completes. Your number keeps working throughout.
- Occasionally voice ports a few hours before texting does. It settles by itself.
Questions people ask before switching
Does Vonage have a power dialer?
No Vonage Business Communications plan describes one - not a power dialer, not an auto dialer, not predictive dialing. The word appears once across their product pages, in the Vonage Contact Center Priority feature list, footnoted "capabilities supported by CRM", and that product is quote-only. smrtDialer runs one to four lines with AI voice detection at $50 for a single line or $90 for up to four, on top of a $29 seat.
Can I run an outbound calling team on Vonage?
Their acceptable use policy is the document to read before deciding. It lists iterative dialing among the impermissible uses of Vonage calling plans, requires written pre-approval for telemarketing, and states that call or contact centre use must run on a pre-approved Vonage contact centre platform. It also defines the unlimited plans by usage: aggregate outbound domestic long-distance calling above 3,000 minutes an extension a month, pooled across all lines. That is worth reading in full against how your team actually works.
How much does Vonage cost?
Vonage Business Communications is $19.99 a month for Mobile, $29.99 for Premium and $39.99 for Advanced, per extension. An annual plan requires a twelve-month term and carries early termination fees that can run to the total price of the contract; monthly plans carry none. Vonage Contact Center, the only product with a dialer named in it, is quote-only. smrtPhone is $24 a seat a month billed yearly, or $29 month to month, with smrtDialer at $50 or $90 for the people who dial.
Does Vonage integrate with my CRM?
The VBC App Center lists 27 integrations and starts on the Premium plan at $29.99 - Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics, NetSuite, Zoho, Apptivo, Bullhorn, JobDiva, Clio, ConnectWise, Zendesk, Zapier, Slack and Microsoft 365 among them. For investor teams the nuance is Salesforce: Left Main REI is built on it, so Vonage reaches Left Main that way. Podio, GoHighLevel, InvestorFuse, DataSift, Realeflow, Invelo, Carrot and Tape are not covered. smrtPhone is native to all ten, with the call and the text written to the record.
How much texting does Vonage include?
SMS and MMS are on every plan with no published allowance. Their own footnote says reasonable and acceptable usage applies to unlimited calls and SMS, that Campaign Registry fees apply to the mandatory business registration, and that SMS is not available in Mexico. A smrtPhone seat includes 1,000 SMS and MMS segments a month, then $0.02 a segment, with inbound replies part of the same conversation and written to your CRM record.
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