Summary: RingCentral is a cloud PBX solution and UCaaS system that combines voice calling, video conferencing, messaging, and extensive team collaboration tools in one AI-powered interface. Aircall is designed specifically for inbound and outbound call centers, as it offers extensive routing, call monitoring, and analytics tools but lacks traditional UCaaS features like video calling and team chat.
With differences this vast, it’s critical to choose the right product for your team and customers.
In this post, we’ll outline the key differences between Aircall vs. RingCentral, helping you to determine which provider fits your budget and communication needs.
How We Compared Ringcentral and Aircall
- Features: We evaluated the variety and quality of features in each platform, paying close attention to advanced call management and innovative features such as speech analytics and real time analytics
- Security: We compared the security protections included in each solution, such as compliance certifications, data encryption, SSO, MFA, etc.
- Call quality: We tested the audio and video quality of each service provider and researched the reliability guarantees such as average uptime, points of presence, etc.
- Integrations: We compared platform customizability via available third-party integrations, APIs, webhooks, etc.
- Pricing and plans: We evaluated the pricing structure of each solution and looked at which features are included in each plan to determine overall value
- Ease of use: We tested how user-friendly each platform is and read user reviews, including Android and iOS mobile apps and desktop apps
- Customer support: We evaluated the customer support channels offered by each provider as well as knowledge bases, self-help options, availability and efficiency of support agents and overall customer experiences
Aircall vs RingCentral: At A Glance
| Aircall | RingCentral | |
| Best For | Small businesses and startups that mainly use voice calling | Remote or blended teams needing a scalable unified communications solution with messaging, video, phone, and team collaboration |
| Pricing+Plans | $30-$50+ per user/month |
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| Voice Calling |
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| Communication Channels |
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| Analytics |
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| Third-Party Integrations | Around 125 integrations, including:
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Over 300 integrations, including:
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| Security+Network Reliability |
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| Customer Support | Aircall offers phone, email, support ticketing, and multilingual live chat support to all users on all plans. While live chat is available 24/5 to all customers (unavailable Saturday/Sunday,) Aircall doesn’t specify phone and email support hours | Online Knowledge Base, access to RingCentral University webinars and video tutorials, 24/7 support chatbot, community forum |
RingCentral vs. Aircall: Feature Comparison
Below, we compare important features of RingCentral vs. Aircall, including:
- Voice Calling Features
- Team Messaging and SMS Features
- Video Conferencing
- Analytics and Reporting
- Integrations
- Security and Customer Support
- Pricing
Voice Calling Features
Summary: RingCentral and Aircall offer unlimited VoIP calling in the US and Canada alongside local, toll-free numbers and vanity phone numbers. RingCentral provides international numbers in over 40 countries, while Aircall users can choose an international number from over 100 countries.
RingCentral has more secure HD calling than Aircall thanks toTier-1 carrier networks and end-to-end encryption on voice calls. RingCentral also includes key features like hot desking, virtual faxing, and call flip to enable in-call device switching to increase mobility and flexibility. RingCentral’s cross-device User Presence Monitoring makes it easy for team members and managers to monitor each user’s activity.
Both RingEX and Aircall offer AI-powered call summaries with suggested action items, but Aircall restricts this feature to a paid add-on while RingCentral does not. RingEX includes an AI assistant that transcribes calls and video meetings and creates summaries and highlight reels in all plans. Upper tier RingEX users also have access to automated workflows, note taking and gen-AI for SMS and team messaging.
Aircall does not include efax or hot desking, but it does offer parallel calling which is similar to call flip. Both providers offer advanced features such as virtual voicemail, call monitoring, and intelligent IVR with drag and drop flows. Aircall uniquely offers IVR-only phone numbers and a “ring on speakers” option.
Aircall includes a power dialer that integrates with your company’s CRM in both its Professional and Custom plans, while RingCentral only includes auto dialing capabilities in its RingCX CCaaS platform.
Team Messaging and SMS Features
Summary: RingCentral includes team chat and supports business text messaging, but each plan includes a monthly cap on SMS texts. Aircall, conversely, doesn’t offer team chat, but includes unlimited inbound SMS Texting and 400 outbound SMS messages per month.
The RingCentral app offers built-in team messaging, including 1:1 chat and team channels with collaboration capabilities like file sharing, document co-editing, and task management. Users can send Direct Messages, interact with 3 or more users via Group Conversations, or participate in larger public or private channels called Teams.
RingCentral’s AI Assistant summarizes unread team messages, assists with writing, drafting and editing SMS and team messages, and automatically translates texts and team messages into multiple languages including Spanish, German, French, and Italian.
The Conversation List sidebar makes it easy for users to view, search, filter, favorite, and manage notifications for all their current chats, teams, and conversations. It displays user @mentions, notifications, tasks, calendars, and bookmarked messages.
The solution also allows users to assign and comment on calls, which provides some task assignment and collaboration functionality.
While Aircall lacks the task management features of RingCentral, it does offer shared contacts and Shared Call Inbox with call tagging, call commenting, and call assignment. The Aircall Shared Call Inbox lets agents simultaneously view and respond to calls that require a follow-up, need input or assistance from another team member, or that need a related task to be completed.
Shared Inboxes can be company-wide, team-wide, private, or individual, functioning much in the same way a to-do task management app might. This evenly distributes the workload, prevents key tasks from being overlooked, and even lets agents view call history and assign each other calls. Call comets with user tagging allow agents to give each other further details.
Video Conferencing Features
Summary: RingCentral includes a no-download, AI-powered web conferencing app allowing up to 200 users with all RingEX and Contact Center plans while Aircall does not offer video meetings.
RingCentral’s video conferencing platform is also available as a standalone app–Intelligent Meetings–with a free version. Included features are on par with popular video calling platforms like Zoom and Dialpad with tools such as collaborative meeting notes, breakout rooms, and screen sharing. RingCentral’s AI Assistant for video is included on all plans and provides automated meeting transcriptions, closed captioning, meeting summaries, and highlight reels.
RingCentral Video’s Virtual Whiteboarding tool includes a pointer to differentiate board collaborators, color-coded sticky notes, a text highlighter, shape templates, a drawing tool, and lets users add images to boards.
As of this writing, Aircall does not offer any native video calling features, nor does it offer pre-made integrations with popular third-party video calling apps like Zoom, Dialpad, Nextiva, Google Meet, or RingCentral.
Analytics and Reporting
Summary: Both RingEX and Aircall allow users to monitor over 30 real-time and historical KPIs on customizable or pre-made interactive reporting templates and dashboards. Aircall’s Live Activity Feed gives agents and managers a real-time, birds-eye view of the most important call center metrics and KPIs while RingCentral’s Analytics Portal offers insights about the whole phone system and lets supervisors drill down into individual agent and team performance.
The main difference between the two platforms is that RingCentral includes real time quality of service (QoS) analytics in all plans, while Aircall only includes its Live Monitoring feature in the Professional plan ($50 per user/month) and up. Aircall users also have the option to add on Analytics+, a historical reporting dashboard that allows users to zoom in on call activity with several interactive graphs, or Aircall AI, which offers sentiment and intent monitoring, talk-listen ratios, trending topics analysis, and more.
RingCentral’s Advanced and Ultra plans add advanced business analytics covering call volume, channel usage, agent activity, answer speed, and hold time as well as real-time queue dashboards. Aircall’s live feed is similar but has fewer customization options. Aircall analytics displays which agents are on calls, the contact name or number they’re calling, the number of current calls in queue, the number of missed calls in the past 30 minutes, the average call wait time, and the average service level. Admins can see each agent’s real-time status as well as how long they’ve held that status.
Integrations
Summary: RingCentral has more out of the box integrations than Aircall, but Aircall still boasts an impressive list of integrations and they are included for all users while RingCentral limits access to integrations.
RingCentral integrations are only available on the Advanced and Ultra plans, while Aircall includes 100 integrations on its Essentials plan. It should be noted, however, that Aicall’s Essentials plan is more expensive than RingCentral’s Advanced plan.
Aircall integrates with about 125 third-party applications while RingCentral comes with developer APIs and over 300 pre-built third-party integrations available in its App Gallery. Though Aircall does offer access to APIs and webhooks on all plans, it limits API developer support to its most expensive Custom plan.
Security and Customer Support
Summary: RingCentral is known for offering 24/7 phone and chat support–but a closer look brings that claim into question–while Aircall doesn’t specify phone and email support hours. Both platforms have end-to-end encryption, but Aircall has a 99.99% uptime and 7 global redundant data centers while RingCentral has a 99.999% uptime and over 30 data centers.
Though all RingCentral plans have 24/7 website chatbot support and can create an online support ticket helpdesk request at any time, only Premium and Ultimate RingEX users have truly 24/7 phone support.
However, RingCentral does offer some of the best customer self-service in the industry, including online classes and webinars via RingCentral University, written and video tutorials in its searchable online knowledge base, support from other users in the online forum, FAQs and detailed blog posts, and more.
RingCentral also excels in security-all its video conferencing tools are HIPAA and HITRUST-compliant, ISO 27018-certified, and allow hosts to add, remove, mute, and block participants in addition to other user permission controls.
Aircall really shines in its onboarding process, which includes a well-organized, step-by-step onboarding portal for all customers. It walks customers through the basics of Aircall like dashboard navigation, team creation, phone number setup, call quality assessment, integration setup, call tagging, and analytics.
Further support is available via live training sessions, on-demand webinars, or a survey-based custom dashboard setup worksheet emailed to you and tailored to your specific setup and operational needs. HIgher-tier plans include priority customer support, personalized onboarding sessions, and a dedicated account manager.
Aircall vs. RingCentral Pricing Overview
Summary: RingCentral is less expensive than Aircall and provides better call quality and security. Aircall includes more call center features than RingCentral, such as power dialing and call coaching.
RingCentral Pricing
RingCentral RingEX is a UCaaS platform that has three pricing plans, ranging from $20 to $35 monthly per user. RingCentral offers two contact center plans, with prices starting at $65 per user, per month. Adds on include a Push to Talk license, high volume SMS, and additional toll-free and international numbers.
For more information, see our detailed RingCentral pricing guide.
Aircall Pricing
Aircall offers three pricing plans from $30 to over $50 per user/month. Month to month pricing is available from $40 to over $70 per user/month. Aircall also offers an AI add-on for $9 per license with AI-powered call summaries, transcription, key topic recognition, and more. An analytics add-on with advanced filters, unlimited history, and advanced live monitoring capabilities is available for $15 per license.
RingCentral vs Aircall: Pros & Cons
Summary: RingCentral excels in affordability, scalability integrations and video conferencing capabilities, while Aircall offers superior ease of use and a better value for high volume SMS usage.
RingCentral Pros
- All-in-One: RingEX provides an intuitive, scalable, competitively priced all-in-one business phone system across all plans
- Dynamic Video Meetings: AI-powered video features create automated written meeting summaries, video highlight reels, topics, keywords, and tasks–making meetings even more efficient
- Large Integration Library: Features over 300 apps–more than most competitors
RingCentral Cons
- Limited SMS: Each RingEX plan includes a very limiting per-user monthly SMS cap. For example, the Core plan limits users to 25 texts per month.
- Limited phone-support availability: RingCentral claims all RingEX plans have 24/7 phone and chat support, but 24/7 phone support is really only available to Premium and Ultimate users
- Weak contact center: Compared to alternatives, RingCentral Contact Center doesn’t offer competitive features like social media management, and access to the best Contact Center features are available only on the most expensive Ultimate Plan
Aircall Pros
- Ease of Use: Usability and easy learning curve thanks to Aircall’s intuitive interface, lack of overly complex AI-based features, customized dashboard setup survey, and onboarding portal
- Unique Features: Aircall’s call assignment, task commenting, shared inbox, and Power Dialer features are unique, often only reserved for more expensive contact center software
- Reliability: Reliable service and high call quality thanks to global network redundancy, in-call network alerts, and real-time push notifications that identify and describe service interruptions or other issues
Aircall Cons
- Lack of communication channels: Lacks native video and team chat/collaboration tools
- Pricy: Aircall’s phone system is significantly more expensive than alternative phone systems and UCaaS platforms, and has user minimums for each plan that further increase costs
- Limited features: Limited functionalities in general, including a maximum of just 5 conference call participants and no call waiting feature, may automatically rule out Aircall for many businesses
RingCentral vs Aircall: Which Provider Should You Choose?
RingCentral Is Best For
- Teams of any size seeking a multichannel business communication software: RingCentral provides voice calling, SMS and team chat messaging, and video conferencing in one user-friendly interface
- Inbound customer support teams: RingCentral allows companies to seamlessly provide support via text and video
- Companies needing to scale: RingCentral users have the option to scale up to an omnichannel contact solution or to host off-site, cloud-based solutions that don’t require in-house developers, extensive knowledge of coding and APIs, or expensive IT support
RingCentral Is Not Right For
- Startups and very small businesses: RingCentral has a lot of customizations, advanced features, and a steep learning curve that may be overly complicated for small businesses
- Companies that prioritize live customer support: RingCentral lacks the live support options that other competitors offer
- Businesses needing auto dialers and performance management: RingCentral RingEX does not offer auto dialing, agent coaching and scoring tools, or AI-powered Agent Assist. Those capabilities are limited to RingCentral Contact Center or the RingSense for Sales add-on
Aircall Is Best For
- Companies that require high volume texting: Aircall does not have SMS limits like RingCentral and other competitors
- Sales and customer support teams: Aircall can handle complex routing needs and large outbound lists with its auto dialer and IIVR tools
- Small to medium-sized call centers: Aircall provides a useful step down from a more advanced contact center, making it a good fit for teams that don’t need all the workforce management and automated tools–along with the expensive pricepoint–that an Enterprise call center brings
Aircall Is Not Right For
- Businesses that need team collaboration: Aircall does not offer native video conferencing or other advanced collaboration tools like its competitors due
- Companies on a shoestring budget: Aircall is less expensive than some call center solutions, but it is not the most affordable solution on the market
- Enterprises needing a high level of security and reliability: Aircall has a lower uptime than competitors such as RingCentral, does not offer SSO on all plans, and doesn’t provide multi-factor authentications
Aircall and RingCentral Alternatives
Although RingCentral and Aircall both offer feature rich communication platforms, they may not be the best fit for your business needs. Popular RingCentral alternatives like GoTo Connect and 8x8 offer better International calling capabilities, while top Aircall alternatives like Grasshopper and Nextiva are more affordable. Additional alternatives to RingCentral and Aircall include Dialpad, Zoom Phone, and Ooma Office.
