Best NICE CXone Alternatives for 2025

Summary: NICE CXone is a cloud contact center software tailored to provide seamless customer experiences across both voice and digital channels. 

Despite having a robust set of features like AI-powered customer self-service and employee support tools, NICE CXone might not meet all your business needs. Some users dislike its cluttered interface, lack of comprehensive collaboration tools, and costly quote-based pricing. Newer or smaller businesses may prefer a more affordable CCaaS solution with fewer features and a simpler user experience.

I evaluated and tested other cloud contact center software systems that do what NICE CXone can do, at different scales and prices. Here are our recommended NICE CXone alternatives. 

NICE CXone Alternatives At A Glance

Best NICE CXone Alternatives

• Five9 - Best customer service and feature set for increasing agent efficiency
• Nextiva - Best for self-service and journey orchestration
• Talkdesk - Best for small to mid-size blended call centers
• Genesys - Best for inbound calling with many digital channels
• RingCentral - Best for collaborative contact centers + video
• Dialpad - Best for AI features, and sales teams

Five9: Best for Increasing Agent Efficiency

Five9 is a comprehensive cloud contact center solution recognized as a leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant, thanks to its innovative use of artificial intelligence (AI) within customer engagement. The platform’s advanced conversational AI tools ensure seamless omnichannel communication across voice, chat, SMS, email, and social media. 

Five9 offers more outbound auto dialing modes than NICE CXOne, and unlike NICE, also includes customer-agent video calling. Five9 particularly shines with its workflow automations, allowing users to craft complex, multi-event triggers based on existing business rules. Agents can automate customer follow-ups or order-confirmations via SMS, or notify supervisors about key developments via Slack. Five9’s workforce engagement tools include real-time analytics, quality monitoring, and agent coaching to support team members before, during, and after calls. Five9’s platform is ideal for businesses aiming to scale operations while maintaining personalized customer interactions, making it a strong contender for enterprises looking to invest in long-term AI-driven solutions.

Five9 is a Good Alternative if You Need:

• Workflow automation: Five9’s intuitive platform allows users to create low code/no code workflow automations connecting customer data across the cloud.
• High quality customer support: Five9 offers world class 24/7 customer service to all users.
• To build a customer self-service system: Five9 includes a number of tools for self-service such as voicebots, chatbots, and intelligent virtual agents (IVAs).
• Omnichannel communication: Platform streamlines numerous communications channels, uniting VoIP calling, SMS, Whatsapp, text messaging, etc.
• Digital-first IVAs: Users can build intelligent virtual agents that serve as self-service chatbots or voicebots.
• Call center quality monitoring: Supervisors can silently monitor live calls, offer agents “whisper coaching”, or barge in on calls. The QM status of each agent is color-coded and visible to other supervisors.
• Call and screen recording: Includes synchronized voice/screen playback and digital channel transcription.

Price

Five9 offers four pricing plans designed to cater to various business needs, but it does have a higher starting price point than NICE CXone. Both offer voice-only and digital-only solutions. The Core/Digital Plan starts at $119 per user/month and includes essential features like voice or digital channel functionality, call recording, auto dialing, agent desktop, and workflow automation. The $169 per user/month Premium plan adds quality management tools for improved agent performance. For $199 per user/month, the Optimum plan includes advanced workforce management features, making it ideal for scaling operations. Finally, the Ultimate plan, at $229 per user/month, provides interaction analytics for in-depth insights into customer interactions.

To learn more, check out our Five9 pricing guide.

Five9 Pros and Cons

Nextiva: Best for Customer Self-Service and Journey Orchestration

Nextiva is a versatile contact center solution that rivals NICE CXone by offering voice-only, digital-only, and omnichannel plans tailored to a wide range of business needs. Nextiva is an acclaimed solution and has quite the reputation within the industry, having carrier-grade five nines (99.999%) uptime compared to NICE’s 99.99%. Its omnichannel plans handle voice, SMS, live chat, email, and social media messaging to create a unified communication platform. Unlike NICE CXone, Nextiva emphasizes user-friendly tools such as a drag-and-drop workflow engine for routing and bot design, making it accessible for teams with users with different technical learning curves.

Core features include interactive voice response (IVR), automated chatbots, and an autodialer, which streamline outbound sales and customer service operations. Nextiva’s platform also supports secure payment processing and advanced analytics to track customer experiences and uncover customer behavior trends. Supervisors benefit from tools like screen recording and automated workforce scheduling, enhancing team efficiency and performance monitoring.

Nextiva is a Good Alternative if You Need:

• Sales efficiency: Nextiva includes progressive and predictive dialers that use AI to automate outbound calls, making sales agents more efficient
• A built-in CRM system: Nextiva includes built-in list and campaign management for leads and sales, plus a built-in CRM system with a unified customer history
• Voice-only or digital-only: Choose between voice-only or digital-only on Nextiva’s lowest-tier Core plan
• Routing workflows: Use the drag-and-drop designer to customize how IVR systems and virtual agents route calls to queues or agents
• Customer self-service: Design advanced IVR systems and chatbots that use conversational AI to answer FAQs, schedule appointments, and more
• Agent supervision: Nextiva supports supervisors with agent screen recording and AI-assisted workforce scheduling
• Customer insights and conversation analysis: Analyze call transcripts and interactions for advanced customer experience metrics

Price

Nextiva offers three contact center pricing plans, but has a higher entry price point than NICE CXone. The Essential plan, at $129 per user/month, provides a voice or digital-only solution with features like auto-dialers, CRM integration, agent scripting, IVR, chatbots, and a workflow engine. The $159 per user/month Professional plan upgrades to an omnichannel contact center with secure payment assistance, screen sharing, advanced AI bots, and real-time supervisor support. For $199 per user/month, the Premium plan includes workforce scheduling, quality monitoring, advanced customer experience (CX) analytics, and performance management tools. Nextiva does not offer a trial period, but does provide demos on-demand to showcase the capabilities it has. NICE, on the other hand, has a trial period for customers to evaluate fit and functionality.

For more information, check out our review of Nextiva pricing.

Nextiva Pros and Cons

Talkdesk: Best for Small to Mid-Size Blended Call Centers

Talkdesk is a cloud-based call center software provider which employs intelligent routing, real-time analytics, and robust workforce management (WFM) capabilities in a way that sets it apart from competitors. When compared to NICE CXone, Talkdesk sets itself apart by offering industry-specific solutions tailored to unique operational needs. For example, in the financial services sector, Talkdesk offers specialized packages for both banking and insurance. These packages include pre-built workflows and integrations designed to meet regulatory and operational demands, such as secure data handling and compliance. 

Industry-specific virtual agents leverage AI to field common customer inquiries efficiently, reducing agent workload. Optional add-ons, including advanced WFM tools and customer experience analytics, allow businesses to optimize agent scheduling and gain deeper insights into customer interactions, making Talkdesk an ideal choice for targeted industries.

Talkdesk is a Good Alternative if You Need:

• A small call center solution: Talkdesk is more affordable than NICE CXone with a “voice only” option, making it a better choice for small businesses
• High-quality customer support: Talkdesk customers have praised the provider for its onboarding support, ticket tracking, and customer-agent communication
• A highly secure platform: Talkdesk has more than 30 security certifications including HIPAA, GDPR, and the industry’s only ISO 22301 Business Continuity certification
• Generative AI-powered analytics: Managers use generative AI to draw insights from customer interactions
• Real-time dashboards: Users create custom dashboards that compare performance with SLAs and key metrics
• Mobile app: Agents can handle outbound and inbound calls from mobile devices with Talkdesk Conversations mobile app for Android and iOS
• IVR call routing: Route calls based on caller data, IVR selection, business hours, agent skills, etc.

Price

Talkdesk provides four different pricing plans. The CX Cloud and Digital Essential plans both start at $85 per user/month and offer inbound, outbound, and hybrid voice capabilities with IVR and API access. Note that the CX Cloud Digital offers a wider set of add-ons, though it’s more expensive than NICE’s digital-only plan. The CX Cloud Elevate plan, at $115 per user/month, expands functionality with chat, email, and SMS channels, plus screen recording and quality management tools. For $145 per user/month, the CX Cloud Elite plan includes advanced features like custom reporting and the choice of workforce management (WFM), customer experience analytics, agent assist, or proactive outbound engagement.

To learn more, see our Talkdesk pricing guide.

Talkdesk Pros and Cons

Genesys: Best for Inbound Calling with Various Digital Channels

Genesys is a cloud-based CCaaS provider offering flexible voice, digital, and hybrid CX solutions for businesses of all sizes. Genesys and its platform enable businesses to craft personalized customer experiences through a blend of self-service tools, omnichannel engagement, and AI-powered automation. Compared to NICE CXone, Genesys stands out through its intuitive features like predictive routing and performance monitoring. Predictive routing matches customers to the best available agents using data-driven insights, while dynamic dashboards provide real-time performance monitoring. 

For small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), Genesys remains competitive thanks to its cost-effective pricing, simple implementation process, and clean, user-friendly interface. On top of that, 24/7 customer support guarantees businesses assistance at all times. Genesys is a reliable choice for SMBs that want to enhance customer satisfaction while ensuring operational efficiency.

Genesys is a Good Alternative if You Need:

• To improve customer service: Genesys includes a number of tools for customer service including AI-powered chatbots, knowledge management, co-browsing and screen share
• Fast and easy adoption without IT assistance: Genesys has an intuitive interface that makes it simple and quick to build routing flows, create voice bots, and connect with customers across channels
• To motivate agents: Genesys includes several WFM and WEM tools to motivate and improve employee performance such as gamification and automated workflows for after-call work, time-off approvals, and trades
• SMS and social media messaging: Communicate with customers on any digital channel with automations, asynchronous conversations, and unified agent dashboards
• Virtual assistants and predictive engagement: AI-powered assistants reach out to every customer and respond to questions using natural language processing
• Work forecasting and scheduling: Create call volume forecasts in minutes and generate, adjust, and publish work schedules accordingly
• Live chat: Create a web chat system for customers with quick reply and file sharing capabilities

Price

Genesys offers three CCaaS pricing plans, though the CX 2 and CX 3 plans offer both digital and voice for an additional fee. The Genesys Cloud CX 1 plan starts at $75 per user/month, making it only slightly more expensive than NICE. The Genesys Cloud CX 1 plan provides inbound and outbound voice calling, Interactive Voice Response (IVR), and both real-time and historical reporting. The Genesys Cloud CX 2 plan, priced at $95 per user/month for digital-only or $115 per user/month for digital and voice, adds features like SMS, messaging, and digital outbound campaigns. For $135 per user/month for digital-only or $155 per user/month for digital and voice, the Genesys Cloud CX 3 plan includes advanced workforce engagement tools such as forecasting, scheduling, and gamification.

For more information, read our Genesys pricing guide.

Genesys Pros and Cons

RingCentral: Best For Collaborative Contact Centers

RingCentral Contact Center is a cloud-based solution that combines a powerful phone system with advanced contact center features, making it a compelling alternative to NICE CXone. It offers AI-powered tools like speech analytics, which provide deep insights into customer interactions to improve service quality and agent performance. The platform integrates seamlessly with popular CRMs and business applications, streamlining workflows and enabling more personalized customer experiences. 

RingCentral’s robust video conferencing capabilities, included as part of the broader platform, set it apart from NICE. These features include video recording for training or compliance, waiting rooms for better meeting control, AI-powered live transcription for note-taking, and noise cancellation to ensure clear communication. This makes RingCentral ideal for teams prioritizing unified communications and collaboration.

RingCentral is a Good Alternative if You Need:

• Scalability: RingCentral has an affordable contact center solution with limited analytics, but users can scale up to add users and advanced features quickly and easily
• Workforce engagement: WEM tools can be purchased as an add-on by any RingCentral user and are included in upper tier pricing plans
• Video conferencing: RingCentral includes its native enterprise-grade video conferencing platform for all contact center users
• Feedback and coaching: RingCentral includes built-in supervisor tools including call monitoring, whisper, and barge

• AI-powered keyword tracking: Admins can create custom concept or key phrase trackers in addition to built-in trackers for common sales categories

• Auto dialing: RingCentral Contact Center offers preview, predictive, and progressive auto dialers as an add-on

• Real-time AI agent assist: Leverages AI and NLP to offer agents suggested replies or automate tasks while they are communicating with customers

Price

RingCentral offers two pricing plans. The RingCX plan starts at $65 per user/month and includes unlimited domestic inbound and manual outbound minutes, video capabilities, over 20 digital channels, IVR, call recording, and post-call speech analytics. This makes it a more affordable option than NICE CXone. For businesses requiring more advanced features, the RingCentral Contact Center plan, available with custom pricing, supports over 30 digital channels and includes additional tools like on-screen and digital recording, journey analytics, and comprehensive customer engagement.

Learn more by reading our RingCentral pricing guide.

RingCentral Pros and Cons

Dialpad AI Contact Center: Best For Workforce Management,  Engagement, and Hybrid Sales Teams

Dialpad AI Contact Center is a virtual omnichannel contact center platform that takes customer interactions across different channels, like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Apple Business Chat, then makes them all accessible via a unified interface. Unlike NICE CXone, Dialpad goes all in on AI, employing both machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) technologies to enhance both agent performance and customer satisfaction. 

Dialpad’s AI-powered tools include live caller sentiment analysis, which provides real-time insights into customer emotions to help agents tailor their responses effectively during calls. Additionally, Dialpad offers real-time analytics and flexible call routing to optimize workflows and connect customers to the appropriate agents quickly. Dialpad is a strong choice for businesses seeking innovative, AI-driven solutions to their customer engagement needs.

Dialpad is a Good Alternative if You Need:

• A helpdesk solution: Dialpad includes several tools to help agents provide helpdesk support such as AI-powered popup cards
• Reliability: All Dialpad AI Contact Center plans come with a 99.9% uptime SLA
• Flexibility and scalability: All Dialpad Contact Center users have the option to add digital channels and/or advanced features like live assist, AI scorecards, etc.
• Automated voicemail and callback: Allows customers to specify which number they want to be called back on and at what time
• Real-time speech analysis: Analyzes ongoing calls tracking for customer sentiment, keywords, challenging questions, etc.
• Custom wallboards: Displays real-time data and insights in an intuitive dashboard with gamification and goal setting capabilities
• Video meetings: Robust video conferencing platform with screen sharing, meeting lock, waiting room, etc. Up to 150 participants with 5-hour meeting duration

Price

Dialpad AI Contact Center offers three pricing tiers. The Essentials Plan, at $80 per user/month, includes core features like IVR, automatic call distribution (ACD), call recording, and video meetings, with options to add advanced tools. The Advanced Plan, priced at $115 per user/month, enhances functionality with real-time live assist, custom moments, and a digital virtual agent. At $150 per user/month, the Premium Plan provides access to all digital channels, AI-driven scorecards, and AI-powered customer satisfaction (CSAT) tools. NICE CXone is slightly cheaper and provides greater scalability than Dialpad. Still, Dialpad lets businesses choose the features that best align with their operational and customer engagement goals.

Find more information in our Dialpad pricing guide.

Dialpad Pros and Cons

Which NICE CXone Alternative Should You Choose?

The best NICE CXone alternative for your company is the one that provides the features and channels to meet your business needs, without wasting money on advanced features you won’t use.

Here’s a quick breakdown of our top choices:

• Automated customer service: Five9 and Nextiva make customer service more efficient with self-service tools and intelligent bots
• Call centers or digital-only centers: Talkdesk and Genesys offer cost-effective voice-only and digital-only plans for companies seeking to specialize
• Agent assistance and coaching: Dialpad and RingCentral use AI for live-agent support and supervisor assistance