NICE CXone vs Nextiva: Compare Features+Pricing

Summary: NICE CXone and Nextiva are both highly scalable customer experience solutions offering omnichannel communication, AI-powered workflow automation, conversation analytics, and workforce management in a unified platform.

NICE CXone Mpower is best suited for global enterprises with a high daily customer contact volume across voice and digital channels, while Nextiva has packages designed specifically for small businesses and enterprises. Both providers offer voice-only, digital-only, and omnichannel solutions for blended contact centers.

Nextiva is more affordable than NICE CXone and offers more flexible pricing options. However, NICE provides a better overall value thanks to its purpose-built Enlighten AI and native WFM features. Unlike NICE, Nextiva has built-in unified communications and collaboration tools. Additionally, Nextiva also offers reputation management features for online review sites and social media platforms, which NICE lacks.

That said, NICE’s performance management capabilities are superior to Nextiva’s. NICE offers AI-powered quality management, high-level forecasting and scheduling tools, custom agent performance scorecards, and automated coaching. While Nextiva offers some of these features, they’re not nearly as advanced.

Use NICE CXone If: 

• You’re an established enterprise with multiple locations across the globe, but you’re struggling to respond promptly to customer support requests due to limited staff or high contact volumes. You need omnichannel self-service customer support to pick up the slack without sacrificing personalization.
• You’ve noticed negative changes in customer satisfaction levels and employee performance quality. You need conversation analytics to identify the root causes of these issues, automated agent coaching during live customer interactions, and performance gamification tools to keep agents engaged.
• You use a variety of third-party applications (Salesforce, Zendesk, ServiceNow, etc.) that you want to integrate into your customer experience platform. You also have an in-house developer team that customizes your business software, and therefore need a platform with extensive API/SDK documentation and a thriving developer community.

Use Nextiva If: 

• You’re a new, digital-first business looking to leverage social media and online review sites to build brand recognition, directly interact with new customers and prospects, monitor competitors, and better understand your target market. You want to expand your social media presence to collect more qualified leads and provide customer service via social messaging.
• You need an omnichannel customer experience solution with built-in unified communications tools like video calling, team chat, whiteboards, and file sharing to connect a remote or hybrid workforce.
• You’re looking for a cloud communications provider that scales alongside your business, helping you grow from a lean startup to a global enterprise. You don’t want to have to switch providers as your business evolves, and are looking for a truly all-in-one solution.

NICE CXone vs Nextiva: At A Glance

The below table provides a quick overview of key differences between NICE CXone and Nextiva.

How We Compared NICE CXone vs Nextiva

We used the below criteria to compare NICE CXone and Nextiva:

• Pricing and Plans: We evaluated each solution’s available pricing and plans, add-on features, scalability, and overall value
• Communication Channels: We looked at each provider’s available voice and digital channels, including website chat, SMS/MMS, voice calling, email, social media messaging, virtual faxing, video calling, etc.
• AI Workflow Automation: We reviewed how each platform leverages AI to automate workflows and optimize the agent and customer experience, especially through features like live agent assist, omnichannel virtual agents, predictive engagement, customer self-service, interaction summaries, content generation and organization, and more
• Workforce Management: We studied each provider’s WFM suites, evaluating the quality of forecasting and scheduling tools, performance scoring and agent coaching capabilities, gamification features, and more
• Unified Communication and Team Collaboration Tools: We evaluated internal communication channels like team chat messaging and video calling and looked at the availability of collaboration tools like whiteboards and file sharing
• Analytics and Reporting: We studied the quality and depth of each provider’s real-time and historical reporting tools, especially regarding AI-powered conversational analytics, GenAI insights, and Voice of the Customer feedback
• Third-Party Integrations and APIs: We looked at how many third-party applications each provider integrates with, the quality of pre-built integrations, available APIs and SDKs, and the strength of existing developer communities
• Security and Customer Support: We reviewed customer support hours and channels, available premium support plans, network uptime and reliability, security standards, and industry-specific compliance certifications

NICE CXone vs Nextiva: Pricing and Plans

Summary: Nextiva is more affordable and has more flexible pricing than NICE CXone, but CXone provides a better overall value thanks to its advanced AI-powered capabilities and true omnichannel solutions. Both platforms offer excellent scalability with 7 plans to choose from, including voice-only, digital-only, and omnichannel solutions. Only Nextiva provides solutions for both small business and enterprise users, whereas NICE is designed solely for enterprises.

Nextiva Pricing and Plans

Nextiva offers 7 total plans across two separate pricing tiers: Nextiva Small Business and Nextiva Enterprise. While Nextiva Small Business users can only choose between monthly and annual billing, Enterprise users can choose monthly, annual, concurrent user, or usage-based pricing.

Nextiva Small Business CX has 4 plans from $20-$60 per user/month with annual pricing and $25-$75/user/month with monthly pricing. Plans include:

• Small Business Digital Plan ($20-$25/user/month): Includes live website chat, a shared email inbox, social media messaging and management for 2 accounts, review management for 2 accounts, and 1 basic reporting dashboard
• Small Business Core Plan ($30-$35/user/month): Adds inbound/outbound voice calling with call routing, business SMS, video meetings, team chat, screensharing, file sharing, 3 social media accounts, review management for 9 total accounts
• Small Business Engage Plan ($40-$50/user/month): Adds website chatbots, toll-free numbers with 2,000 monthly minutes, online faxing, voice analytics, voice and video recording, Microsoft Teams integration, 10 social media accounts, review management for 30 total accounts
• Small Business Power Suite ($60-$75/user/month): Adds unlimited SMS, unlimited accounts for review management and social media, dual systems for voice and digital CX management, priority/skills-based routing, inbound sales and service call center, unlimited group email inboxes, 10,000 monthly toll-free minutes

Nextiva Enterprise has 3 plans from $129-$199/agent/month with per-user pricing and $179-$239/agent/month with concurrent pricing. Usage-based pricing ranges from $0.018/agent/minute to $0.024/agent/minute and up. Plans include:

• Enterprise Essential Plan ($129/agent/month, concurrent pricing from $179, usage-based pricing from $0.018/agent/minute): Choice of one voice or digital channel, skills-based routing, full API access, outbound auto dialers, mini CRM, AI transcription, customer surveys
• Enterprise Profesional Plan ($159/agent/month, from $209 with concurrent pricing, usage-based pricing from $0.020/agent/minute): Adds omnichannel communication, live agent coaching with agent screen monitoring, customer journey management, and PCI secure payment assist
• Enterprise Premium Plan ($199/agent/month, concurrent pricing from $239, usage-based pricing from $0.024/agent/minute): Adds forecasting and scheduling, interaction recording, performance management, quality monitoring, and AI CX analytics

For more details, see our complete Nextiva pricing guide.

NICE CXone Pricing and Plans

NICE CXone Mpower also offers 7 plans, but only lists per-user monthly pricing options on its website. The 3 standard CCaaS plans range in price from $71/agent/month for a digital-only plan to $110/agent/month for an omnichannel contact center. Plans include:

• Digital Agent Plan ($71/user/month): Digital-only plan with 30+ digital communication channels, interaction recording/storage, dedicated supervisor and agent workspaces, basic reporting
• Voice Agent Plan ($94/agent/month): Voice-only plan with universal queue, concurrent interaction handing, IVR, voice recording/storage, basic reporting, dedicated agent and supervisor workspaces
• Omnichannel Agent Plan ($110/agent/month): Omnichannel plan with voice and digital blended omnichannel, routing, universal queue, concurrent interaction handing, voice and digital recording and searchable storage

The 4 NICE CXone advanced omnichannel plans with built-in WFM range from $135-$249/agent/month. Plans include:

• Essential Suite ($135/agent/month): Omnichannel Agent Plan plus agent screen recording for voice and digital interactions, quality management tools like evaluations and coaching, real-time omnichannel monitoring, advanced reporting
• Core Suite ($169/agent/month): Adds omnichannel AI forecasting and scheduling with auto approvals and adherence monitoring, advanced performance insights, 360-degree KPI monitoring with trend analysis
• Complete Suite ($209/agent/month): Monitors 100% of omnichannel interactions for AI powered conversational analytics, root cause and sentiment analysis, customer feedback, and CSAT monitoring
• Ultimate Suite ($249/agent/month): Single omnichannel AI platform with high-level workflow automation, customer journey optimization, advanced virtual agents, industry-specific AI with brand-specific guardrails and access

For more details, see our complete NICE CXone pricing guide.

NICE CXone vs Nextiva: Voice Calling and Text Messaging

Summary: NICE and Nextiva both offer unlimited local voice calling with smart call routing, call summaries, call recording, live transcription, and IVAs. NICE is the right choice for global teams looking to save on international calling rates, while Nextiva provides better toll-free calling.  Enterprises looking for fully automated customer self-service and outbound marketing via voice calling or texting should choose NICE, while small-medium teams that prefer to optimize live phone support and text with individual customers should opt for Nextiva.

While NICE and Nextiva are both primarily designed for digital-first businesses, they share a robust set of AI-powered VoIP calling features like IVR, smart routing, outbound auto dialers, real-time call transcription, and post-call summaries. Users of either platform can choose a voice-only or omnichannel package depending on their needs. Both provide unlimited local calling, but only Nextiva includes plans with a scalable number of monthly toll-free calling minutes. That said, NICE offers unlimited local calling in over 130 countries, while Nextiva users must pay a per-minute rate for international calling.

Call recording is restricted to Nextiva Small Business Engage users and above, while NICE includes call recording with all plans (except their digital-only package.) Still, both providers limit agent screen recording during live customer interactions to their enterprise solutions.

NICE CXone and Nextiva both include voice customer self-service options with Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVAs), auto attendants, skills-based routing, call queues, and ring groups. However, NICE comes out on top thanks to CX Smart Assist voicebots powered by Amelia AI. These voicebots are powerful enough to handle multi-intent inquiries while maintaining a natural, conversational tone.

Therefore, Nextiva is best for businesses aiming to reduce hold time for agent-led live phone support, while NICE is ideal for enterprises that want to fully automate phone support to better manage high call volumes.

All Nextiva Small Business Core plans and above include monthly bundled business text messages. The Small Business Engage plan includes customer-to-team texting, while the Small Business Power Suite unlocks unlimited SMS. NICE users have access to SMS and MMS on all plans. Unlike Nextiva, NICE offers agentless, bot-based customer self-service via texting. NICE supports up to 12 concurrent messaging sessions and includes routing, queuing, and bulk outbound SMS.

As with voice calling, NICE SMS is best for high-volume automated texting, particularly for marketing campaigns, appointment reminders, and customer surveys. Nextiva is the right choice for live 1:1 text message customer conversations, internal texting, and smaller group texts.

NICE CXone vs Nextiva: Digital Communication

Summary: Both providers offer competitive digital communications, but the right choice for your business depends on whether you prioritize social media and reputation management via Nextiva, or more advanced real-time digital communication and self-service via NICE. Unlike  NICE, Nextiva has native customer:agent video calling and CRM tools. However, NICE includes over 30 digital channels, live digital agent monitoring, and better proactive messaging tools.

Nextiva and NICE both provide live and automated website chat, social media messaging, email, online faxing, and additional digital channels. Nextiva, however, also includes native video calling–something NICE lacks.

The biggest difference between NICE vs Nextiva are their social media features. NICE and Nextiva integrate with multiple social platforms, offer automated and agent-led social messages, and make/monitor social posts. But unlike NICE, Nextiva includes advanced reputation management across multiple online review sites (TripAdvisor, Google, Yelp, etc.) and social media accounts. Nextiva streamlines all social messages into a unified inbox, has real-time review updates, and lets users respond in-dashboard.  Nextiva uses social listening for brand mention, trend, and competitor monitoring.

NICE can’t compete with Nextiva’s innovative built-in reputation and social media management tools. However, that’s less of a priority for businesses that don’t consider social media a primarily customer communication channel.

As with its voice features, Nextiva limits agent screen recording during digital customer interactions to Enterprise Professional plans, while NICE includes live agent screen monitoring and recording on all digital plans.

Both providers offer AI-powered chatbots that use CRM, knowledge base, and customer interaction data for 24/7 digital customer self-support. Unlike NICE, however, Nextiva has a native mini CRM tool, while NICE users must rely on third-party integrations.

NICE CXone vs Nextiva: Workforce Management

Summary: Nextiva and NICE include scalable WFM capabilities like performance management, automated agent scheduling, and omnichannel agent assist in all enterprise plans. Unlike NICE, Nextiva provides internal communication and collaboration tools like team chat and video calling. However, NICE has more advanced, AI-powered agent performance coaching and analytics than Nextiva–in addition to knowledge base management tools Nextiva lacks.

Nextiva and NICE CXone enterprise plans offer workforce management features like forecasting and scheduling, real-time adherence monitoring, live agent coaching, automated agent assist, performance gamification, agent scorecards. However, each provider approaches the idea of workforce management somewhat differently.

Unlike CXone, Nextiva includes internal collaboration and communication tools like video meetings, team chat messaging, file and screen sharing, and whiteboards. While call monitoring and omnichannel agent assist are available, Nextiva doesn’t offer the advanced in-call coaching tools that NICE does.

NICE WFM provides more customizable agent scorecards than Nextiva, includes real-time scoring and live supervisor alerts, and uses GenAI to give agents actionable, data-backed performance feedback in a chat GPT-like interface. That said, NICE does not include any team collaboration or UC features–meaning users must integrate third-party tools to access video calling, team chat, and more.

However, NICE has stronger forecasting methods than Nextiva, with a focus on long-term resource allocation. Unlike Nextiva, NICE leverages industry-specific AI to generate customer-facing knowledge base content from conversation transcripts and additional data.

NICE CXone vs Nextiva: Analytics and Reporting

Summary: Nextiva and NICE both leverage conversational AI for real-time and historical sentiment monitoring, intent analysis, and customer journey optimization. Both providers also offer more traditional KPI monitoring via custom and template-based reporting. Unlike Nextiva, NICE lets admins and agents get personalized insights and data-backed answers to specific questions via its Enlighten Actions tool. Nextiva’s AI analytics are strong, but simply not as powerful as NICE’s.

Though NICE CXone and Nextiva Enterprise solutions include conversational AI, custom KPI monitoring, and real-time performance alerts, NICE’s GenAI-powered insights give it the upper hand.

Both providers monitor 100% of omnichannel customer interactions to analyze trends in employee and customer sentiment and intent, distilling findings into interactive reports in several formats.

NICE’s Enlighten Actions tool, however, takes customization to the next level. Agents and admins can type questions into a GenAI-powered chatbot interface, receiving data-backed, personalized responses.

NICE CXone vs Nextiva: Third-Party Integrations

Summary: All NICE CXone plans include integrations with 140+ applications and over 400  custom APIs, while only Nextiva Enterprise includes access to just 15+ integrations and APIs. By contrast, all Nextiva Small Business users must pay add-on fees for APIs and CRM integrations. That said, unlike NICE CXone, Nextiva offers extensive social media and online review platform integrations on all plans.

Teams with extensive third-party integration and API needs should choose NICE CXone over Nextiva, while businesses that communicate with customers across multiple social media platforms and review sites are better served by Nextiva.

All NICE CXone plans include 140+ application integrations, 400+ APIs, and access to a thriving developer community. However, not all CXone plans provide the extensive social media and online review site integrations included on all Nextiva plans.

Still, Nextiva Small Business users must purchase the Core plan to access Microsoft Outlook and Google Contacts integrations, and upgrade to the Engage plan for Microsoft Teams integration. Further, Small Business users can only access Nextiva’s limited CRM integrations and APIs via paid add-ons. While all Enterprise plans include API access and 15+ third-party integrations, Nextiva simply can’t compete with NICE CXon’s extensive number of third-party integrations and APIs.

NICE CXone vs Nextiva: Which Should You Choose?

We recommend NICE CXone for enterprise-level contact centers needing extensive workflow automation, AI-powered omnichannel customer self-service, and conversation analytics that help businesses optimize both CX and employee performance.

We recommend Nextiva for small to medium hybrid businesses that need an omnichannel contact center platform with built-in unified communications for advanced team collaboration, scalability, and deep online reputation management tools.

NICE CXone is not right for small businesses, remote workforces heavily reliant on team collaboration tools, or teams looking for an intuitive CCaaS solution with an uncluttered user interface.

Nextiva is not right for global enterprises needing advanced performance monitoring and forecasting tools. It’s also not a good fit for small teams looking for an affordable, truly omnichannel CX solution with extensive third-party integrations and AI automation.

If NICE and Nextiva don’t suit your business needs, look into popular alternative CCaaS platforms like Genesys, Five9, 8x8, and Talkdesk.