Call center and contact center software
Call Center Software for Inbound, Outbound and AI Calls
What call center software does, what to test in a demo, how vendors charge, what 10 and 50 seats really cost, how to switch, and when DialerBee is the wrong choice.
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Quick answer
What is call center software? It is the system a team uses to handle customer calls at scale: it routes inbound calls through an IVR and queues to the right agent, dials outbound lists, gives agents a softphone desktop, records calls, and gives supervisors live monitoring, quality scoring and reports. Contact center software adds WhatsApp, SMS, email and chat. Most is now cloud-based and priced per agent per month, often with usage fees for minutes or AI on top.
The parts
What does call center software include, and what should you test?
Every vendor lists the same features. The difference shows when you test them on a live demo. Here are the thirteen parts that matter, the test that exposes a weak one, and what DialerBee has today.
| Component | What it does | What to check in a demo | In DialerBee |
|---|---|---|---|
| ACD queues and routing | Puts each inbound call in a queue and picks the agent who gets it. | Send a test call into a queue with nobody free. What does the caller hear, can they ask for a callback and keep their place, and what happens at max wait? | FIFO, round-robin, longest-idle or skills-based routing (per queue), queue priority, max wait, wrap-up time and an SLA target per queue. Callers can request a callback and keep their place. Inbound contact center → |
| IVR | The menu or call flow before a person answers. | Ask the vendor to change a menu option live in the demo. Can a caller finish a task (check a booking, choose a language) without an agent? | Visual IVR builder with 40 node types on Professional (basic flows on Starter): language select, booking self-service, WhatsApp deflect and AI nodes. IVR builder → |
| Outbound dialer modes | Places calls from a list and connects answered calls to agents. | Which modes come with the plan you are quoted? How is the abandon rate held down in predictive mode, and how are answering machines detected? | Preview, progressive, power and predictive (Starter has preview and power). AI answering machine detection in 11 languages on Professional; beep detection on Starter. Predictive dialer → |
| Agent desktop | The screen agents work from: softphone, customer details, scripts, dispositions. | Log in as an agent on an ordinary laptop with a headset. Take an inbound call and make an outbound one from the same screen. | WebRTC softphone in the browser, nothing to install, CRM iframe, branching call and chat scripts, agent states, and an installable app. Agent desktop → |
| Call recording | Records calls for quality, disputes and audits. | Find one call by phone number in under a minute. Ask how retention, legal hold and pausing during card details work. | Automatic recording, search, legal hold, retention of 30 days, 90 days or 1 year by plan, and recording pauses while a caller gives card details. Call recording → |
| QA and supervision | Scores calls and lets supervisors coach live. | Does QA cover every call or a sample? Can a supervisor listen, whisper and barge on a live call? | QA scorecards and AI scoring of every call. Listen, whisper and barge (listen only on Starter). QA scorecards → |
| Reports and wallboards | Live floor view and history. | Click a number on a report. Does it open the calls behind it? Can you export it for a client? | 15 report types, a live wallboard with agent states, and CSV, Excel and PDF export. Reports and insights → |
| Workforce management | Forecasts volume and schedules agents. | Is it included or a separate licence? Does it use the same queue data as your reports? | Shifts, time-off, schedule adherence and forecasting, in the same platform as your queues. Supervisor tools → |
| Omnichannel | Messages and calls handled in one place. | Open one customer and see calls and messages in one thread. Which channels are live today, and which are on a roadmap? | Voice, WhatsApp, SMS, email, web chat and Telegram in one inbox, with built-in ticketing (Professional and Enterprise). Omnichannel inbox → |
| CRM integration | Connects calls to customer records. | Connect your own CRM in the trial, not the vendor's demo CRM. What is written back after a call, and who maintains the connector? | Connectors for HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho, Pipedrive, Zendesk and Microsoft Dynamics (your own app credentials), Odoo and Freshworks (your own API key), plus a REST API and signed webhooks. Integrations → |
| AI voice agent and receptionist | AI that answers or places routine calls. | Ask for a person halfway through the call. Then check the booking the AI said it made is really in the calendar. | Layla, the AI voice agent, answers and places calls, books after a free-busy check and hands off to a human queue. $0.60 per started connected minute on managed AI. AI receptionist → |
| Compliance-supporting controls | Rules applied before a number is dialled. | Try to dial a number on your do-not-call list in the demo. What stops it, and where is that decision logged? | DNC checks, consent with revoke, calling hours per jurisdiction and time zone, frequency limits and CLI ownership, applied at the dial, with append-only audit logs. Compliance engine → |
| Security and admin | Who can sign in and see what. | Ask for the security status page and which certifications are held today versus planned. | Single sign-on (OIDC, SAML), SCIM, two-factor sign-in, IP allow-list, custom roles, PostgreSQL row-level tenant isolation. SOC 2 Type II is planned, not held. Trust center → |
Plan differences are on pricing. Compliance controls are compliance-supporting; DialerBee does not provide legal advice or guarantee regulatory compliance.
Inbound and outbound
Should inbound and outbound run on the same software?
Yes, if the same people do both. Two systems mean two logins, two sets of reports, two places where a do-not-call request has to be recorded, and agents sitting idle on one side while the other side has a queue.
On DialerBee one seat covers inbound queues and outbound campaigns. Agents take both from the same browser desktop, and numbers shown on outbound calls can receive calls back. With automatic blending switched on, agents move between inbound queues and outbound campaigns as traffic changes, across voice, SMS, WhatsApp, email and chat. Each company's admin chooses Off, Manual or Auto, allows or blocks it per queue, and has an emergency stop.
Outbound runs in four modes: preview, progressive, power and predictive. Inbound gets ACD queues with SLA targets, the IVR builder and missed-call recovery, so a caller nobody answers hears your own message and a manager gets an SMS with their number.
Deployment
Cloud, on-premises or built on an API: which model fits?
Two separate decisions: where the software runs, and who carries your calls. Settle both before comparing features.
| Cloud contact center (CCaaS) | On-premises | Built on a voice API (CPaaS) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Vendor runs the software; agents use a browser or app | Software on servers you buy and run | You assemble the contact center from programmable voice, messaging and AI APIs |
| Time to first call | Days, for a simple setup | Months: hardware, install, integration | Weeks to months of engineering |
| Who maintains it | The vendor | Your IT team | Your developers |
| Remote agents | Built in | Needs VPN and firewall work | Whatever you build |
| Cost shape | Monthly per seat, sometimes plus usage | Upfront licences and hardware, then support | Per minute and per message, plus engineering time |
| Choose it if | You want to run a contact center, not software | A regulator or contract requires data on hardware you own | Voice is part of your own product and you have engineers |
DialerBee is cloud contact center software. Deeper comparisons: cloud vs on-premise, build vs buy and single-tenant vs multi-tenant.
Who carries the calls? Three ways to connect DialerBee
DialerBee supplies the numbers and trunks
One vendor for software and carriage. Set up through sales, not self-serve sign-up.
Keep your PBX or SBC
Asterisk, 3CX, Cisco CUCM, Avaya or another standards-based system stays in place, and DialerBee adds campaigns, pacing, compliance controls, the agent desktop, supervision and reporting on top. No per-minute platform fee.
Bring your own SIP trunk (BYOC)
Use a carrier you already contract, at your negotiated rates. No per-minute platform fee; your carrier bills the minutes.
Recording, compliance controls, the agent desktop, supervisor tools, reporting and tenant isolation are the same on all three. See BYOC, BYOC vs bundled telecom and deployment options.
Pricing models
How much does call center software cost?
Vendors charge in three ways, often mixed: per agent seat, per minute of use, and usage add-ons for AI, numbers and extra features. Compare the full monthly bill, not the headline seat price.
Per agent seat
A fixed price per agent per month. Predictable, and cheapest when agents are busy all day. Watch for minimum seat counts, annual commitments, and features held back for higher tiers.
Per minute (pay as you go)
No seat fee; you pay for minutes used. Good for small or seasonal volume. Gets expensive for busy outbound floors, because every ring and every short call adds up.
Usage add-ons
AI minutes or interactions, phone numbers, carrier minutes, extra recording storage, WFM or QA licences, and setup services. This is where quotes that looked similar end up far apart.
Published prices in the market
From each vendor's own pricing page, checked October 2026. Plans include different features, so read this as price shape, not a like-for-like ranking.
| Vendor | Model | Published price | Choose them if |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aircall | Per licence, monthly or annual | Essentials $30 (annual) or $40 (monthly); Professional $50 (annual) or $66.67 (monthly) per licence per month; minimum 3 licences; Enterprise custom (source) | You are a small team that mainly needs a cloud business phone with call center basics. |
| Talkdesk | Per user, monthly | Digital Essentials $85, Voice Essentials $105, Elite $165, Industry Experience Clouds $225 per user per month (source) | You want a large, established CCaaS suite with industry-specific packages. |
| Amazon Connect | Pay per use, no seat fee | $0.038 per voice minute, with standard telephony rates on top (source) | Your team already builds on AWS and wants to pay only for minutes used. |
| DialerBee | Per agent seat; AI voice agent by usage | Starter $69, Professional $129 per agent per month, Enterprise custom; annual billing saves 20%; no per-minute platform fees; AI voice agent $0.60 per started connected minute on managed AI | You run inbound and outbound together, want your own carrier, or need multilingual AI and Arabic dialects in the same platform. |
What per-minute pricing looks like at volume (illustrative). On Amazon Connect's published $0.038 per voice minute, 10 agents each talking 5 hours a day for 22 days use 66,000 minutes: 66,000 × $0.038 = $2,508 a month, before telephony. The same team on DialerBee Professional is 10 × $129 = $1,290 a month, before carrier minutes. At low volume the per-minute model wins; at full-time volume, seats usually do. Test your own pattern with per-agent vs per-minute pricing and the real cost of per-minute pricing.
Worked examples
What do 10 and 50 seats cost a month on DialerBee?
Published prices, every input shown. Carrier minutes are billed by your carrier and taxes are excluded in both.
10 seats: a small inbound and outbound team
Ten agents answering a support line and calling back leads. Optional: an AI receptionist takes 400 after-hours calls a month at 2 minutes each.
| Starter: 10 × $69 | $690 |
| Starter, billed annually (20% less) | $552 |
| Professional: 10 × $129 | $1,290 |
| Professional, billed annually (20% less) | $1,032 |
| Optional AI: 400 × 2 = 800 min × $0.60 | $480 |
| Professional monthly + AI | $1,770 |
Which plan? Starter has inbound queues, basic IVR, preview and power dialing, beep-detection AMD, 30-day recording retention and listen-only supervision. Choose Professional if you need predictive dialing, AI AMD, the omnichannel inbox, QA scorecards, full listen, whisper and barge, or the AI voice agent, which is not on Starter.
50 seats: a BPO or collections floor
Fifty agents across inbound queues and predictive campaigns. Starter stops at 20 agents, so this is Professional. Optional: AI places 4,000 reminder calls a month at 2 minutes each.
| Professional: 50 × $129 | $6,450 |
| Professional, billed annually (20% less) | $5,160 |
| Platform minute fees | $0 |
| Optional AI: 4,000 × 2 = 8,000 min × $0.60 | $4,800 |
| Professional monthly + AI | $11,250 |
Professional covers up to 100 agents. Enterprise (custom price) adds the operations center, white-label, multi-tenant management, 1-year recording retention and a 99.95% uptime SLA, which a BPO serving several clients may need.
Examples, not quotes; AI minutes are billed per started connected minute. Not sure you need 10 or 50 seats? Size the team first with the Erlang C calculator, because staffing for a service level is not linear. More examples on pricing.
Small teams
What is the best call center software for a small business?
Start from what your callers need, not from a feature list. Three common cases:
- You mostly miss calls. An AI receptionist or missed-call recovery may solve it with one or two seats. If you would rather not set up a trunk, we set up the number for you.
- A few people share one line. A cloud business phone with ring groups is enough. Do not pay for dialers and QA you will not use.
- You run queues, call lists or both. That is call center software. Look for per-seat pricing with no minimum, a browser softphone, and a trial you can run on your own numbers. DialerBee Starter fits teams up to 20 agents.
The mistakes small teams make most: signing an annual contract before a trial on real calls, buying seats for everyone instead of sizing for peak traffic, and ignoring carrier costs because they arrive on a different bill.
AI in call center software
Where does AI fit?
AI now does two jobs in call center software: it talks to customers (an AI voice agent that answers, books and hands off), and it helps your team (AI answering machine detection, live transcription and assist, and automatic scoring of every call). It works in 11 languages, with Arabic handled as dialects, including Gulf, Levantine and Egyptian.
Which calls to automate, how to measure it and a 30-day rollout are covered in AI call center software.
Clinic questions and a callback
English · inbound · 70 seconds
AI voice agent demo — simulated caller. Production voice; synthetic caller; fictional business.
Also in Jordanian Arabic: Arabic AI voice agent. Read the transcripts.
Shortlist
How do you choose call center software? Ten questions
Ask every vendor on your shortlist the same questions, in writing.
- 1
What is the full monthly bill for our seat count?
Seats, minutes, numbers, AI usage, storage, add-on licences and setup, for your volumes. Ask for it as one number.
- 2
Can we keep our carrier and numbers?
Is there a per-minute platform fee on calls over our own trunk? Is any feature lost when we bring our own?
- 3
Which features are in the plan you quoted?
Predictive dialing, AI, omnichannel and QA are often in a higher tier than the price on the website.
- 4
Can one agent take inbound and outbound calls on one seat?
And is blending automatic or manual?
- 5
What happens to a caller when nobody is free, or after hours?
Hear it on the demo, not in a slide.
- 6
How are calling rules enforced?
DNC, consent, calling hours and frequency limits: applied at the dial, and logged where?
- 7
Which CRM do you connect to natively, and who maintains it?
Test with your CRM, not a demo one.
- 8
What is held today versus planned?
Certifications, channels and AI features. Ask for the status page and the changelog.
- 9
How long are recordings kept, and can we export everything if we leave?
Retention per plan, legal hold, and export formats.
- 10
Can we pilot on real calls before signing an annual contract?
A trial on your own numbers beats any reference call.
The full vendor-neutral list is the contact center RFP checklist. Running a BPO? See choosing contact center software for a BPO. Then agree which call center KPIs you will judge the pilot on.
Switching
How do you migrate to new call center software?
Move one slice at a time, keep your carrier and numbers where they are, and switch the old system off last.
Week 1
Inventory
- List every number, where it routes, and every queue, IVR and campaign
- Export a month of volumes, handle times and abandon rates as your baseline
- Note which CRM fields agents need on screen
- Write down your calling rules: hours, DNC lists, consent sources
Week 2
Connect and rebuild
- Connect your SIP trunk or PBX (BYOC), so numbers and carrier stay where they are
- Rebuild queues and IVR flows; take the chance to remove menu options nobody uses
- Import contacts with DNC scrubbing and set dispositions
- Connect your CRM with your own credentials
Week 3
Pilot one slice
- Move one queue or one campaign on one trunk, with a small group of agents
- Supervisors listen live; agents use the role guide inside the console
- Compare the pilot with your baseline every day
- Keep the old system running for everything else
Week 4+
Cut over and switch off
- Move the remaining queues and campaigns in groups, not all at once
- Re-point numbers in bulk from the DID inventory
- Keep recordings from the old system for as long as your retention rules require
- Cancel the old contract only after a full month on the new one
Training is included: Agent, Supervisor, Admin and Super Admin guides ship inside the console. More detail in how to migrate to a new dialer, setting up an inbound queue and the VICIdial migration guide.
Honest fit
Who should not choose DialerBee?
DialerBee fits teams that run inbound and outbound together, want their own carrier, or need multilingual AI. It is the wrong choice if any of these is a must-have.
You must install the software on your own servers
DialerBee is cloud-native. If you need an on-premises install, choose an on-premises product. (You can keep your own PBX and carrier, but the DialerBee platform itself is hosted.)
You need a SOC 2 Type II report today
It is planned, not held. If your procurement requires the report before signing, wait or choose a vendor that holds it.
You want numbers and minutes bundled in an online sign-up
Self-serve sign-up needs your own SIP trunk or PBX. If you want DialerBee to provide the numbers, that goes through sales.
You are two or three people who just need a phone line
Queues, dialer modes and QA are more than you need. A cloud business phone system will be simpler and cheaper.
You need several AI voices, or a male AI voice
The AI voice agent speaks with one voice, Layla (female). Human agents are not affected.
You need Instagram or Messenger in the inbox today
They are available through BroadNet OmniChannel, but the connection into the DialerBee inbox is still rolling out.
You want the largest app marketplace
DialerBee has native CRM connectors, a REST API and webhooks, but a younger ecosystem than the oldest suites.
Security status, implemented and planned, is on the trust center.
Questions
Call center software FAQ
What is call center software?
What is a call center system?
What is the difference between call center and contact center software?
How much does call center software cost?
What is the best call center software for a small business?
Can one system handle inbound and outbound calls?
Do I need special phones or servers?
How long does it take to set up?
Does call center software take care of calling regulations?
Test the checklist on a live demo
Bring your seat count, your channels and your carrier. We will run an inbound call through a queue, an outbound campaign, a supervisor whisper and the reports afterwards, in English or Arabic, and price it for your floor.
Explore further
AI call center
Which calls to give an AI agent, how to measure it and roll it out.
Contact center RFP checklist
The full vendor-neutral question list.
Erlang C calculator
Work out how many agents, and so seats, you need.
26 call center KPIs
Formulas and pitfalls for the numbers you will report.
Per-agent vs per-minute pricing
Which pricing model costs less for your call pattern.
BYOC vs bundled telecom
Keep your carrier or buy minutes from the vendor.
Deployment options
Our numbers, your PBX, or your SIP trunk.
Migrating to a new dialer
A step-by-step move without losing a day of calls.