The Best VanillaSoft Alternatives for Sales Teams in 2026

You just pulled up VanillaSoft's renewal invoice and you're doing math. Five seats, annual commitment, add-ons you forgot you were paying for - and your reps still need a separate CRM to manage their pipeline. The tool does one thing well (queue-based dialing), but the rest of the experience feels stuck in 2018.

If you're shopping for VanillaSoft alternatives, you're not alone.

VanillaSoft isn't a bad product. It carries a 4.5/5 on G2 across 592 reviews, and insurance and fundraising teams genuinely love the queue-based routing. The company claims a 35% increase in call connections and 3x more actions per hour - and for pure queue-based dialing, those numbers are believable. But a July 2025 G2 review captures why you're here: "Only allows you to work one lead at a time... very limited customization to manage pipelines and workflows... too expensive to justify the cost."

That reviewer isn't wrong. Let's find you something better.

Our Picks (TL;DR)

Your new dialer is only as good as the numbers you feed it. Half-disconnected contact lists will tank your connect rates regardless of which platform you pick - especially if you’re not using verified direct dials.

What VanillaSoft Actually Costs

VanillaSoft doesn't publish pricing. You have to book a demo, which is frustrating when you're trying to compare options quickly. Based on competitor analyses and community discussions, here's the best estimate:

There's also a Fundraising-specific tier and custom plans for niche verticals. All plans require annual contracts and include the first five seats as a bundle, so your minimum commitment is roughly $2,940-$7,740/year before you add a single extra rep. G2 data shows an average 7% discount on VanillaSoft contracts - worth asking for if you're still negotiating.

But the sticker price isn't the full story. VanillaSoft's hidden fees add up fast:

A 10-person team on the Advantage plan with moderate international calling and recording storage can easily hit $12,000-$15,000/year. That's real money for a tool that still requires a secondary CRM.

Why Teams Switch from VanillaSoft

The G2 reviews tell a consistent story. Six complaint themes come up over and over:

• One lead at a time. VanillaSoft's queue-based system pushes one record at a time. Great for preventing cherry-picking, terrible for reps who need to multi-task or revisit leads mid-session. "Only allows you to work one lead at a time" - G2, July 2025.

• You still need a separate CRM. This is the big one. VanillaSoft handles lead routing and dialing, but it's not a real CRM. "Must be used in conjunction with a secondary CRM and too limited to be considered an all-in-one product" - G2, July 2025. One SalesRoads client called it "an older, less modern CRM" that "created a lot of extra work with regard to passing data back and forth" between systems.

• Dated interface. The UI hasn't kept pace with modern sales tools. Reps coming from Salesforce or HubSpot feel like they've stepped back a decade.

• Limited reporting. Custom dashboards are either locked behind higher tiers or just not flexible enough for RevOps teams who need granular pipeline visibility.

• Text deliverability issues. SMS campaigns underperform compared to dedicated messaging platforms, and deliverability is inconsistent across carriers.

• Expensive for what it offers. Even fans acknowledge the pricing. A 5-star G2 review from April 2025 praised SmartCaller ID but noted "it is a bit pricey." When your advocates are saying that, you've got a pricing problem.

Dialer Types Explained (60-Second Primer)

Before you evaluate alternatives, know what you're shopping for. Not every dialer works the same way, and picking the wrong type will either slow your team down or burn through your list too fast.

One stat worth knowing: local presence dialing - where your caller ID shows a local area code - increases pickup rates by 47%. If your current tool doesn't offer it, that's a feature gap worth closing.

VanillaSoft uses a progressive auto-dialer with queue-based lead routing. The closest replacements are power dialers (PhoneBurner, Kixie) or all-in-one platforms that bundle dialing with prospecting (Apollo).

The Best Tools to Replace VanillaSoft in 2026

PhoneBurner - Best Power Dialer Replacement

Use this if: You want the closest 1:1 replacement for VanillaSoft's queue-based workflow with zero lag between calls and unlimited dialing included in every plan.

Skip this if: You need a prospecting database or you're trying to spend under $100/user/month.

PhoneBurner is the tool I'd point most VanillaSoft teams toward first. The power dialer eliminates the pause between calls that plagues cheaper alternatives, and the built-in CRM means you don't need Salesforce or HubSpot running alongside it. ARMOR spam protection actively monitors and remediates your caller ID reputation - something VanillaSoft's SmartCaller tries to do, but PhoneBurner's 4.7/5 G2 rating (276 reviews) suggests they're doing it better.

Where VanillaSoft still wins: VanillaSoft's queue-based routing prevents cherry-picking more effectively than PhoneBurner's open queue. If you manage a team where reps will skip "hard" leads given the choice, that forced routing has real value.

All plans include unlimited calling. No per-minute charges, no pooled minutes. 3,000+ customers use it, and the sweet spot is mid-sized teams (5-30 reps) doing high-volume outbound in insurance, solar, or home services.

Verdict: More expensive than VanillaSoft per seat, but you're getting a real CRM included. Total cost of ownership is often lower.

Apollo.io - Best All-in-One Value

Use this if: You want prospecting, email sequences, and a dialer in one platform - and you don't want to pay for three separate tools.

Skip this if: You need enterprise-grade phone quality or your team dials 200+ calls/day per rep. Apollo's dialer is functional, not best-in-class.

Apollo is the obvious starting point for SMB teams that need everything in one place. The database covers 275M+ contacts across 73M+ companies, and the auto-dialer unlocks on the Professional plan at $79/user/month. With a 4.7/5 G2 rating across 8,900+ reviews, it's the most-reviewed sales tool in the category.

The tradeoff: Apollo's email bounce rates can hit 15-20% on some segments, and mobile numbers for mid-market and enterprise contacts are unreliable. The dialer works, but it's not a PhoneBurner-level experience. You're buying Apollo for the breadth - prospecting, sequencing, and dialing in one tab - not for dialer depth. If you want a deeper breakdown, see our notes on Apollo.io accuracy.

Where VanillaSoft still wins: VanillaSoft's progressive dialer is faster to deploy and simpler to manage than Apollo's multi-tool setup. If your team only needs to dial and doesn't need a prospecting database, Apollo adds complexity you won't use.

Verdict: Best value in the category. A 5-person SDR team on Professional runs about $7,140/year with typical credit overages. That's less than VanillaSoft's Advantage tier, and you're getting a prospecting database included.

JustCall - Best Budget Dialer

Here's what $29-$89/month buys you at JustCall compared to VanillaSoft's $49-$129 range:

That Pro Plus tier at $89 gives you AI call scoring, real-time agent assist, and sentiment analysis - features VanillaSoft doesn't offer at any price. And the Pro plan at $49 matches VanillaSoft's Core tier price while adding a real power dialer.

100+ CRM integrations mean it'll plug into whatever you're already running. G2 rating: 4.3/5 across 2,338 reviews. The complaints tend to be about edge-case features rather than core dialing quality.

Verdict: The best dialer you can get for under $50/user/month. Period.

CloudTalk - Best for International Teams

I watched a team try to run European outbound on VanillaSoft last year. International calling fees ate their budget alive, and they had no local presence numbers outside the US. They switched to CloudTalk in two weeks and cut their per-dial cost by 60%.

CloudTalk offers local numbers in 160+ countries - nearly 2.5x Kixie's coverage. The power dialer and smart dialer unlock on the Expert plan at $49/user/month, and there's a Lite plan at EUR19/user/month for teams that only need US/Canada and LATAM coverage.

4,000+ customers worldwide. G2 rating: 4.4/5. The interface is clean, setup is fast, and reporting is genuinely better than VanillaSoft's out of the box.

Verdict: If your team dials outside North America, CloudTalk is the default answer. If you're US-only and budget-constrained, the Lite plan at EUR19 is hard to beat.

Kixie - Best CRM-Embedded Dialer

Highest-rated tool on this list at 4.8/5 on G2 (849 reviews) - and there's a reason. Kixie doesn't try to be a CRM or a prospecting platform. It does one thing: make your existing CRM a dialing machine.

The Multi-Line PowerDialer dials up to 10 lines simultaneously, and the ConnectionBoost feature delivers up to 500% improvement in connection rates by rotating through verified local numbers. The AI Human Detection add-on ($30/month) filters out voicemails and automated systems before connecting your rep - a genuine time-saver for high-volume teams. 5,000+ revenue teams use it.

Pricing isn't published - you have to start a 7-day free trial to see numbers. Based on market positioning, expect ~$35-$95/user/month depending on the tier.

The catch: Kixie covers 65 countries (vs. CloudTalk's 160+), and support is limited to US business hours (7 AM-5 PM PST). If you're running a distributed team across time zones, that's a real limitation.

Verdict: The best dialer for teams that live inside Salesforce or HubSpot. Just be prepared to negotiate pricing blind.

Aloware - Unlimited Calling for SMBs

Use this if: You're an SMB team doing high-volume US/Canada calling and you want unlimited minutes without per-call charges.

Skip this if: G2 reviews make you nervous - Aloware's 4.1/5 rating (822 reviews) is the lowest on this list, and the sentiment is polarized. Some users love it; others call it a "complete waste of time."

Pricing starts at $30/user/month (quarterly billing) for the iPro plan with unlimited US/CA calling. The power dialer unlocks on uPro at $60/user/month. Local Presence is a $300/month add-on, which stings compared to tools that include it. Minimum user requirements vary: 10 users on iPro, 5 on uPro and xPro. That means your minimum annual spend on the cheapest plan is $3,600/year (10 users x $30 x 12).

Verdict: Good value if you're a 10+ person team doing US-only outbound. Test thoroughly before committing - the mixed reviews aren't random.

Salesloft - Enterprise Sales Engagement

Use this if: You're a 20+ rep org that needs cadences, conversation intelligence, AI-driven forecasting, and a dialer - and you have the budget for it.

Skip this if: You're under 20 reps. Salesloft is overkill for small teams, and the dialer isn't even included by default.

Salesloft runs two tiers: Advanced and Premier. Pricing isn't public, but expect $75-$125/user/month for Advanced and $125-$165/user/month for Premier based on community discussions. The Conversations feature (call recording + AI summaries) is genuinely excellent, and the G2 rating of 4.5/5 across 4,145 reviews reflects a mature, well-supported product.

Dialer add-on options:

• Unlimited Talk & Text (North America) - bundled add-on
• Unlimited Talk Europe - separate add-on
• LocalDial numbers - $1/number/month

Budget accordingly - a 25-person team on Advanced with the dialer add-on can easily hit $30,000-$40,000/year.

Verdict: The right tool for enterprise sales engagement. The wrong tool for a 5-person team that just needs to make more calls.

Outreach - Enterprise with Heavy Implementation

Use this if: You're already in the Outreach ecosystem or your org mandates it.

Skip this if: You value fast deployment, flexible CRM integrations, or spending under $100/user/month.

Outreach starts at $100/user/month with annual contracts only - no monthly billing. Implementation fees run $1,000-$8,000, and the platform only integrates with 5 CRMs. The learning curve is steep, and customer support is a consistent complaint on G2. Rating: 4.3/5 (3,479 reviews).

Verdict: Powerful but heavy. If you're switching from VanillaSoft because it felt rigid, Outreach will feel even more rigid - just with better features once you're through the 3-month implementation.

HubSpot Sales Hub - A CRM, Not a Dialer (Warning)

Every list of VanillaSoft competitors recommends HubSpot. Here's why it doesn't actually replace VanillaSoft.

HubSpot Sales Hub pricing looks attractive: $15-$20/seat/month for Starter, $100 for Professional, $150 for Enterprise. But the calling experience is fundamentally different from a dedicated dialer. Calling minutes are pooled across your entire account - Starter gets 500 minutes/month total. For a 20-person team, that's 25 minutes per rep. Per month.

There's no power dialer. No voicemail drop. No local presence dialing. Calling runs on Twilio infrastructure with known jitter and latency issues. Automated SMS requires purchasing Marketing Hub Professional ($890/month) plus an SMS add-on. Mandatory onboarding fees run $1,500-$3,500.

G2 rating: 4.4/5 (12,896 reviews) - but those reviews are for the CRM, not the dialer. HubSpot is an excellent CRM. It's a terrible VanillaSoft replacement.

Verdict: Buy HubSpot for CRM. Pair it with Kixie, JustCall, or CloudTalk for dialing.

Honorable Mentions

Close ($29-$139/user/month) - CRM with a built-in power dialer, which directly solves VanillaSoft's "needs a secondary CRM" problem. G2 rating: 4.7/5 (1,200+ reviews). Worth a hard look if you want pipeline management and dialing in one tool without Apollo's prospecting complexity.

Freshsales ($9-$59/user/month) - Budget CRM with a built-in phone. Good for tiny teams that need calling and pipeline management in one tool. Not a serious dialer for high-volume outbound.

Orum (~$100-$200/user/month) - Parallel dialer built for high-volume SDR teams. If your reps need to make hundreds of dials per hour, Orum is the category leader.

Nooks (~$100-$200/user/month) - AI-powered parallel dialer combining parallel dialing with AI-driven call routing and virtual sales floors. Worth evaluating if you're building a 20+ SDR org.

Aircall (~$30/user/month) - Call center focused. Better for support and inbound than outbound sales. Strong routing and IVR features if you're doing customer success calls alongside sales.

Master Comparison Table

Every tool side by side, sorted by starting price:

The Data Problem Nobody Talks About

Here's the thing: the dialer you pick matters less than the data you feed it. I've seen teams upgrade from VanillaSoft to PhoneBurner and see zero improvement in connect rates - because they migrated the same stale list with the same disconnected numbers.

Your SDR manager pulls the call report. Half the numbers are disconnected. A third of the emails bounced. Your reps spent the morning dialing dead numbers and your domain reputation took a hit from bad email data.

One customer saw bounce rates drop from 35% to under 4% after switching to verified data - and their pipeline tripled. The math is simple: if 20% of your contact list is bad data, you're wasting 20% of your dialing time. Fix the upstream problem first. If you need a process, start with an email verification list SOP.

Which VanillaSoft Alternative Should You Pick?

The right tool depends on three things: team size, budget, and what you're actually trying to do.

By team size:

• Under 5 reps: Apollo.io (free tier to start, upgrade as you grow) or JustCall ($29/user/month for real power dialing without enterprise overhead).
• 5-20 reps: PhoneBurner if dialing is your primary activity. Kixie if your reps live in Salesforce. CloudTalk if you're dialing internationally.
• 20+ reps: Salesloft or Outreach for full sales engagement. Pair with Orum or Nooks for parallel dialing at scale.

By budget:

• Under $50/user/month: CloudTalk (Starter at $25), JustCall (Pro at $49), or Apollo Professional ($79 - but the prospecting database replaces a separate tool, so net cost is lower).
• $50-$100/user/month: Kixie or Aloware for dedicated dialing. Salesloft Advanced if you can negotiate.
• $100+/user/month: PhoneBurner for pure dialing power. Salesloft Premier or Outreach for enterprise engagement.

By use case:

• Insurance or fundraising: PhoneBurner or JustCall. These verticals need compliant, high-volume dialing with recording and scripting - both deliver.
• SaaS SDR teams: Apollo (prospecting + dialing) or Kixie (CRM-embedded dialing paired with a separate data source).
• International outbound: CloudTalk. 160+ countries, no contest.

Before you migrate: Export your VanillaSoft contacts and run them through a verification tool to clean emails and find direct dials. Email data decays at roughly 30% per year - if your list is even 12 months old, a third of it is probably dead. Verify before you import into your new tool. Starting clean saves you weeks of frustration - especially if you’re dealing with B2B contact data decay.

One more thing: check your VanillaSoft contract for early termination fees before you commit. Annual contracts often have penalties, and you don't want to pay for two platforms simultaneously.

FAQ

Can I export my data from VanillaSoft?

Yes - VanillaSoft allows CSV exports of your lead data. Emails decay at ~30% per year, so a list sitting in VanillaSoft for 12+ months will have significant bounce risk. Run your exports through a bulk verification service to clean bad emails and find updated direct dials before importing into your new platform.

What type of dialer does VanillaSoft use?

VanillaSoft uses a progressive auto-dialer with queue-based lead routing that pushes the next best record to reps automatically. The closest replacements are PhoneBurner (power dialer with built-in CRM, zero lag between calls) and Kixie (multi-line power dialer with deep CRM integration). Both offer more dialing modes than VanillaSoft's progressive-only approach.

Are there free alternatives to VanillaSoft?

Apollo.io offers a free tier with 10,000 email credits and 5 mobile credits - enough to test prospecting and basic dialing. CloudTalk's Lite plan starts at EUR19/user/month for US/Canada coverage. For contact data, Prospeo's free tier gives you 75 verified emails per month to start building clean lists without a credit card.

Do I need a separate CRM with these alternatives?

Apollo.io, PhoneBurner, Close, and Freshsales include built-in CRM functionality - no separate system needed. Salesloft, Outreach, CloudTalk, JustCall, Kixie, and Aloware require a separate CRM but integrate natively with Salesforce, HubSpot, and Pipedrive. If avoiding a secondary CRM was your biggest frustration with VanillaSoft, Apollo or PhoneBurner should top your list.

How long does it take to switch from VanillaSoft?

Most dialer migrations take 1-2 weeks covering data export, import, number porting, and team training. Number porting - transferring existing phone numbers to a new provider - can take 5-10 business days depending on the carrier. Check your contract for early termination fees; annual agreements often carry penalties of 50-100% of remaining contract value.