Aircall vs RingCentral: Key Differences Every Business Should Know

December 23, 2025

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Aircall vs RingCentral: How a Customer Support Team Picked Their Next Phone System

When a 42-person software company in Austin needed to replace their aging phone system, the customer support director faced a problem. Her team handled over 3,000 calls monthly across three time zones, but calls were dropping, voicemail transcriptions failed regularly, and nobody could tell which agents were actually available.

The director narrowed her search to two platforms: Aircall and RingCentral. Both promised better call routing and CRM integrations, but the differences mattered more than she expected.

Why the Team Considered Both Platforms

Aircall specializes in cloud-based call center software designed for sales and support teams. Founded in 2014, the platform focuses on simplicity—teams can set up call flows without IT help. Most customers are small to mid-sized businesses looking for straightforward phone tools that connect to their existing CRM.

RingCentral, founded earlier and significantly larger, offers unified communications as a service (UCaaS). That means voice calls, video meetings, team messaging, and SMS all live in one system. The company serves everyone from 5-person startups to enterprise clients with thousands of users.

The Austin team leaned toward Aircall initially because it seemed easier. But RingCentral’s all-in-one approach raised a question: would consolidating tools save more time than keeping things simple?

Pricing Told Part of the Story

Aircall’s entry-level plan started at $30 per user per month, billed annually. It included call routing, basic analytics, and integrations with tools like Salesforce and HubSpot. Higher tiers added power dialing and advanced reporting, but the company required a three-user minimum.

RingCentral’s RingCX contact center solution started at $65 per user per month annually, with no minimum user requirement. While pricier per seat, it bundled video conferencing and team messaging—features the Austin team currently paid for separately through Zoom and Slack.

The director ran the numbers. If RingCentral replaced three separate subscriptions, the effective cost difference narrowed to about $8 per user monthly. For a team already juggling multiple logins, that felt manageable.

Feature Gaps Became Deciding Factors

Both platforms handled call routing well.

Aircall Smart Routing: Sent calls based on agent availability and skill tags.
RingCentral intelligent call distribution: Offered similar routing with more granular controls.

The integration story diverged quickly.

Aircall: Supported over 200 integrations, covering most popular CRMs and help desk tools like Zendesk and Freshdesk.
RingCentral: Included around 300–400 integrations, extending beyond customer service into project management, HR platforms, and analytics tools the company already used.

Video conferencing marked the clearest difference.

Aircall didn’t offer video—teams needed a separate tool.
RingCentral’s Intelligent Meetings app supported up to 200 participants, breakout rooms, screen sharing, and AI-generated meeting summaries.

The support director realized her team could finally host customer training sessions without switching platforms.

RingCentral also delivered AI capabilities across calls, video, SMS, and messaging. Aircall’s AI focused on voice calls only, offering transcriptions and call sentiment analysis but nothing for other channels.

Reliability and Setup Experience

RingCentral operated over 30 global data centers with 99.999% uptime, compared to Aircall’s 99.99% uptime across seven centers. The difference translated to about five additional minutes of potential downtime per year for Aircall—not catastrophic, but noticeable for a team handling urgent customer issues.

Setup complexity varied between the platforms.

Aircall setup: The interface prioritized speed. The director could configure call flows, add team members, and connect the CRM in under two hours without technical support.
RingCentral setup: Required more initial configuration, especially when setting up video and messaging alongside voice, but the platform provided detailed guides and responsive chat support.

For mobile workers, both apps performed well, though the Austin team appreciated accessing video and messaging through RingCentral’s single mobile app rather than toggling between tools.

How the Decision Played Out

After a two-week trial of each platform, the director chose RingCentral. The deciding factor wasn’t features—it was consolidation.

By eliminating separate video and messaging subscriptions, the company reduced software costs by 18% while gaining better call analytics and
AI-powered meeting tools.

Within three months, the support team reported 22% faster average handle times, largely due to CRM screen pops and call transcriptions that eliminated note-taking during calls. Video meetings with customers increased 40% because agents no longer needed to schedule through another platform.

However, the team acknowledged tradeoffs:

Two newer agents found RingCentral’s interface overwhelming at first, requiring extra training time.
One agent still preferred Aircall’s cleaner design during the trial period.

Choosing Based on Actual Needs

When Aircall Makes More Sense

Aircall works best for teams prioritizing simplicity and call-focused workflows. Its strength lies in fast deployment and CRM-centric features like power dialing and smart routing that support high-volume sales or support operations.

Teams satisfied with their current video and messaging tools may not need RingCentral’s broader platform.

When RingCentral Is the Better Fit

RingCentral suits businesses ready to consolidate communication tools or planning significant growth. Its comprehensive feature set—spanning voice, video, messaging, and SMS—supports complex workflows across departments, not just customer-facing teams.

The platform’s 300–400 integrations and enterprise-grade reliability make it scalable as companies expand.

Test Both Against Real Workflows

For the Austin support team, the right choice emerged from testing both systems against real workflows rather than comparing feature lists. The consolidation benefits and AI tools justified RingCentral’s learning curve, but another team might reasonably choose Aircall’s focused simplicity.

Both platforms offer free trials—the clearest way to see which system actually fits your team’s daily reality.