8 Mitel alternatives that won’t break the bank

Looking at business phone systems, but not sold on Mitel yet?

You’re in the right place. In this breakdown, we’ll look at some of the top Mitel alternatives when it comes to overall business communications. We’ll look at different cloud phone systems and cloud communications providers that give you not only VoIP calling, but also team chat, video calling, and even contact center functionality.

Whether you’re considering moving on from your old Mitel on-premises phone system (or even your MiCloud Connect cloud-based one, since it’s at its “end of life” as of June 2022), you’ll find a shortlist below of some of the best cloud communications platforms that could be a better option than Mitel—and many are at small business-friendly prices too.

Let’s take a look at these top Mitel alternatives.

What is Mitel?

Mitel falls under the category of a “legacy” enterprise unified communications hardware and software. It has a rich history in the business dating all the way back to the 1970s when it madeit name providing on-premises PBX phone systems, including landline phone service, desk phones and handsets, and also on-premises call center hardware and services.

Over the years, Mitel has tried to make moves into the cloud PBX and hosted call center space. In 2013, they acquired a contact center company called prairieFyre, which is still the basis for their contact center solution today.

In 2017, they announced the acquisition of another traditional provider of on-premises and cloud-based PBX solutions, ShoreTel, with the goal of absorbing ShoreTel’s cloud-based functionality—which they quickly renamed MiCloud Connect (although existing ShoreTel customers still used these services under the old name).

But Mitel then announced that they’ll no longer sell the MiCloud Connect product as of June 2022, and is pulling back all of its innovation and research around cloud-based business phone systems—while opting to let another company transition their own legacy customers to the cloud. (More on this later.)

Long story short, Mitel’s business model today is still very much based in older legacy on-premises software—and while they did have a lot of success over the years in that space, their platform just isn’t designed for transitioning its users to a cloud phone system environment (as you can see from the types of acquisitions they’ve made).

Key weaknesses: Why businesses would look for a Mitel alternative

There are a few reasons why businesses are gravitating away from Mitel, and as you might’ve guessed, they’re mostly related to the disadvantages of an on-premises phone system.

You want to future-proof your business

The communications platforms of today, and going forward, are nearly 100% cloud-based. These platforms are built on a modern multi-tenant (and sometimes multi-cloud) architecture, with a microservices approach that allows for near-instant updates to individual services without any system downtime.

If you plan to grow your business in the near future, what happens when you need to hire tens, or hundreds, of new employees? What if you’re expanding into new countries or territories, and need to purchase a lot of new phone numbers? Can your phone system support those evolving business needs?

Because of the rigidity of on-premises solutions like Mitel, the answer to this is likely no (or yes, but it’d be very difficult and time-consuming).

You have a digital transformation strategy

According to IDG, a whopping 89% of companies have already adopted a digital-first business strategy or have plans to do so. This means things like using a softphone or mobile app instead of a desk phone, and using cloud-based applications like Salesforce, Google Workspace, or Microsoft 365.

If at this stage in the game, you still haven’t migrated your business phone system to the cloud and integrated it into the cloud apps your team is already using, then you’re a bit behind the ball on your digital transformation strategy—and Mitel won’t get you there.

Maintaining your phone system has gotten too expensive

For many Mitel users, they have a piece of hardware or server rack in their company phone closet called a PBX (Private Branch Exchange), which is connected via Ethernet cable or landline to the desk phones in their office. But this antiquated way of delivering voice services doesn’t really cut it in today’s business environment.

On-premises phone systems like Mitel are a capital expenditure in IT budgets. This means there’s a large rollout cost for hardware, installation or Professional Services, telephony infrastructure and desk phones. Upgrades to on-premises systems tend to come every few years and can be costly to purchase and implement, with many companies putting off upgrades for years and using outdated software.

If you’re thinking of your phone system as a business expense rather than a revenue generator (which it 100% can be), then it might be time to look at a cloud-based or business VoIP service solution.

On a related note, good business phone systems don’t just do phone calls anymore—today, most businesses have moved (or are moving) toward cloud-based communications platforms that give you messaging, video conferencing, and even contact center functionality in addition to phone calls. Like Dialpad, for instance, which gives you all of that in a single intuitively designed app:

In fact, it’s hard to figure out pricing at all based on Mitel’s website. The “pricing” page doesn’t say anything about different packages or plans, or what features come included—it just has formulas for calculating rough pricing figures on your own. This is actually what it looks like:

You need a fully integrated contact center platform

Even if you don’t think your company needs contact center software, nearly every company takes inbound or makes outbound calls on a daily basis and could benefit from an ACD (automatic call distributor), IVR (interactive voice response) or call routing solution (which a contact center solution can give you).

And when you do explore contact center software, it's critical that it is cloud-based—and ideally the provider has their CCaaS (contact center as-a-service) functionality on the same platform as the rest of their communications functions, such as calling, messaging, video calls, and analytics.

If you’re using a third party for contact center software without this unified platform (like many companies do), the disadvantage is that your internal calling or messaging features exist in one data store or data lake, while your external contact center functionality is separate.

That means that a customer support team, for example, can’t easily take a customer call (external communications) and message their supervisor (internal communications) with a question in the same place.

What’s unique about the way we built Dialpad is that we designed the experience to be truly unified—you can handle all those external and internal communications in one app:

Your on-prem technology isn’t improving with the times

And finally, many of our customers who come from Mitel do so because they’ve found that legacy systems have been left behind in terms of technology like cloud contact center and AI functionality. Mitel is a prime example—rather than invest in R&D to modernize their legacy phone system and MiConnect cloud-based platform, they chose to help migrate their own(!) on-prem customers to another provider instead.

In other words, if you’re hoping to get new features and integrations from your phone system, you likely won’t be seeing these from Mitel.

The 8 best Mitel alternatives, ranked

To compare the top Mitel alternatives, we considered and ranked these from the options with the most robust UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) functionality all the way down to the more bare-bones options.

Fun fact: The pricing is actually very comparable even when you compare the top and bottom options.

1. Dialpad: A truly unified communications platform with robust functionality and built-in AI

Dialpad is a leading cloud communications solution that gives you phone calls, video calling, instant and SMS/MMS text messaging, and also an integrated contact center platform—all in one place.

What makes Dialpad a good Mitel alternative?

One of Mitel’s weaknesses that we mentioned earlier is its lack of innovation when it comes to the cloud and evolving past its legacy on-premises foundation.

Dialpad is entirely on the other end of the spectrum in this regard, because it was “born in the cloud.” Out of all the major leaders in cloud communications (some of which are on this list below), Dialpad is the only one that was created in the post-iPhone era.

That means that its cloud and telephony infrastructure are much more modern and flexible—and is a big reason why Dialpad can provide HD call quality around the world and even guarantee 100% uptime (not 99.99 or 99.999%) for its Enterprise customers.

What you get with Dialpad that you don’t get with Mitel

Incredible ease of use

One of the advantages of being a more modern solution is that Dialpad is designed to be easy to use—and its technology can actually support that. Often, software providers want their products to be easy to use (who wants to create something that users hate using?), but their technology makes it difficult for them to provide that experience.

With Dialpad, you can onboard your whole team in minutes and easily add—and remove—users, manage phone numbers, and more, all with just a few clicks from your online dashboard:

Truly unified communications

With Dialpad, you have all your collaboration tools, from team messaging to SMS texting, to phone calls and video conferencing, all in one app.

There’s even a neat Discord-esque feature we call a sidebar, where you can hop into a quick audio chat with a teammate from a messaging thread instead of having a formal meeting:

And if you have a support team or sales team that manages high volumes of communications, Dialpad Ai Contact Center is fully integrated—not whitelabled or a third-party add-on.

From here, you can build chatbot responses for your website, manage social media messages, and more:

Built-in AI

Possibly the most unique thing about Dialpad is its AI, which transcribes calls and video meetings in real time. And after the meeting, it’ll send attendees a call summary with the transcript, recording, and even action items! Dialpad also does voicemail transcription. If you’re in back-to-back meetings and don’t have time to listen to your voicemail, no problem—it can transcribe that for you, again, in real time so you can see what your caller wants to talk to you about (and if it’s urgent):

But the real power of Dialpad Ai is in its contact center platform. Beyond transcriptions, it can also do live sentiment analysis so that supervisors can quickly see if a call is going south and if they need to jump in to help an agent:

And they can also create Real-Time Assist (RTA) cards with tailored notes on specific topics. For example, if agents get lots of questions on pricing, they can create an RTA card with notes on pricing plans and set it to trigger when “price” or “pricing” is spoken on a customer call:

Works on any device

Dialpad’s desktop and mobile app works across PC, Mac, Android, and iPhone. Oh, and it’s fully browser-based too, meaning you can log in on a web browser without downloading any apps to use it.

This tends to come in handy for sales teams who want to invite prospects or customers to video meetings, since those folks don’t always want to download a software package or app just to join your video conference:

Pricing:

What you get with Dialpad’s least expensive plan at $20 per month per user:

• A local phone number

• Unlimited calling in the US, Canada, and your country

• Unlimited video conferencing with features like custom virtual backgrounds, virtual waiting rooms, and real-time transcriptions

• Call management features like routing, auto attendant, call transfer, and more

• A wide range of integrations with software including Google Workspace and Microsoft 365

With higher tiers (starting at $25 per month), you unlock:

• APIs and Webhooks for developing your own custom apps with Dialpad’s features

• Advanced integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot, Zendesk and more

• International SMS messaging

• 100% uptime SLA (for Enterprise customers)

And finally, here's what real customers think of Dialpad:

Compared to what users think of Mitel:

2. RingCentral

RingCentral offers a communications solution that includes enterprise VoIP, video, SMS and team chat. Like Mitel, it’s been around for decades and is considered a legacy provider. RingCentral is actually the partner that Mitel has entered a contractual agreement with in order to essentially “buy” Mitel’s customers.

What makes RingCentral a good Mitel alternative?

Well, Mitel chose them to sell a chunk of their business to, and RingCentral does have a somewhat unified solution. The main thing they’re missing is an integrated contact center solution. (They’re whitelabelling NICE CXone’s solution.)

Unlike Mitel, RingCentral has made more progress in evolving its communications platform to the cloud, although their legacy infrastructure still impacts things like ease of use and scalability. Dialpad, for instance, lets you add hundreds and even thousands of new users relatively quickly and easily compared to pretty much every other provider on this list.

Equally importantly, RingCentral’s lowest plan is more expensive—and doesn’t come with video conferencing. Learn more about the best RingCentral alternatives.

Pricing:

Essentials: $19.99 per user per month (up to 20 users); Standard: $22.99 per user per month; Premium: $32.99 per user per month; Ultimate: $42.99 per user per month (top 3 tiers based on 100+ users)¹

3. Cisco Webex

Cisco Webex is another communications provider that’s been around for many years and has evolved its product to include unified communications.

Cisco is generally seen as an enterprise communications leader, but if you want to be able to do conference calling with people outside your company, you'll need to bring your own carrier or add on a phone plan—which costs extra on top of their standard plans. (In contrast to Dialpad, which has the telephony piece built right in.)

Essentially, it comes with video conferencing, but the phone call channel is an added cost.

What makes Cisco Webex a good Mitel alternative?

It’s definitely a more mature product than Mitel and even though it has its shortcomings, does come with more robust functionality.

Pricing:

The “Call” plan starts at $17 per user per month, but doesn’t include phone calls—just audio “calls” within the Cisco Webex app and Cisco IP phones.² If you want to “Meet + Call,” then those plans start at $25 per user per month. (Compare with Dialpad, which starts at only $15 per user per month, and comes with unlimited calling and video conferencing.)

4. Zoom

Best known as a video conferencing platform, Zoom has recently added telephony features and started marketing a unified communications product called Zoom One, which says it comes with “phone” functionality, but it’s laid out in a confusing way on their pricing page. (More on that in just a bit.)

What makes Zoom a good Mitel alternative?

Zoom is actually quite strong in terms of its cloud infrastructure as it’s a newer product compared with old-timers like RingCentral and Cisco, so in terms of flexibility and mobility, Zoom has the edge over Mitel. If you're interested in other options that can give you unified communications instead of just video conferencing, you can learn more about the best Zoom Phone alternatives here.

Pricing:

If you need phone calls, then you need to move up a few pricing tiers in the Zoom One packages to the “Business Plus” plan at $25 per user per month³—which again, is quite a bit more expensive than Dialpad’s $15 plan. Like Dialpad, there’s a free video conferencing plan, but if you want true unified communications, then you need to shell out a bit more.

5. Nextiva

Nextiva is another VoIP “unified communications” provider that has phone calls, video calling, and messaging functionality. They’ve been around for quite some time and are generally well regarded, but one thing to note about Nextiva is that it doesn’t own its own software—it’s whitelabeling, or reselling other companies’ software. That goes for both its unified communications product⁴ and its call center product.⁵ It’s not a deal-breaker for everyone, but it does mean that for more complex customer support issues, they may have to route you to the original software provider.

The other thing is that if you’re looking for both a UCaaS and CCaaS solution, then you’re likely going to have to deal with a different user interface and different logins for those two solutions. (Unlike with a provider like Dialpad, for instance, which is fully built in-house and has one consistent user experience.)

What makes Nextiva a good Mitel alternative?

Nextiva is a bit better than Mitel in that you’re getting a decent set of functionality in comparison to Mitel’s, which is a bit cobbled together and packaged in a confusing way. However, it has the same disadvantage of whitelabeling products and using third-party vendors in order to market a “unified” product.

Pricing:

Nextiva’s most basic plan starts at $18.95 per user per month and like Dialpad, comes with a local phone number.⁶ The next plans go up from there and give you progressively more features.

6. Vonage

Vonage is a more basic VoIP phone system that has been around for a while and is pretty well known, in part because it has a big residential side of the business. If you’re running a very small business or only need a phone number or calling, Vonage can be a decent business phone system. (More on the best Vonage alternatives here.)

What makes Vonage a good Mitel alternative?

This is actually a close one, as the pricing is comparable, and Vonage does offer unified communications features like team messaging (which you get on the basic plan) and CRM integrations (which you have to go up to the more expensive plans for).

One thing to note is that Vonage says you get free calling included in the basic plan—but that “reasonable and acceptable usage applies for unlimited calls and unlimited SMS.” What does “reasonable and acceptable usage” actually mean? Anyone’s guess.

Pricing:

Prices start at $19.99 monthly per user, and really only gives you calling, SMS, and team messaging.⁷ That’s more expensive than Dialpad, and many features that come standard with Dialpad are add-ons that you have to pay extra for, like call recordings and voicemail transcriptions. Learn more about how Vonage compares to Dialpad.

7. Ooma

Ooma is a virtual phone system that’s marketed toward small businesses. It’s actually quite similar to Vonage in that it also has a home / residential phone service side to the business.

What makes Ooma a good Mitel alternative?

Ooma is a relatively reputable communications provider, and does come with video conferencing and messaging—even if it’s very expensive compared to the other options on this list. That being said, there’s a reason why it’s at the bottom of this list, and if you can, you should look at the other Mitel alternatives first if you want a more complete and sophisticated platform.

Pricing:

The most basic pricing plan, Ooma Office, runs at $19.95 per user per month.⁸ That’s the same as some other options on this list like RingCentral, but quite a bit more than Dialpad, which starts at only $15 per user per month—and comes with a much more functionality.

What’s the best Mitel alternative for your business?

If you’re looking for a communications platform that isn’t Mitel, the good news is you have lots of options out there. Regardless of whether you’ve made up your mind at this point, the best thing to do is to sign up for a few free trials and get some product demos.

This way, you can really get a sense of the intangibles like how easy this software is to use and set up, what the onboarding experience is like—and whether Dialpad is a top contender here.

Speaking of which, why not try Dialpad for free?

¹ringcentral.com/office/plansandpricing.html#office

²pricing.webex.com

³zoom.us/pricing

⁴talkingpointz.com/nextiva-competing-around-the-customer-experience/

⁵businesswire.com/news/home/20210609005705/en/Nextiva-and-Five9-Team-Up-to-Help-Businesses-Deliver-Seamless-Customer-Communications

⁶nextiva.com/nextiva-pricing.html

⁷vonage.com/unified-communications/pricing/

⁸support.ooma.com/office/ooma-office-pricing-chart/