Compare and replace · 2026
Salesforce dialer options in 2026: every route, priced honestly
Last updated September 3, 2026
The world's largest CRM does not include a phone. That is not a criticism — Salesforce sells a platform and expects you to attach telephony to it — but it surprises people who assume a $195-a-seat licence must come with a dialer. It does not, and the four ways to fix that range from $30 a user to $200 a user. Two of them are also being deprecated, which nobody selling you a comparison seems keen to mention.
The short answer
Salesforce has no real native power dialer. Sales Dialer is a paid add-on ($25 outbound + $5 inbound per user, plus $15 per 1,000 minutes per org) that Salesforce has stopped developing. Salesforce Voice with partner telephony lists at $50 a user, or $125 with 2,000 Amazon Connect minutes bundled. AppExchange CTI dialers run roughly $30–65 a user — on Open CTI, which ends February 28, 2028. The cheap route is to dial outside Salesforce on your own Twilio and push activity back by API: about $124 a month for five reps, against $625 for Salesforce Voice.
What you are already paying, before any phone
Salesforce renamed its Sales Cloud editions, so the tiers you remember as Enterprise and Unlimited now read differently. List prices per user per month, billed annually, checked September 2026:
| Sales Cloud edition | Per user / month | 5 reps / month |
|---|---|---|
| Free Suite | $0 | $0 |
| Starter Suite | $25 | $125 |
| Pro Suite | $100 | $500 |
| Core | $195 | $975 |
| Advanced | $395 | $1,975 |
| Max | $550 | $2,750 |
None of these include telephony. Sales Engagement — the cadence product previously called High Velocity Sales — is a further $50 a user as an add-on, bundled into the top editions. It builds the work queue; it still does not place the call. Everything below is on top of the numbers in this table.
Route 1: Sales Dialer, the native add-on
Sales Dialer gives you click-to-dial from a record, call lists a rep works through, voicemail drop (with a small library of pre-recorded messages, each capped at about two minutes), local presence, call recording and automatic logging. It is Lightning desktop only, with no mobile app, and outbound calling is limited to the US and Canada.
The pricing is three SKUs that you effectively have to buy together to both make and receive calls:
- Outbound — $25 per user per month.
- Inbound — $5 per user per month.
- Minutes — $15 per 1,000 minutes, per organisation per month.
That third line is the trap. The minute block is org-wide, not per seat, so a single block does not go far across a team. Five reps at 100 dials a day bill about 4,305 minutes a month — 5 blocks, $75 — and ten reps need 9. Blocks are bought in advance rather than metered, so under-buying stops the phones and over-buying is money you do not get back.
The larger problem is strategic. Salesforce documentation states that Sales Dialer is not receiving new features and directs customers to move to Salesforce Voice. Building a five-year outbound motion on a SKU its own vendor has stopped developing is a decision to make deliberately, not by default because it was the cheapest box on the order form.
Route 2: Salesforce Voice and the Open CTI deadline
Salesforce Voice is the strategic replacement, sold in the Partner Contact Center family. Published list prices, per user per month, checked September 2026:
| Option | Per user / mo | Telephony model |
|---|---|---|
| Partner Contact Center | $50 | Bring your own carrier or CCaaS; you pay them separately |
| + Amazon Connect, 750 min/agent | $75 | Bundled minutes on Amazon Connect |
| + Amazon Connect, 2,000 min/agent | $125 | Bundled minutes on Amazon Connect |
| + Amazon Connect, 5,000 min/agent | $200 | Bundled minutes on Amazon Connect |
| Agentforce Contact Center | $125 | Native voice with platform minutes |
Note the shape of that card: this is contact-centre pricing, built for service organisations where a conversation is the unit of work. Our example rep at 100 dials a day bills about 861 minutes, so the 750-minute tier does not cover a full-time cold caller and the 2,000-minute tier at $125 a user does — which is more per seat than most teams pay for their entire Sales Cloud licence at Pro Suite.
The deadline that matters for everyone: Open CTI reaches end of life on February 28, 2028. Open CTI is the browser API almost every Salesforce softphone has been built on, and vendors have to migrate their packages onto the newer Partner Telephony APIs. That does not break anything tomorrow, but if you are signing a three-year deal with a CTI vendor in 2026, ask them in writing where their Partner Telephony migration stands.
Route 3: a per-seat CTI dialer from AppExchange
This is what most sales teams actually do, and it is the best in-Salesforce dialing experience: a partner softphone embedded in Lightning, with screen pop, click-to-dial, auto-advance power dialing, local presence and automatic activity logging against the Salesforce record. You are buying a per-seat licence on top of your Salesforce licence, and often minutes on top of that.
| Tool | List price | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Dialpad | ~$15–25/user/mo | built as a phone system first — the sales dialer sits in higher tiers |
| JustCall | ~$19–89/user/mo (annual) | the dialer is gated above the entry plan, and the team tiers carry a two-user minimum |
| Aircall | ~$30–50/user/mo | seat minimums apply and the power dialer needs the Professional tier |
| Kixie | ~$95–185/user/mo (quote-only) | prices are no longer published and the power-dialer tiers are the expensive ones |
| Salesloft | ~$100+/user/mo (quote-based) | the dialer is one module of a sales-engagement suite on an annual contract |
| Outreach | ~$100+/user/mo (quote-based) | enterprise sales-engagement pricing with an annual commitment |
List prices for comparison, not quotes. Two consistent gotchas: the tier that includes a power dialer is rarely the entry tier, and several vendors meter minutes on top of the seat. Budget the plan that actually has the dialer, then add usage.
Route 4: dial outside Salesforce, sync the activity back
The unglamorous option, and for a pure outbound team frequently the correct one. Reps spend a two-hour calling block in a tool built for dialing, on your own Twilio account at wholesale, and the completed activity lands in Salesforce as Task records. The list goes out as a report export or an API pull; the outcomes come back through the REST API or a webhook.
What this costs, and what it does not: the software is $29 per 3-seat pack rather than per user, so five reps are $58 and ten are $116. Minutes are billed by Twilio directly at ~$0.014/min with a ~$1.15/month number per rep, and no markup is added to either.
The honest caveat, stated plainly: there is no native Salesforce package. DialSheet has a REST API, webhooks and an MCP server, but no AppExchange listing, no managed package and no out-of-the-box two-way sync. Someone has to wire the activity write-back — an afternoon with the Salesforce REST API, a middleware connector, or a scheduled CSV in the low-tech case. If your ops team will not own that, buy a CTI partner instead and skip this route. Pretending otherwise would waste your time and ours.
The four routes at 5 and 10 reps
100 dials a day each, 21 working days, a quarter reaching voicemail (billed a full minute the moment the greeting answers) and 8% connecting for about two minutes. That is 4,305 billed minutes a month at five reps and 8,610 at ten. Figures below are the telephony layer only — on top of the Sales Cloud licences in the first table.
| Route | 5 reps / mo | 10 reps / mo | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salesforce Sales Dialer$25 outbound + $5 inbound per user, $15 per 1,000 minutes per org | $225 | $435 | Cheap, native — and on the retirement path |
| Salesforce Voice, partner telephony$50/user/mo, you bring the carrier and pay it separately | $333 | $666 | The strategic path, priced like one |
| Salesforce Voice + Amazon Connect (2,000 min)$125/user/mo with minutes bundled per agent | $625 | $1,250 | One bill, contact-centre pricing |
| Per-seat CTI dialer from AppExchangeAircall, Kixie, JustCall, Dialpad and similar, roughly $30–65/user/mo for a tier with a dialer | $150–$325 | $300–$650 | Best in-Salesforce dialing experience |
| Dial outside Salesforce on your own Twilio$29 per 3 seats plus ~$0.014/min wholesale, activity pushed back by API | $124 | $248 | Cheapest by far; you own the sync |
The Salesforce Voice partner row includes an estimated wholesale carrier bill of about $83 at five reps, since that SKU deliberately does not include minutes. The last row is $58 of software plus $66 of Twilio at five reps. Ten reps on Salesforce Voice with bundled minutes is $15,000 a year; the same ten reps dialing on their own Twilio is $2,976. That gap is what you are weighing against the cost of owning a sync.
How to choose in one paragraph
If calls are occasional and logged for the record, Sales Dialer is cheap and native — accept that it is a sunsetting SKU. If you are a service organisation, or an enterprise standardising on one voice stack, Salesforce Voice is where Salesforce is going and the contact-centre price reflects contact-centre capability. If reps live in Salesforce all day and volume is moderate, a CTI partner at $30–65 a user is the best experience per dollar, and you should ask about Partner Telephony before signing past February 28, 2028. And if the job is a list, a headset and 100 dials a day, the cheapest honest answer is to dial outside Salesforce on carrier minutes you buy yourself, and pay for a sync once instead of a seat licence every month.
Keep Salesforce. Move the dialing.
Auto-advance power dialing, a 2–4 line parallel dialer, recordings, transcripts and AI script scoring, on your own Twilio at ~$0.014/min. $29 covers 3 seats, never per user, and there is a REST API and webhooks for the write-back. Free for one person up to 500 calls a month, no card.
Start dialing freeQuestions people actually ask
Does Salesforce have a built-in power dialer?
No. Sales Cloud ships with no telephony at all — a phone number field is just a field until you buy something. The closest native product is Sales Dialer, a paid add-on giving click-to-dial, call lists, voicemail drop, local presence and call recording, restricted to US and Canada outbound and to Lightning on desktop. It is not marketed as a power or parallel dialer and reviewers disagree on how much it auto-advances, so test that specifically in a trial. Salesforce has also stopped adding features to Sales Dialer and points customers at Salesforce Voice instead. Real power dialing in Salesforce comes from a CTI partner or from dialing outside Salesforce.
How much does Salesforce Sales Dialer cost?
It is sold as three separate SKUs that you generally need together: Outbound at $25 per user a month, Inbound at $5 per user a month, and Minutes at $15 for 1,000 minutes — priced per organisation per month, not per user (checked September 2026). That last detail is the one people miss: 1,000 minutes is shared across everybody. Five reps at 100 dials a day bill about 4,305 minutes, needing 5 blocks, so the add-on runs about $225 a month on top of the Sales Cloud licences you already pay for.
What is replacing Salesforce Sales Dialer and Open CTI?
Salesforce Voice, sold through the Partner Contact Center family. Salesforce has said Sales Dialer is not receiving new features and recommends moving to Salesforce Voice, and separately that Open CTI — the API almost every Salesforce softphone integration has been built on for a decade — reaches end of life on February 28, 2028. Vendors must migrate their packages to the newer Partner Telephony APIs. Practically, that means any per-seat CTI dialer you buy today should be checked for a Partner Telephony migration path before you sign a multi-year deal.
How much does Salesforce Voice cost per user?
Salesforce publishes a Partner Contact Center price card: $50 per user a month to connect telephony from a partner you already use, $75 per user with Amazon Connect bundled at 750 minutes per agent, $125 at 2,000 minutes, $200 at 5,000 minutes, and Agentforce Contact Center at $125 per user with native voice (checked September 2026). All of it sits on top of your existing Sales or Service Cloud licence. For a five-rep outbound team that is $625 a month at the 2,000-minute tier before anyone has made a call outside the bundle.
What is the cheapest dialer for Salesforce?
Not dialing inside Salesforce. Running the calls in a bring-your-own-Twilio power dialer costs $29 per 3 seats of software plus wholesale carrier at about ~$0.014/min, so five reps at 100 dials a day come to roughly $124 a month all-in and ten reps to $248 — against $625 and $1,250 for Salesforce Voice with bundled minutes. The trade is integration: with no native Salesforce package, call outcomes go back through the REST API, webhooks or a CSV, which is real work you should price in.
Can I keep Salesforce as the CRM but dial somewhere else?
Yes, and for pure outbound teams it is often the right answer. The pattern: pull the day's call list out of Salesforce as a CSV or via a report API call, import it into the dialer, dial with auto-advance and dispositions, then push completed activities back as Task records through the Salesforce REST API or a webhook receiver. Reps live in the dialer for the calling block and in Salesforce for everything else. The honest cost is that this sync is your responsibility — DialSheet has a REST API, webhooks and an MCP server, but no native Salesforce package or AppExchange listing.
Is Sales Engagement the same as Sales Dialer?
No. Sales Engagement — the product previously sold as High Velocity Sales — is the cadence and sequencing layer: multi-step outreach, work queues, Einstein activity capture and buyer assistant, listed at about $50 per user a month as an add-on and bundled into the higher Sales Cloud editions. It tells a rep who to call and when; it does not place the call. You still need Sales Dialer, Salesforce Voice or a CTI partner underneath it for the actual telephony, which is why Salesforce outbound stacks end up as three line items rather than one.