CallHippo alternative
The CallHippo alternative that lets you dial a list
CallHippo is a low-cost business phone system with numbers in a long list of countries, and for a small team that answers calls it does that job at a price almost nobody matches. The difficulty is what happens when you point it at a list. Its fair usage policy, published on the same pricing page, prohibits auto-dialing and predictive dialing, caps repeat calls to the same number at ten an hour, and reserves the right to change your plan or suspend your account if your usage looks like bulk calling. Two other things matter to an outbound team: CRM integrations do not start until the $40 plan, and texting is capped at 100, 500 or 1,000 messages depending on which one you buy.
No card required. No seat minimum.
The short version
- Their fair usage policy prohibits auto-dialing and predictive dialing, limits outgoing calls to the same number to ten an hour, and caps parallel calls at 30% of capacity.
- The same policy says that if your usage looks like call-centre-level bulk calling, CallHippo may change your plan, apply call-centre rates or suspend the account.
- Plans are $25, $40 and $55 a user a month, or $19, $30 and $42 billed yearly. CRM integrations begin on the $40 Professional plan; the $25 Starter carries only Zapier, Slack and webhooks.
- Texting is capped by plan: 100 messages on Starter, 500 on Professional, 1,000 on Ultimate. A smrtPhone seat includes 1,000 segments a month, then $0.02.
- The free Basic plan is free for the first six months only, after which their policy says you must move to Starter to keep using it.
smrtPhone vs CallHippo
The CallHippo alternative, feature by feature
Every CallHippo figure below was taken from CallHippo’s own public pricing pages . Prices change; check theirs before you decide.
| What matters when you dial |
|
smrtPhone |
|---|---|---|
| What it is built for | Small businesses answering calls, with numbers in many countries | Small teams running conversations inside the CRM they already use |
| The phone system underneath | Yes. A business phone system, with CRM integration from the $40 tier | Yes. Call flows, inbound teams and departments, voicemail, business hours, warm transfer, conference calling and call monitoring |
| Dialing a list | No. Their fair usage policy prohibits auto-dialing and predictive dialing | Yes. smrtDialer, 1 to 4 lines, with AI voice detection |
| Repeat calls to one number | No. Ten an hour, then the number may be blocked automatically | Not capped |
| Price a seat | Starter $25, Professional $40, Ultimate $55 a user monthly | $29 a seat, plus smrtDialer at $50 or $90 |
| Where CRM integration starts | No. The $40 Professional plan. Starter has Zapier and webhooks only | Yes. The $29 seat. All ten |
| Texting | Partly. 100 messages on Starter, 500 on Professional, 1,000 on Ultimate | Yes. SMS and MMS in every seat, 1,000 segments, then $0.02 |
| Calling minutes | Yes. 1,000 minutes on Starter, then unlimited US and Canada from Professional | 500 a seat, then $0.03. Unlimited at $99 a seat |
| Podio | Yes. Yes, from the Professional plan. Click-to-call and logging into Contacts and Deals | Native, in every seat |
| The rest of the investor stack | No. None of them appear in the marketplace | Yes. GoHighLevel, Left Main REI, InvestorFuse, DataSift, Realeflow, Invelo, Carrot, Tape and Salesforce |
| Where the record lives | Its own workspace, with sync out from the Professional plan | Your CRM. Calls and texts write to it |
| The free plan | Partly. Free for the first six months, then you move to Starter | No free tier. 14-day trial |
| Outbound list compliance | Spam Watch at $3 a number a month, remediation at $100 a number | Yes. DNC and DNT lists, DNC applet, DNC API, A2P 10DLC and automatic opt-out, in the base seat |
| AI agents that take calls | AI Voice Agent, $45 a user a month | smrtAgents answer, qualify and hand off with context |
| Free trial | 10 days, no card | 14 days |
The other side
When CallHippo is the better choice
If your phone work is answering calls rather than making hundreds of them, CallHippo covers more of the world than we do. Unlimited calling to the US and Canada is included from the $40 plan, where a smrtPhone seat includes 500 minutes and meters the rest at $0.03, and it sells local numbers across the UK, Australia, India, the UAE, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, Singapore, Brazil and South Africa, where smrtPhone is US and Canada only. There is also a free tier to start on, for the first six months. For a small support desk or an office phone system, none of the fair usage limits above will ever come up.
- Your team answers calls rather than dialing lists all day.
- You need local numbers outside the US and Canada.
- You will not use a dialer, and a plain office phone seat is all you need.
- You want to start on a free plan before committing.
- Your CRM is Podio, HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho or Pipedrive and logging calls is all you need.
Straight from the reviews
What CallHippo users complain about
Recurring themes across CallHippo’s own public review profiles, each one set against what smrtPhone does about it.
- 4.4/5
- 2.7/5
|
What reviewers report
|
What we do about it
|
|---|---|
| Refunds refused after cancelling | Month to month at a published price, after a 14-day trial |
| Paying for a seat that never makes a call | Seats are $29 and only the people who dial add smrtDialer |
| Support that answers with policy rather than help | Chat, email or a scheduled Zoom, handled by the smrtPhone team directly |
| Numbers blocked without warning | No cap on how often you may call the same number |
| Working out what the plan actually includes | One seat, one price, with every add-on and rate published |
Why outbound teams move off CallHippo
-
The terms did not allow the work
Their fair usage policy prohibits auto-dialing and predictive dialing, caps repeat calls to one number at ten an hour, and says bulk calling may get the plan changed or the account suspended. An acquisitions desk working a bought list is doing the thing the policy describes. smrtDialer is built for exactly that, at one to four lines with AI voice detection.
smrtDialer, up to 4 lines -
Texting ran out
A hundred messages a month on the $25 plan, 500 on the $40 one, 1,000 on the $55 one. A team that texts leads back passes a hundred in a morning, and the plan that gives 1,000 is nearly twice the price of a smrtPhone seat that includes the same.
1,000 segments in every seat -
The CRM was a plan up, and then still short
CRM integrations start at $40 a user; the $25 plan has Zapier and webhooks. Podio is genuinely there once you are on Professional, which is more than most on this site manage. But GoHighLevel, Left Main REI, InvestorFuse, DataSift, Realeflow, Invelo, Carrot and Tape are not, and those are usually the ones that decide it.
Ten native CRM integrations
Built into the CRM you already run
Calls, texts, recordings and dispositions land on the record they belong to, with no connector in between.
Verified reviews
What smrtPhone users say
Everything above is our claim. This is not: these are reviews left on Capterra, where most reviewers are real estate investors.
- 4.7/5
-
5 out of 5. Under 6 months in
Its ability to dial on 4 different lines simultaneously that no other dialer in the market has.
Chad F. Founder, real estate -
5 out of 5. 2+ years in
Integration with Podio and the ability to customize every aspect.
Ryan J. Founder, real estate -
5 out of 5. Under 6 months in
What I like most about SmrtPhone is how responsive and helpful their support team is. In fact, there have been instances during my onboarding that they have proactively reached out. They make the learning curve very easy to overcome.
Brendan P. CEO, real estate
What switching actually involves
Numbers port. The thing to check first is where your numbers are: if you hold local numbers outside the US and Canada, smrtPhone cannot replace those, and the honest answer is to keep them somewhere that can.
- Port your numbers. They move with you. Nobody has to learn a new number.
- Connect the CRM. Calls, texts, recordings and dispositions start writing to the record.
- Rebuild your call flows. Routing, ring groups, business hours and the DNC applet.
- Run both for a few days. Then move the dialing over once the logging looks right.
How long the port really takes
- Porting takes one to three weeks once the paperwork is in and confirmed. It is faster when your current provider sits on the same underlying carrier we do, and slower if the paperwork comes back rejected over a detail that does not match your carrier record.
- Support does the work. You start it from live chat and the team handles the submission.
- Do not cancel your old provider until the port completes. Your number keeps working throughout.
- Occasionally voice ports a few hours before texting does. It settles by itself.
Questions people ask before switching
Can I use CallHippo as a dialer?
Not on the business phone plans, according to their own terms. The fair usage policy published on their pricing page states that customers are prohibited from using the service for auto-dialing or predictive dialing, that outgoing calls to the same number may not exceed ten an hour before automatic number blocking, and that parallel calls may not exceed 30% of capacity. It adds that usage resembling call-centre-level bulk calling may lead to a plan change, call-centre rates or account suspension. CallHippo does market power and auto dialing on separate product pages, but the pricing page does not say which plan includes them.
How much does CallHippo cost?
Starter is $25 a user a month, Professional $40 and Ultimate $55, or $19, $30 and $42 billed yearly. There is a Basic plan at $0 where you pay only for numbers, free for the first six months. Add-ons are published separately: an AI voice agent at $45 a user, a dashboard-only user at $15, spam monitoring at $3 a number, spam remediation at $100 a number, CNAM at $100 one-off and branded calling at $0.12 a call. smrtPhone is $29 a seat with smrtDialer at $50 or $90 for the people who dial.
Does CallHippo integrate with Podio?
Yes, and properly - click-to-call from inside Podio with calls, texts, recordings and voicemails logged under Contacts and Deals. The qualifiers are that CRM integrations do not start until the $40 Professional plan, and that Podio is the only investor CRM in their marketplace. GoHighLevel, Left Main REI, InvestorFuse, DataSift, Realeflow, Invelo, Carrot and Tape are not there. smrtPhone is native to all ten from the $29 seat.
How many texts does CallHippo include?
A hundred a month on Starter, 500 on Professional and 1,000 on Ultimate, with SMS services priced from $3 a month on top. A smrtPhone seat includes 1,000 SMS and MMS segments a month at $29, then $0.02 a segment, written to the CRM record alongside the calls.
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