Written and maintained by CASRAI Editorial Board
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If you searched Aircall pricing, you already know the marketing page hides the number behind a “3-license minimum” and a monthly/annual toggle. This page states Aircall’s real per-user cost plainly, then makes the case for switching to KrispCall specifically for globally distributed research consortia and multi-site trial coordination teams that need cheap international numbers and per-minute rates Aircall doesn’t publish, let alone match.
Figures below are drawn from Aircall’s and KrispCall’s published pricing where available, cross-checked against multiple independent SaaS-pricing aggregators as of August 2026 — both vendors render their live pricing pages via client-side scripts that did not expose raw dollar figures to a direct fetch, so treat every number here as publicly reported rather than scraped first-hand, and re-verify before you commit a budget line.
Tip: try code CASRAI at checkout for 15% off, if the offer is currently active for this program — codes vary by vendor and aren’t guaranteed.
The product doing that switching case below is KrispCall, a cloud phone system built around cheap self-service international numbers and pay-as-you-go usage — the two things Aircall pushes behind a sales conversation.
Aircall pricing tiers and per-user costs
Aircall sells three tiers, all billed per user (“per license”), with a 25% discount for paying annually instead of month-to-month:
| Plan | Per user/month (billed annually) | Per user/month (billed monthly) | Minimum users | What it adds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Essentials | ~$30 | ~$40 | 3 | 1 local/toll-free number, unlimited inbound and internal calls, SMS/MMS, basic analytics |
| Professional | ~$50 | ~$70 | 3 | Everything in Essentials, plus native Salesforce CTI, advanced analytics, smart routing, power dialer, unlimited call recording |
| Custom | Contact sales | Contact sales | 25 | Everything in Professional, plus custom onboarding, API/developer support, an SLA, and SSO |
Two things the plan grid doesn’t say up front: the 3-user minimum on Essentials and Professional means the real entry price is closer to $90-$120/month, not the per-seat figure quoted in marketing; and international calling, additional numbers, and Aircall’s AI add-ons (AI Voice Agents, AI Assist, Analytics+) are all billed separately on top of the per-user price, with no published flat rate.
Is the Aircall setup fee worth it?
There isn’t a single mandatory “setup fee” on the self-serve Essentials or Professional plans — you can start a subscription without one. What functions like a setup cost instead, per third-party pricing breakdowns, is:
- Number porting — moving an existing number to Aircall reportedly carries a one-time fee, commonly cited around $5-$15 per number.
- The 3-user minimum itself — a 1-2 person pilot pays for 3 seats regardless.
- Custom onboarding — free or negotiable only at 20+ users on the Custom tier; smaller teams are largely self-service.
So the honest answer: Aircall’s onboarding is worth it once you’re buying the Custom tier with a real deployment behind it — dedicated onboarding, SLA, SSO. Below that scale, you’re not paying a distinct setup fee so much as absorbing the 3-seat floor and any number-porting charges, which matter more for a small coordinator team than the headline per-user price does.
Does Aircall charge extra for international minutes?
Yes. Aircall’s public pricing page does not list international per-minute rates or the cost of non-domestic numbers at all — both are quoted on request. For a consortium running participant-recruitment hotlines or multi-site coordinator lines across several countries, that means you cannot actually price out your real monthly cost from Aircall’s own site; you need a sales quote before you know what the “per-user” number above turns into once international usage is added.
KrispCall vs Aircall for international research call centers
This is where the pricing conversation actually turns into a product decision. KrispCall publishes virtual numbers in 100+ countries as a core, self-service feature — not a quoted add-on — with calls and SMS metered pay-as-you-go on top of the subscription. Aircall’s international reach is real but sits behind its Custom/sales-assisted tier once you go past a handful of markets.
| Dimension | Aircall | KrispCall |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price (annual) | ~$30/user/mo, 3-user minimum | ~$12/user/mo (Essential), up to 5 users |
| Entry price (monthly) | ~$40/user/mo | ~$15/user/mo |
| Mid tier (annual) | ~$50/user/mo (Professional) | ~$32/user/mo (Standard), unlimited users |
| International numbers | Quoted on request beyond core markets | 100+ countries, self-service, publicly listed as a core feature |
| Free numbers included | 1 local/toll-free number per plan | One US/Canada/UK number per user; other countries are a paid add-on |
| Usage billing | Not published; contact sales | Calls and SMS billed pay-as-you-go from a prepaid balance |
| Native CRM integrations | Mature — Salesforce CTI (Professional+), HubSpot, and a broad established marketplace | A shorter, shallower integration list; nowhere near Aircall’s marketplace depth |
Neither vendor publishes a full per-country per-minute rate card, so we’re not going to invent one — confirm the exact destinations you need against both vendors’ sales teams before committing. What is clear from the published entry pricing is the gap: KrispCall’s self-service international footprint costs less to get into and doesn’t require a sales call just to find out what a number in a second or third country costs.
Cheapest VoIP for a 10-person coordinator team
Run the arithmetic at a realistic size — a 10-person multi-site coordinator team, annual billing, before usage add-ons:
| Aircall Essentials | Aircall Professional | KrispCall Essential | KrispCall Standard | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| List price, 10 users | ~$300/mo | ~$500/mo | ~$120/mo | ~$320/mo |
| Plus | Number porting, international add-ons | Same, plus CRM seat cost if applicable | Usage (calls/SMS), non-US/CA/UK numbers | Usage (calls/SMS), non-US/CA/UK numbers |
On list price alone, KrispCall’s entry tier is roughly a third of Aircall’s for the same headcount — but KrispCall’s usage-based billing means a high-call-volume hotline can close some of that gap, and Aircall Essentials caps out at basic features a 10-person multi-site team may outgrow fast (no smart routing, no power dialer). If your 10 people are mostly coordinating logistics and taking scheduled participant calls rather than running a high-volume outbound hotline, KrispCall Essential or Standard is the cheaper real-world fit; if you need Aircall’s routing and CRM depth, budget for Professional, not Essentials.
When Aircall’s integrations are worth the extra cost
The honest tradeoff, stated plainly: if your office is already deep into Salesforce or HubSpot workflows — case routing, activity logging, pipeline stages tied to phone activity — Aircall’s native, mature CTI integrations for both platforms are a genuinely stronger fit than KrispCall’s price advantage. Aircall’s Salesforce integration ships as a first-class feature on the Professional plan and its integration marketplace is broad and well established. KrispCall’s own integration list is shorter and shallower, and we are not going to claim it matches Aircall’s CRM depth, because it doesn’t. If a coordinator team’s phone system needs to disappear seamlessly into an existing Salesforce or HubSpot workflow, that capability gap is worth more than the per-seat savings — pay for Aircall Professional in that case. If your team runs on spreadsheets, a shared inbox, or a lighter CRM and the actual pain point is the cost of reaching participants in multiple countries, KrispCall is the better-fitting, cheaper tool.
Frequently asked questions
What are Aircall’s pricing tiers and per-user costs?
Essentials runs about $30/user/month billed annually (~$40 month-to-month), Professional about $50/user/month annually (~$70 monthly), and Custom is quote-only starting at a 25-user minimum. Essentials and Professional both carry a 3-user minimum, so the smallest real bill is roughly $90-$120/month, not the per-seat headline figure.
Is the Aircall setup fee worth it?
There’s no flat mandatory setup fee on the self-serve tiers. The real added costs are number-porting charges (commonly $5-$15/number), the 3-seat minimum itself, and the fact that free custom onboarding only kicks in on the Custom tier at 20+ users. Below that scale you’re mostly self-service.
KrispCall vs Aircall — which is cheaper for an international research call center?
On published list pricing, KrispCall is meaningfully cheaper at every tier and includes 100+ countries of virtual numbers as a self-service feature rather than a sales-quoted add-on. Aircall’s core plans are more expensive per seat and push international-number pricing behind a sales conversation. Where Aircall wins is CRM integration maturity, not price.
What’s the cheapest VoIP option for a 10-person coordinator team?
On list price, KrispCall’s Essential or Standard tier for 10 users runs roughly a third of Aircall’s equivalent headcount cost. The gap narrows if your team makes very high call volumes, since KrispCall bills usage pay-as-you-go, but for a typical multi-site coordination team it’s the cheaper real-world fit.
Does Aircall charge extra for international minutes?
Yes — Aircall does not publish international per-minute rates or non-domestic number pricing on its public pricing page; both require contacting sales. That makes it impossible to fully budget an international deployment from Aircall’s own site alone.
Related CASRAI guidance
- KrispCall review: cloud telephony for multi-country research teams — the fuller product verdict behind this comparison.
- Virtual phone numbers for multi-country research studies — how to think about number strategy before picking a vendor.
- Business phone systems for research teams and institutes — the category buyer’s guide.
Pricing checked against Aircall’s and KrispCall’s own pricing pages and cross-referenced against independent SaaS-pricing aggregators, August 2026. Both vendors’ live pricing pages render dollar figures client-side and blocked or obscured direct automated verification; VoIP list prices and promotional rates change often — confirm current figures with each vendor before committing budget.
