RingCentral vs Dialpad vs Zoom Phone Pricing 2026: Per-User Plans and What an AI Receptionist Adds

How much do RingCentral, Dialpad and Zoom Phone cost? The short answer

As of October 26, 2026, on annual billing, Zoom Phone is the cheapest of the three at $10.50 a user a month metered or $16 unlimited, Dialpad is $15 on Standard and $25 on Pro, and RingCentral is $20 on Core and $25 on Advanced ($30 and $35 month to month). The seat price is the small part once AI answers your calls: RingCentral's AI Receptionist adds $39 a month for 100 minutes and $0.50 a minute after that, and Dialpad prices its AI agents by quote.

Every number here comes from each vendor's own pricing page, read October 26, 2026, except the Quo (OpenPhone) figures, which come from our OpenPhone pricing page read October 25. The bills below are our arithmetic on those prices. SuperDupr builds AI voice agents that sit on top of phone systems like these; we resell none of them.

The plans side by side

Two caveats from the pages themselves. RingCentral's per-user price changes with team size (it has 1 to 5, 6 to 100 and 100+ bands), and the prices above are the ones the page shows by default; check your band at checkout. Dialpad notes that the price you see may differ by region and currency.

What each plan includes that matters for automation

• RingCentral Core includes unlimited domestic calling, on-demand recording, 100 toll-free minutes, 25 texts per user a month and, new on the page, LLM plugins and MCP connectors. Advanced adds CRM integrations, multiple sites, automatic recording, 1,000 toll-free minutes and 100 texts per user. A shared texting inbox is a $25 Business SMS Booster and call queues with callbacks are a $35 Call Queues Booster.
• Dialpad Standard includes calling, meetings, messaging, live transcripts and call summaries. Pro adds the CRM integrations, 24/7 support and multi-office management. Both have a 14-day free trial.
• Zoom Phone sells calling two ways: metered at $10.50 (the page links its per-minute rates) or unlimited US and Canada calling at $16. Pro Plus and Business Plus bundle the phone with Zoom Workplace meetings and AI note-taking.
• Quo puts call transfers and phone menus on Business, not Starter, so any team where an AI agent or receptionist transfers calls pays Business for every user. Our OpenPhone pricing page has the full plan and Sona tables.

Which business phone system is cheapest with an AI receptionist?

The vendor pages price seats, not the month you will actually have, so here is one. A 5-person insurance agency wants unlimited calling, its CRM connected, and an AI that answers the overflow and after-hours calls: about 300 calls a month at 2.5 minutes each, 750 AI minutes.

Three things decide the order:

1. Per-minute vs per-call AI billing. RingCentral's AI Receptionist bills $0.50 a minute past the first 100, rounded up to the next 30 seconds. Rounding alone adds about 15 seconds to the average call, roughly 75 minutes or $37.50 a month at 300 calls. Quo's Sona bills per call, so a 6-minute intake call costs the same as a 40-second one. Long calls favor Quo; short calls favor per-minute billing.
2. Overage, not the plan price. RingCentral's $39 covers 100 minutes, which is about 40 calls at this length, so at 300 calls the AI line is more than three times the cost of all five seats. RingCentral says extra minute bundles are available but does not print their price.
3. Where the AI runs. An agent you own, on a platform like Vapi, Retell or ElevenLabs, bills about 9 to 15 cents a minute, as our voice AI pricing comparison works out on a 1,200-minute month. It can answer calls forwarded from your phone system, or run on a carrier line directly; our Twilio pricing page shows what the line itself costs.

When does a custom AI agent beat the phone system's own?

Not on minutes alone at this size. At 750 AI minutes a month, the custom agent saves roughly $250 to $300 a month against RingCentral's AI Receptionist, and a build plus monthly running costs can absorb most of that. The math turns at higher volume: at 3,000 AI minutes, RingCentral's add-on is $39 + 2,900 x $0.50 = $1,489 a month, against about $270 to $450 on a voice AI platform.

The better reason to build is what the agent has to do. RingCentral's AI Receptionist, for example, lists 24/7 answering, routing, lead capture, text follow-ups and booking into Google or Outlook calendars, with HubSpot, Zoho and Salesforce connections. When the agent has to check a policy or job record, quote from your own price list, or book into industry software, that is a custom build. Our guide to how much an AI receptionist costs lays out every option, from answering services to custom agents.

Which one should a small business pick?

• Cheapest seats with heavy calling: Zoom Phone Unlimited at $16 a user on annual billing.
• AI included without a sales call: Quo with Sona, or RingCentral with its AI Receptionist if you already run RingCentral. Size RingCentral to your real minutes, not the 100 included.
• Contact-center features and an AI agent built for you: Dialpad, with the agent priced by quote.
• An AI that does the work after the call: keep the phone system you like and put a custom agent in front of it.

Who can build an AI voice agent on my phone system?

SuperDupr, the AI ops shop Justin McKelvey runs, builds AI voice agents that answer on RingCentral, Dialpad, Zoom Phone or Quo lines, or on a carrier line you own, and then do the follow-up: create the record, text the caller, alert the right person and log it in your CRM. Our published price for a voice agent build is $5,000 to $10,000, with $200 to $2,000 a month ongoing depending on volume, and most AI builds go live in 2 to 4 weeks. Every phone and platform account stays in your business's name at the vendors' own rates. The first step is a free 30-minute strategy session.

Sources

• RingCentral RingEX plans and pricing (ringcentral.com/office/plansandpricing.html), read October 26, 2026: Core $20 / $30 and Advanced $25 / $35 per user a month (annual / monthly) at the page's default seat band, plan inclusions, AI Receptionist from $39, Business SMS Booster $25, Call Queues Booster $35.
• RingCentral AI Receptionist pricing (ringcentral.com/pricing/ai-receptionist.html), read October 26, 2026: standalone from $49 a month and RingEX add-on from $39 a month, each with 100 minutes; $0.50 a minute pay-as-you-go; billing in 30-second increments, rounded up; calendar and CRM integrations.
• Dialpad plans and pricing (dialpad.com/pricing), read October 26, 2026: Connect Standard $15 and Pro $25 per user a month on annual billing, plan inclusions, 14-day trial, regional price note, Dialpad Resolve AI agents on custom, conversation-based pricing.
• Zoom Phone pricing (zoom.us/pricing/zoom-phone), read October 26, 2026: US and Canada Metered $10.50, Unlimited $16, Pro Plus $20.50 and Business Plus $24.50 per user a month, billed annually.
• Quo (OpenPhone) plans and Sona tiers: our OpenPhone pricing page, from quo.com/pricing read October 25, 2026.
• Voice AI platform per-minute range: our voice AI pricing comparison (Retell, Vapi, Bland and ElevenLabs pages read October 8, 2026).
• Worked bill: SuperDupr's arithmetic on the published prices above, for an assumed 5-user office with 300 AI-answered calls of 2.5 minutes a month.