OpenPhone vs Dialpad in 2026: pricing, the month-to-month gap, and which one is cheaper for a small team
OpenPhone, which rebranded to Quo in September 2025, and Dialpad Connect both start at exactly $15 per user per month billed yearly, so the headline price cannot separate them. The gap opens the moment you decline the annual commitment: Quo Starter is $19 per user month to month and Dialpad Connect Standard is $27, an 80 percent premium against Quo's 27 percent. Over a year at five seats that is $1,620 for Dialpad against $1,140 for Quo, for two plans advertised at the same $15. The second thing that separates them is transparency about AI: Quo publishes its automation credit ladder down to the per-call overage rate, while Dialpad has moved its AI Agent product to quote-only pricing. Phoner sits alongside both at $15 to $29 per user billed yearly ($19 to $35 month to month) at every tier, with no seat minimum.
The full ranked field is in the guide to the best VoIP for small business, entry pricing for every provider sits yearly against monthly in the business phone system comparison, and Phoner's plans are listed in plain dollars on the pricing page.
01 · Pick your number
02 · Your phone menu
03 · Incoming call
Press a key to answer the menu yourself
Voicemail to text
transcribed · texted to you · 0:42
Call sheet
Today
This number can be yours in about 5 minutes.
Recording consent laws vary by state and country. You are responsible for lawful use.
Where OpenPhone or Dialpad is genuinely strong
These are both good products and neither is a trap. Dialpad's AI is the most deeply built-in of any phone system at this price: live in-call transcription, automatic call summaries and coaching cues are native rather than bolted on, and its $15 Standard plan includes call recording, which several rivals hold back for a higher tier. Quo, formerly OpenPhone, has the better shared inbox: calls and texts land in one thread, teammates can leave internal comments on a conversation, and the apps are polished enough that text-led teams rarely want to leave. Quo also publishes its AI pricing in full, which Dialpad currently does not. If transcripts of live calls are the job, buy Dialpad. If customer conversations by text are the job, buy Quo.
Where Phoner fits
Phoner earns a place on this page for one reason: it never asks you to sign for a year to see a fair price. The distance between the yearly and monthly column is 27 percent at Phoner Starter and 21 percent at Team, against 80 percent at Dialpad Connect Standard. If you are comparing these two precisely because an annual contract went badly, that spread is the number that matters more than the headline. You also get a visual IVR builder you can inspect before paying, ring groups written as readable rules, and call recording with per-line consent announcements.
In practice the deciding features are usually the IVR phone menu and business texting.
OpenPhone vs Dialpad pricing, yearly against monthly, with Phoner in the same table
Read this table by column. Quo Starter and Dialpad Connect Standard are both $15 per user billed yearly, which is why most comparisons of these two end up saying the pricing is a wash. It is not. Billed monthly the same two plans are $19 and $27. Dialpad has the second steepest annual lock-in premium we have measured in this category at 80 percent, behind only Nextiva Engage at 100 percent, while Quo Starter sits at 27 percent. Quo figures were read from its pricing page on August 11, 2026 and Dialpad figures on August 17, 2026.
| Plan | Billed yearly | Billed monthly | The annual lock-in premium |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quo Starter (formerly OpenPhone) | $15 per user | $19 per user | 27 percent |
| Quo Business | $23 per user | $33 per user | 43 percent |
| Quo Scale | $35 per user | $47 per user | 34 percent |
| Dialpad Connect Standard | $15 per user | $27 per user | 80 percent |
| Dialpad Connect Pro | $25 per user | $35 per user | 40 percent |
| Dialpad Connect Enterprise | Quote only | Quote only | Not published |
| Phoner Starter | $15 per user | $19 per user | 27 percent |
| Phoner Team | $29 per user | $35 per user | 21 percent |
Swipe sideways for the full table
Quo figures read from its pricing page on August 11, 2026 · Dialpad figures read from Dialpad's own published pricing summary on August 17, 2026 · Phoner figures are our list prices · Telecom taxes, federal universal service pass-through and A2P 10dlc text registration are extra on all three · Verify before buying
Why a quoted Dialpad price can be $15 or $150 for the same company
This is the most common way a Dialpad comparison goes wrong, and it is worth two minutes before you request a quote. Dialpad is not one product with tiers. It is three separately priced products, and the $15 figure that appears in every comparison article refers only to Connect, the business phone system. If a salesperson scopes you for the sales or support product, the per-seat number changes by an order of magnitude. Quo is a single product with three tiers, so this ambiguity does not exist there. Figures below were read from Dialpad's own published pricing summary on August 17, 2026.
| Dialpad product | What it is | Entry plan billed yearly | Entry plan billed monthly | Top published plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dialpad Connect | The business phone system, the one comparisons mean | $15 per user | $27 per user | Pro at $25 yearly |
| Dialpad Sell | Outbound sales tooling on top of the phone system | $39 per user | $49 per user | Premium at $150 yearly |
| Dialpad Support | Contact center for inbound support teams | $80 per user | $95 per user | Premium at $150 yearly |
| Dialpad AI Agents | The AI answering product, priced in conversation credits | Quote only | Quote only | Not published |
Swipe sideways for the full table
A five-person office comparing phone systems wants connect · Sell and support are priced per seat on top of that and are not upgrades of the same plan · Confirm which product a quote covers before comparing it to anything
What actually separates OpenPhone and Dialpad once the yearly prices are level
Dialpad still publishes its per-user prices, just not where people look
This is worth knowing before you conclude Dialpad has gone quote-only. Its main pricing page was restructured in 2026 around conversation-based AI Agent credits with a talk-to-sales call to action, and the per-user Connect tiers are no longer displayed there. They are still published by Dialpad itself, on the plain-text summary page the company maintains for AI assistants at dialpad.com/llm-info, which lists Connect Standard at $15 per user billed yearly and $27 billed monthly, and Pro at $25 and $35. We checked that page on August 17, 2026. It is a genuinely odd situation: the numbers a buyer wants are first-party and current, they are simply on the page written for machines rather than the one written for customers. Confirm your own quote, because a price that is not on the sales page can move without anyone announcing it.
The $15 headline is real at both, and it expires the same way
Both vendors put their entry plan at $15 per user per month, and at both that figure requires paying twelve months up front. This is the single most misread line in the category. If you intend to pay annually, these two are genuinely tied on entry price and you should choose on features. If you intend to pay monthly, they are $19 against $27, which over a year at five seats is $1,140 against $1,620. The same decision at Phoner costs $1,140, because our monthly rate carries a 27 percent premium rather than 80 percent. Work out which column applies to you before you compare anything else.
One publishes what the AI costs and the other does not
Both companies lead with AI, and they treat its pricing very differently. Quo bundles 1,000 automation credits on every plan, which it equates to roughly 10 AI-handled calls, then sells more in published tiers: $25 for 4,000 credits, $49 for 10,000, $99 for 25,000 and $199 for 60,000, with overage from $1.00 per call down to $0.45 on the largest tier. Unusually, the bundled rate beats the overage rate at every tier, so prepaying is actually the better deal. Dialpad has moved its AI Agent product to quote-only conversation-based credits, so the equivalent number is not something you can look up. Neither approach is wrong, but only one of them lets you model the cost before a sales call. Phoner has no AI receptionist at any price, so if that is what you are shopping for, this row goes to the other two.
Recording is included earlier at Dialpad than at Quo
Dialpad includes call recording on its $15 Standard plan along with AI voice transcription, unlimited calling and SMS. Quo puts automatic call recording on Business at $23 yearly and $33 monthly, together with phone menus, group calling, custom ring orders and the HubSpot and Salesforce integrations. If recording matters to you and you are willing to commit annually, Dialpad gives it to you $8 per user cheaper. Phoner includes recording with per-line consent announcements on Team at $29. Wherever you land, read your state's consent rules first, because they differ and the obligation follows the call rather than the vendor.
Neither one publishes which plan carries the phone menu, and that matters
Dialpad documents a multi-level auto attendant across its communications platform but does not state on its own pages which Connect tier includes it, so we are leaving that cell empty rather than guessing at it. Quo is explicit: phone menus are on Business at $23, not on the $15 Starter. Since a menu that answers and routes callers is the most common reason a small business buys one of these products at all, this is the question to put in writing before you sign anything with Dialpad. Ask for the plan name in the quote, not just the price.
Both are app-first, which is a feature or a hard stop
Neither of these is aimed at a company that wants handsets on desks. Quo is deliberately app-first with limited desk phone support. Dialpad does support standard SIP handsets, which gives it the edge if you already own Poly, Yealink, Grandstream or Cisco sets, and Phoner supports them as an option too. What none of them can do is take the proprietary digital handsets wired into an old key system or PBX, which do not reprovision to any hosted provider. If those are on the desks, the phones are being replaced whichever way you go, and that cost belongs in the comparison.
Half the comparisons you are reading predate the rebrand
OpenPhone became Quo in September 2025, and a large share of the articles still ranking for this matchup were written before that and before the current plan structure. Their tables show tier names and prices that no longer exist. Dialpad, separately, restructured its pricing page in the same period. The practical effect is that a comparison written even a few months ago can be wrong about both vendors at once. Check the date on anything you read about these two, including this page, and confirm the plan names on each vendor's own site before you commit.
Who should pick which
Pick OpenPhone or Dialpad if
Pick Dialpad if live call transcription and automatic meeting notes are the reason you are buying, and you are willing to commit annually to get the $15 rate. Pick Quo, formerly OpenPhone, if customers text you more than they call, if a shared message inbox is really the product you want, or if you want to know what the AI features cost before you talk to anyone.
Their list price: Quo $15-35/user · Dialpad Connect $15-25/user
Pick Phoner if
Pick Phoner if you want the phone system itself without an annual commitment: a visual IVR phone menu, ring groups with rules in plain language, business texting, and recording with consent announcements, on the Team plan at $29 per user with no seat minimum and no year up front.
Phoner: $15-29/user/mo yearly, $19-35 monthly
Leaving OpenPhone or Dialpad does not mean a new number
Your number is yours and moves with you. Phoner's free number porting takes about 1-2 weeks, and the line keeps ringing on OpenPhone or Dialpad until the moment it switches over. Set up your phone menu and ring groups in Phoner while you wait, then the cutover is invisible to callers.
Port order · OpenPhone or Dialpad → Phoner
Sign up for Phoner and submit the port with a recent OpenPhone or Dialpad bill.
Keep answering on OpenPhone or Dialpad. The number never goes dark.
In 1-2 weeks calls ring your Phoner apps. Cancel the old account.
Porting fee: $0 · Downtime: None
Compare OpenPhone or Dialpad against a specific competitor
This page weighs OpenPhone or Dialpad against Phoner. If you are choosing between two other vendors instead, these pages put both of their rate cards in one table.
RingCentral vs Dialpad
Two second tiers priced identically at $25 per user, separated only by the three-seat minimum that one of them publishes and the other does not.
Dialpad alternatives
The full Dialpad Connect rate card with the seat minimums and the one-office cap on Standard that its pricing page publishes but its price cards do not show.
Common questions about switching
Is OpenPhone cheaper than Dialpad?
Billed yearly they are identical: Quo Starter, formerly OpenPhone, and Dialpad Connect Standard are both $15 per user per month. Billed monthly Quo is cheaper at $19 against Dialpad's $27. So the answer depends entirely on whether you are paying for a year up front, and most comparisons quote only the annual column.
How much does Dialpad cost per user?
Dialpad Connect Standard is $15 per user per month billed yearly and $27 billed monthly, and Connect Pro is $25 yearly and $35 monthly, per Dialpad's own published pricing summary checked on August 17, 2026. Enterprise is quote only. The contact center and sales products are priced separately and start much higher, at $80 and $39 per user.
Why is Dialpad pricing not on its pricing page anymore?
Dialpad restructured that page in 2026 around its AI Agent product, which is sold in conversation credits with a talk-to-sales call to action, so the per-user Connect tiers are no longer shown there. Those tiers are still published by Dialpad on the plain-text summary it maintains for AI assistants, which is where the current $15 and $25 figures on this page come from.
Does Dialpad have a free trial?
Dialpad has historically offered a trial of its Connect product, but the terms are set by Dialpad and change, so confirm the current offer on its own site rather than relying on any comparison page including this one. Phoner does not require a credit card to get started and has no annual commitment at any tier, so there is nothing to cancel if it is not a fit.
Which is better for a team that texts customers, OpenPhone or Dialpad?
Quo, formerly OpenPhone, is the stronger pick for text-led teams. Calls and texts land in one shared thread, teammates can comment internally on a conversation without the customer seeing it, and the whole product is built around that inbox. Dialpad supports SMS and MMS from its $15 Standard plan but its center of gravity is voice and transcription rather than messaging.
Does OpenPhone or Dialpad include an auto attendant on the entry plan?
Quo does not: phone menus are on Business at $23 per user billed yearly, not on the $15 Starter. Dialpad publishes a multi-level auto attendant but does not state which Connect tier carries it, so ask for that in writing before you sign. Phoner includes a visual IVR builder on Team at $29 per user, month to month.
Do OpenPhone or Dialpad require a minimum number of users?
Neither publishes a seat minimum, so a single license should be possible at either, though it is worth confirming in your quote. It is not universal in this category: both published Aircall plans carry a three-license minimum, which puts its smallest possible bill at $90 a month whatever your headcount. Phoner has no seat minimum and no annual commitment.
What is the difference between Dialpad Connect, Sell and Support?
They are three separately priced products rather than tiers of one. Connect is the business phone system at $15 per user billed yearly, Sell adds outbound sales tooling at $39, and Support is the inbound contact center at $80. Comparison articles quoting "Dialpad from $15" always mean Connect, so confirm which product a quote actually covers.
What fees get added on top of the advertised price?
Expect telecom taxes, E911 surcharges set by your state or county, a federal universal service pass-through, and A2P 10DLC registration if you text customers. The universal service contribution factor hit a record 42.0 percent for the fourth quarter of 2026 under FCC Public Notice DA 26-946, but it applies only to the interstate and international portion of the bill, so the realistic pass-through is nearer 27 percent of the service charge.
Can I keep my number if I move off OpenPhone or Dialpad?
Yes. FCC local number portability rules let you keep your numbers when you change providers in the same area, and a carrier cannot refuse to release a number over an unpaid balance. If you are on annual billing, find your renewal date before scheduling the port so you are not paying for months nobody uses. Porting into Phoner is free and usually takes 1 to 2 weeks.
Is there a better alternative to both OpenPhone and Dialpad?
It depends which compromise you are trying to avoid. Phoner at $15 to $29 per user billed yearly ($19 to $35 monthly) is month to month at every tier with no seat minimum, a visual IVR builder, ring groups, business texting and recording with consent announcements. RingCentral suits larger estates needing administrative depth. Grasshopper bills flat per account if you would rather not pay per seat at all.
Connect · Line open
Ready when you are, month to month
Pick a number and be live in about 5 minutes, or port your OpenPhone or Dialpad number for free.
No credit card to get started. Cancel any time.