Aircall Alternatives for Small Teams: Sharing Calls

If you are looking for an Aircall alternative for small teams, the feature list on a pricing page only tells you half the story. What matters for a team of 2 to 10 people is how calls move between you: who rings first, who can see what a colleague said to a customer yesterday, and who calls back the person nobody picked up for. This guide compares vendors on exactly those workflows.

Disclosure: we make Tocaller, so it is listed as “Tocaller (our product).” We point out where it falls short, too.

This article is organized by team workflow. If you would rather start from your type of business (front desk, field services, sales, support or several locations), read Aircall alternatives for small business. For prices, see our cheap Aircall alternatives ranking and the switching savings guide. We don’t repeat the cost math here.

The five things a small team does with its phones

Watch a small team for a day and almost every phone interaction falls into one of five jobs. A good phone system makes each one easy for the whole team, not just for one person.

1. Share a number. Customers call one number, and whoever is free answers.
2. Decide who rings. Everyone at once, in an order, or a menu that sends callers to the right group. After hours, something else happens.
3. Control who can change things. Not everyone should be able to edit routing, buy numbers or see every report.
4. Share the history. When a customer calls back, the person answering can see the last call, text and voicemail, even if a colleague handled it.
5. Call people back. Missed calls get noticed and returned quickly, ideally from the same business number.

The rest of this guide takes each job in turn and shows how Aircall and the alternatives handle it.

Aircall alternatives for small teams, compared on team features

We compared Aircall’s entry plan with four alternatives that small teams often shortlist. Every cell comes from the vendor’s official pricing page. Where a page doesn’t mention a feature, we say “not listed” instead of guessing.

Two patterns stand out. First, Quo puts several team routing features (group calling, ring order, transfers, phone menus) on its Business plan rather than Starter, so check which tier you are actually comparing. Second, Aircall’s entry plan covers most team routing, but call backs for queued callers are a Professional feature.

1. Sharing one number

Most small teams want customers to have one number to remember. The question is what happens when it rings.

There are two common models:

• A shared line. One business number rings several people, and everyone sees the same calls and texts. Quo calls this a “shared phone number,” and Aircall offers a shared call inbox.
• A number per person, plus a shared inbox. Allo’s Business plan gives “unlimited seats, each with its own number” with a collaborative inbox. This works well when customers have a regular contact, like a real estate agent or consultant.

In Tocaller (our product), every number has its own call flow. You decide in the flow who it rings, so one main number can ring the whole team while a second number rings just one person. Numbers are bought separately (from $3.99 per number per month) and none is included in the plan, so a team that wants a number per person pays for each one.

A practical tip: if you choose a shared line, agree on who owns follow-up. A shared number with no owner is how calls fall through the cracks.

2. Ring groups: who rings, and in what order

A ring group is simply a list of people who ring for a call. Small teams usually use one of these patterns:

• Everyone at once. Good for two or three people who all handle the same calls.
• In order. The owner or the front desk rings first, then others. Quo lists “ring order” on Business and above.
• By menu. “Press 1 for sales, 2 for support” sends callers to different groups. Aircall, CloudTalk and Tocaller list menus on their entry plans. Quo’s phone menus start on Business.

Then decide what happens when nobody answers or the office is closed. Common fallbacks are voicemail, a recorded message, or a second group.

In Tocaller, you build this visually with blocks for Incoming Call, Business Hours, Menu, Dial, Playback Audio, Voicemail and AI Agent. Changes apply to the next call, so you can adjust the flow on a busy morning without waiting for anyone. If you want a fallback after the team, the AI Voice Agent can answer and hand over to a person. It is usage-based, at $0.13 per agent minute.

For more on routing patterns, see our call routing guide.

3. Roles: who can change what

On a team of three, everyone can be an admin. By six or eight people, that gets risky. Someone edits the after-hours flow by accident, or a new hire sees reports they don’t need.

What to look for is a small set of roles that match how your team is organized:

• Tocaller (our product) has four roles: Owner, Admin, Supervisor and Agent. Call activity reports are visible to Supervisors, Admins and Owners, so you can give a team lead the Supervisor role to see reports and unanswered calls. See user roles and permissions and team management.
• Aircall lists role-based permissions on all plans. Its Essentials plan allows up to 3 teams, and Professional and Enterprise allow unlimited teams. If you want separate teams for, say, sales, support, reception and a second office, the Essentials cap matters.
• Quo lists user roles and management on every plan.
• Allo lists granular admin controls on its Ultra plan.

4. Shared conversation history

This is the feature small teams notice most once they have it. A customer calls on Monday and talks to Sam. On Wednesday they text, and Priya answers. If Priya can’t see Monday’s call, the customer has to explain everything again.

Vendors approach this differently:

• Tocaller (our product) keeps one conversation per contact, with calls, texts, recordings, voicemails and transcripts in order. Contacts can have notes. Recording is set per number, with a periodic beep that both sides hear, and AI transcription of recorded calls is usage-based.
• Aircall lets you assign and comment on calls and add tags, inside its shared call inbox.
• Quo lists shared contacts and internal threads on all plans.
• CloudTalk lists unlimited call history and call tagging.
• Allo lists a collaborative inbox and notes on Business.
• Nextiva NEXT Core lists one shared and one personal inbox, plus basic CRM and ticketing.

If your team already keeps customer history in a CRM, the better question is whether the phone system writes calls into that CRM. Tocaller has no CRM integrations, so for a CRM-centered team, Aircall or another integrated tool is the better fit.

5. Calling people back

Every small team misses calls. What separates good setups is how fast those calls get returned and whether anyone notices them at all.

• Queue callback. A caller waiting in a queue can ask for a call back instead of holding. CloudTalk lists queue callback on all three plans. Aircall lists it on Professional and Enterprise, but not Essentials.
• Seeing what was missed. Tocaller’s call activity reports show unanswered calls along with inbound and outbound volume by hour, day, week or month, so a Supervisor can spot the busy hours where calls go unanswered.
• Calling back from the business number. In Tocaller, call backs are one tap from the call history, and outbound calls go out from your business number, so customers recognize who is calling.

Tocaller doesn’t list call queues or queue callback. For a small team that answers in a ring group, that is usually fine. If callers regularly wait in line, a tool with queues (CloudTalk, or Aircall Professional) is a better match. Our guide on reducing call abandonment covers other ways to keep missed calls down.

Three small-team setups

Here is how the five jobs come together for three common team shapes. For what each setup costs, use the cost comparison at 1, 2, 3 and 5 users.

Two people sharing one line

Two partners, or an owner and an assistant. Both answer the same number, both ring at once, and calls go to voicemail after hours. Shared history matters more than routing.

The catch here is the seat minimum. Aircall and Tocaller both require 3 users, so a team of two pays for a seat nobody uses. CloudTalk Starter has a 1-licence minimum, Allo describes its Business plan as for teams of 2 to 250 people, and Quo doesn’t state a minimum. If you plan to hire a third person soon, the minimum matters less.

Five people with a front desk

Two people on reception, two specialists and a manager. A menu sends callers to reception or the specialists. Reception rings first; if nobody answers, the call goes to voicemail or an AI agent. The manager is a Supervisor and checks unanswered calls each week.

This is a natural fit for Tocaller’s call flows and roles. Aircall Essentials and CloudTalk Starter also cover menus, ring groups and business hours on their entry plans. With Quo, check that you are on Business for phone menus and ring order.

Eight to ten people in sales and support

A mixed team: some people make outbound calls, others answer support. You probably want two groups, a menu, transfers between them, and reporting by team.

At this size, look hard at two things. If salespeople log calls in a CRM, integrations decide the shortlist, and Aircall lists 250+ integrations on all plans. If support callers wait, you want queues and queue callback. Tocaller covers the routing, roles, shared history and reports, but it does not list transfers, queues or CRM integrations, so it suits teams where those aren’t daily needs. See how Tocaller works for growing teams.

Where Tocaller fits a small team, and where it doesn’t

Tocaller (our product) is a good fit for a small team that:

• Answers mostly inbound calls and wants to set up hours, menus and ring groups without code.
• Wants one conversation per customer that everyone on the team can see.
• Wants clear roles, so a team lead sees reports without full account control.
• Works at a computer or in a mobile browser with a headset, with no hardware to buy.

It is not the right fit if your team:

• Is one or two people and doesn’t want to pay for a third seat (3-user minimum).
• Needs native iOS, Android or desktop apps.
• Logs calls in a CRM such as HubSpot or Salesforce.
• Needs call queues, wallboards or a power dialer.
• Wants calling included in the plan. Tocaller has no included or unlimited calling: numbers and calls are paid separately from a prepaid balance. Aircall, Quo and CloudTalk all list included US and Canada calling.

Moving a small team off Aircall

For a team of under ten, the move is mostly about timing. Set up the new system and test it with your own calls before you change anything customers see. Rebuild your routing (hours, menu, ring groups) and invite the team. In Tocaller, that means inviting your team and building a call flow for each number. Then decide what happens to your existing numbers. The full exit checklist (contract, notice, number porting and data export) is in our switching guide.

FAQ

Set up your team’s calls in Tocaller

The best test is your real workflow: build a ring group, invite two colleagues and call your own number. Start your 7-day free trial. There is no license limit during the trial, and nobody is charged automatically when it ends. You can also see pricing for seats, numbers and usage.