Industry insights
Compare 7 Air AI alternatives for outbound calling: Thoughtly, Convoso, Orum, Regal.io, Nooks, Kixie, and JustCall. Honest pros, cons, pricing, and compliance details for revenue teams evaluating their options in 2026.
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Air AI made headlines with a bold promise: autonomous AI agents that could hold 10- to 40-minute outbound sales calls with prospects who never opted in. For teams running high-volume outbound programs, the pitch was compelling. An AI that cold-dials at scale, qualifies leads mid-conversation, and books appointments without human intervention.
The reality has been more complicated. Reports of $25,000–$100,000 upfront licensing fees, reliability issues during live calls, refund disputes documented on the BBB and Trustpilot, and an outbound-only architecture that leaves teams stitching together separate tools for SMS, email, and CRMCRMThe system of record for leads, contacts, deals, and activity. Thoughtly reads from and writes to your CRM continuously. workflows have pushed many revenue teams to look elsewhere.
I evaluated seven platforms that teams commonly consider when moving away from Air AI — looking at conversation quality, pricing transparency, multichannel capabilities, CRM integration depth, and compliance posture. Not every platform on this list does exactly what Air AI does. Some are better.
Air AI is voice-only and outbound-focused. I looked at whether each alternative can handle both inbound and outbound calling, and how well the AI manages extended conversations — not just scripted menus but real qualification and objection handling. Platforms that can receive inbound calls with the same agent logic score higher because most revenue teams need both motions.
A prospect who does not answer a call still needs follow-up. I evaluated whether each platform supports SMS, email, and workflow-driven sequences natively — or whether teams need to bolt on separate tools. Platforms with native multichannel orchestration avoid the data fragmentation and timing gaps that come from stitching disconnected systems.
Outbound calling only creates value if call outcomes, contact updates, and next steps flow back into the CRM automatically. I checked for two-way sync depth with Salesforce, HubSpot, and other common revenue stacks — not just Zapier-routed one-way pushes. The difference between a native CRM connector and a webhook relay matters when call volume scales.
Air AI's reported $25K–$100K upfront license is a major barrier. I weighted platforms that offer transparent, usage-based pricing with no mandatory annual commitments or large upfront fees. Teams evaluating alternatives are often looking specifically because they do not want to commit five or six figures before proving ROI.
Outbound calling carries TCPATCPAUS federal law governing telemarketing calls and SMS. Thoughtly enforces consent capture, time-of-day windows, and DNC scrubbing automatically., state DNC, and consent regulation exposure. I looked at whether each platform provides built-in compliance tooling — DNC scrubbingDNC scrubbingFiltering outbound dialing lists against federal and internal Do-Not-Call registries. Required for compliant outbound — Thoughtly scrubs every call., consent tracking, quiet-hours enforcement, branded caller ID — or leaves that burden entirely to the customer. Platforms operating in healthcare, insurance, or financial services also need SOC 2, HIPAA/BAA, or equivalent certifications.
Air AI's documented issues with call drops, onboarding delays, and post-sale support informed this criterion. I checked each platform's uptime commitments, onboarding process, and independent review sentiment to surface recurring reliability themes. A platform that promises autonomy but cannot stay connected mid-conversation is a risk multiplier.
| Platform | Best for | Channels | Pricing model | Key limitation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thoughtly | Converting inbound leads across voice, SMS, and email | Voice + SMS + email + workflows | Pay-as-you-go, no upfront license | Best when lead volume justifies automation |
| Convoso | High-volume outbound contact centers | Voice + SMS | Custom per-seat pricing | Built for contact centers, not lean sales teams |
| Orum | AI-powered parallel dialing for SDR teams | Voice (parallel dialer) | Custom pricing | Voice-only; no SMS or email follow-up |
| Regal.io | B2C revenue engagement with human + AI agents | Voice + SMS + email | Custom enterprise pricing | Enterprise-first; may be heavy for smaller teams |
| Nooks | AI-assisted SDR prospecting workflows | Voice + email + social | Custom pricing | SDR-focused; less suited for inbound conversion |
| Kixie | Instant lead follow-up triggered from CRM events | Voice + SMS | From $35/user/month | Less autonomous AI; more dialer + automation |
| JustCall | Scaling sales and support calls with AI assist | Voice + SMS | From $19/user/month | Broader focus; less outbound-specialized AI |
Thoughtly is built for the job that comes after a lead raises their hand: calling, texting, and emailing until someone is ready to talk — then qualifying, booking, and writing everything back to the CRM. Where Air AI focuses on long-form cold calls to strangers, Thoughtly focuses on converting the inbound leads companies already paid to acquire. The platform runs voice, SMS, email, and multi-step workflows in one product, which means a missed call automatically triggers an SMS follow-up without bolting on a second tool.
Thoughtly agents reach 100% of inbound leads within seconds of form submission, qualify interest against rules you define, hand warm conversations to human reps, and update Salesforce, HubSpot, or Zoho with full call notes and deal-stage changes. For teams whose outbound motion is really re-engagement — calling back leads who expressed interest but went cold — Thoughtly handles that natively as part of the same workflowWorkflowAn automated, multi-step process — usually triggered by an event (form fill, new lead) and orchestrating one or more voice / SMS / email actions.. The platform supports 35+ languages, offers SOC 2 Type II certification, and provides HIPAA/BAA for healthcare and insurance deployments.
Revenue teams in insurance, mortgage, real estate, healthcare, education, home services, and financial services that receive 500+ inbound leads per month and need every one contacted fast — across voice, SMS, and email — with outcomes synced to the CRM. Teams leaving Air AI because they need multichannel follow-up, transparent pricing, and compliance tooling for regulated industries.
Pay-as-you-go with custom per-minute rates. No upfront license. Free pilot available. Contact Thoughtly for a quote.
Convoso is an outbound contact center platform built for teams running large-volume dialing campaigns — lead generation agencies, insurance call centers, and B2C sales floors that need to maximize contact rates while staying on the right side of TCPA and state DNC regulations. The platform combines a predictive dialer, intelligent number management (Convoso Ignite), and workflow automation with a particular focus on solving the spam-labeling problem that kills outbound contact rates.
Convoso's Ignite product specifically addresses iOS call screening and carrierCarrierA telecommunications provider that routes phone calls and SMS over its network. Twilio, Telnyx, and Bandwidth are the three most common in the AI voice space. spam filtering, which is one of the biggest operational headaches in outbound calling today. The company reports customers seeing 4x boosts to contact rates and 75% increases in conversions. Convoso also supports SMS-based follow-up sequences, though it is not as deeply multichannel as platforms with native email and workflow automation.
Contact center managers and outbound directors running 10,000+ calls per month who need predictive dialing, spam mitigation, and TCPA compliance tooling in one platform. Teams that have human agents handling conversations and need better connection rates, not a fully autonomous AI caller.
Custom per-seat pricing. Contact Convoso for a quote. No public pricing page.
Orum is a parallel dialing platform that multiplies SDR productivity by dialing multiple prospects simultaneously and connecting reps only when someone picks up. Rather than replacing the human conversation with AI, Orum uses AI to eliminate the dead time between live connections — reps spend more minutes per hour actually talking to prospects instead of listening to rings, voicemails, and busy signals. The platform integrates with Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach, Salesloft, and other common SDR stacks.
Orum has earned a strong reputation with B2B SDR teams at companies like ZoomInfo, Rippling, and other sales-led organizations. The platform includes conversation intelligence, call recording, and analytics to help managers coach reps and identify what's working across campaigns. For teams that want to keep humans in the conversation loop but dramatically increase dialing throughput, Orum is one of the strongest options.
B2B SDR teams that want to dramatically increase live conversations per hour without replacing human reps. Companies running outbound prospecting campaigns through Salesforce or HubSpot with dedicated SDR headcount.
Custom pricing. Contact Orum for a quote. No publicly listed per-seat rates.
Regal.io is a revenue engagement platform built specifically for B2C contact centers where phone and SMS are the primary revenue channels. The platform combines AI-powered voice agents with human agent orchestration, journey-triggered outbound campaigns, and branded caller ID — all designed for industries like insurance, healthcare, education, financial services, and home services where phone conversations drive conversions.
Regal's customer list includes Toyota, eHealth, Kin Insurance, and other large B2C organizations. The platform differentiates by letting teams blend AI agents and human agents in the same workflows: the AI handles initial outreach, qualification, and scheduling, while complex conversations route to humans. Regal also invests heavily in branded calling and carrier reputation management to keep answer rates high.
Mid-market and enterprise B2C revenue teams in insurance, healthcare, education, and financial services that run blended human + AI contact center operations and need journey-triggered outbound campaigns with branded calling.
Custom enterprise pricing. Contact Regal.io for a demo and quote.
Nooks provides an AI-powered workspace for outbound SDR teams that combines parallel dialing, AI-generated email sequences, social outreach, and prospecting prioritization in one interface. The platform positions itself as the unified workspace where reps work alongside AI agents across every outbound channel — calls, emails, and LinkedIn — rather than switching between disconnected point tools.
Nooks has gained traction with revenue teams at Rippling, ZoomInfo, and other B2B companies running high-velocity outbound. The platform includes AI Sequencing for automated multichannel cadences, a parallel dialer for phone outreach, and intelligent lead prioritization based on engagement signals. With 1,000+ five-star reviews, Nooks has built a strong reputation in the B2B SDR community specifically.
B2B SDR teams running high-velocity outbound across phone, email, and social channels. Companies with dedicated outbound headcount looking to consolidate their tool stack and increase rep efficiency.
Custom pricing. Contact Nooks for a quote.
Kixie is a sales engagement platform that connects calling and texting directly to CRM workflows — triggering outbound calls and SMS the moment a buyer signal appears. Rather than replacing reps with autonomous AI, Kixie automates the dialing and follow-up mechanics so reps connect faster. The platform integrates natively with HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, and other CRMs, and offers features like local presence dialing, power dialing, voicemail drop, and automated SMS follow-up sequences.
Kixie positions itself around speed-to-lead: when a form fill, website visit, or other CRM event fires, the platform auto-dials the lead before a human rep even sees the notification. For teams that want faster outbound response without handing conversations entirely to AI, Kixie bridges the gap between manual dialing and full automation.
Sales teams with 5–50 reps that need CRM-triggered speed-to-lead dialing and SMS follow-up without the complexity or cost of a full contact center platform. Companies using HubSpot, Salesforce, or Pipedrive that want calling and texting embedded in their existing CRM workflow.
Starts at $35/user/month (Integrated plan). Business plan and higher tiers available. Power dialer and advanced features on higher plans. 7-day free trial available.
JustCall is a cloud phone and messaging platform that helps sales and support teams scale calls, texts, and follow-up across inbound and outbound. The platform offers an AI-powered auto-dialer, SMS campaigns, call routing, conversation intelligence, and native integrations with over 100 CRM and helpdesk tools. JustCall positions itself as the one-platform solution for teams that need calling and texting without building on top of raw telephony APIs.
JustCall serves over 6,000 customers and carries SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and GDPR certifications — making it one of the more compliance-ready platforms on this list. The AI layer provides real-time call coaching, automatic call scoring, sentiment analysis, and post-call summaries. For teams that want AI to assist human reps rather than replace them entirely, JustCall offers a middle-ground approach.
Growing sales and support teams (5–200 reps) that need an affordable, compliance-ready calling and texting platform with AI-assisted coaching. Companies that want to improve rep performance with AI without fully replacing human conversations.
Essentials plan starts at $19/user/month. Team, Pro, and Business plans available. JustCall AI features included in Pro and above. 14-day free trial.
The right platform depends on what your team actually needs — and what about Air AI drove the decision to look elsewhere.
The most common reasons include Air AI's reported $25,000–$100,000 upfront licensing fees, documented reliability issues during live calls, refund disputes on the BBB and Trustpilot, voice-only architecture with no native SMS or email follow-up, and limited pricing transparency. Teams in regulated industries also cite concerns about TCPA and consent compliance for cold AI-powered outbound calls.
Thoughtly, Regal.io, and Convoso (with AI add-ons) can run autonomous or semi-autonomous calling workflows. Thoughtly's agents handle full conversations — qualifying, booking, and CRM write-back — without human intervention. Orum, Nooks, Kixie, and JustCall are designed to amplify human reps rather than replace them entirely.
JustCall starts at $19/user/month and Kixie starts at $35/user/month, both with free trials. Thoughtly offers pay-as-you-go pricing with no upfront commitment. The other platforms on this list use custom enterprise pricing.
Thoughtly offers SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA/BAA, and TCPA compliance tooling with purpose-built workflows for insurance, mortgage, healthcare, and financial services. JustCall also carries SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and GDPR certifications. Regal.io serves regulated B2C verticals with enterprise-grade compliance.
Air AI is a real product with real customers. However, multiple independent sources — including BBB complaints, Trustpilot reviews, Reddit threads, and at least one documented breach-of-contract lawsuit — describe disputes over refunds, performance not matching marketing claims, and difficulty reaching support after purchase. Teams evaluating Air AI should verify current pricing, contract terms, and performance guarantees independently before committing.
