Frontly vs Aircall
Aircall is a cloud business phone system that equips your team to make and take calls from anywhere. Frontly is an AI receptionist that answers your inbound calls 24/7 when no human is available, and captures every booking in your Frontly dashboard. Different categories. Often run together.
The short answer
Is Frontly an alternative to Aircall?
Not really, and plenty of businesses run both. Aircall is a cloud phone system: it routes calls to your team and gives everyone a softphone. Frontly is what answers when nobody on that team picks up, holding the conversation, booking the appointment and capturing the enquiry. If your problem is missed calls rather than call routing, Frontly is the one to look at.
- If your team needs a unified business phone system to make outbound sales calls and pick up inbound, Aircall is the answer
- If you want every inbound call answered automatically (24/7, no humans needed) and routed straight to bookings in your Frontly dashboard, Frontly is the answer
- If you want both, a phone system for your team AND an AI to handle calls outside business hours or when the team is busy, run Aircall + Frontly together (we connect to most VoIP systems via SIP)
- Aircall does NOT replace a receptionist. It gives your team better dialing tools
- Frontly does NOT replace a phone system. It replaces or augments the human at the front desk
What it actually does
| Feature | Frontly | Aircall |
|---|---|---|
| Outbound dialing for your sales team | No | Yes |
| Inbound calls answered automatically by AI | Yes | No |
| 24/7 coverage without staffing | Yes | No |
| Real-time appointment booking from a call | Yes | No |
| Call recording + analytics for your team | Transcripts + summaries | Yes |
| Power dialer / sequenced outbound campaigns | Outbound campaigns | Yes |
| Soft-phone / desktop app for agents | No | Yes |
Swipe the table to see the Aircall column.
Inbound handling
| Feature | Frontly | Aircall |
|---|---|---|
| AI answers in under 5 seconds | Yes | Routes to staff |
| AI qualifies the lead during the call | Yes | No |
| AI books appointment into your calendar | Yes | No |
| Contact + transcript captured in the dashboard | Yes | No |
| Call queue + IVR menu | Replaced by AI conversation | Yes |
| Voicemail to email transcription | Not needed (AI answered) | Yes |
Swipe the table to see the Aircall column.
Workflow & capture
| Feature | Frontly | Aircall |
|---|---|---|
| Bookings captured in vendor's own dashboard | Yes | No |
| Outbound campaign manager included | Yes | No |
| Cross-call memory of returning callers | Yes | No |
| Visual workflow builder for call routing | Yes | IVR builder only |
Swipe the table to see the Aircall column.
Billing & contract
| Feature | Frontly | Aircall |
|---|---|---|
| Flat monthly rate (Frontly) / Per-seat monthly (Aircall) | Flat rate | From ~AUD$45/seat/mo |
| Outbound minutes included | Drawn from plan minutes; $0.50/min beyond | Per-region bundled minutes + overage |
| Onboarding included in the plan | Yes | Yes |
| No commitment beyond your plan | Yes | Annual discount available |
Swipe the table to see the Aircall column.
Compliance & data (AU)
| Feature | Frontly | Aircall |
|---|---|---|
| Australian data hosting | Yes | Multi-region (US/EU primary) |
| AU-resident customer success | Yes | EMEA / US-led support |
Swipe the table to see the Aircall column.
DEEP DIVE
Key Differences Explained
Aircall is a phone system. Frontly is a front desk.
Aircall replaces the desk phone hardware your team used to own. It's an excellent VoIP product if your sales team makes calls all day and you want a unified interface, dialer, recording, and CRM logging. It does not, by design, replace the human receptionist at the front of your business. When an inbound call comes in, Aircall routes it to a human's softphone or a queue, and that human still has to answer.
Frontly answers the calls Aircall would route to staff
Frontly sits in front of (or alongside) your phone system and handles the inbound. The AI agent picks up in under 5 seconds, qualifies the caller, books the appointment, captures it in your Frontly dashboard, and only escalates to a human when something requires real judgment. If you have Aircall today and you're still missing calls (especially after hours and weekends), Frontly fills that gap without replacing Aircall.
How they coexist
We integrate at the call-routing layer. Inbound calls hit Frontly first. Routine enquiries (bookings, FAQ, status updates) Frontly resolves end-to-end. Anything genuinely requiring your team gets warm-transferred into your Aircall queue. Your team uses Aircall as before; Frontly catches everything else, including everything outside business hours and during peaks. Net result: zero missed calls, no extra reception staff.
If you only have budget for one
Most Australian SMBs we talk to who are weighing this question already have a phone (mobile or landline). They don't actually need Aircall. They need someone (or something) to ANSWER the phone they already have. In that case, Frontly is the higher-leverage spend: forward your existing number to Frontly's AI and you have 24/7 coverage tomorrow without rolling out a new phone system. Add Aircall later when your sales team's outbound calling justifies it.
Flat rate per business vs per-seat pricing
Aircall bills per seat per month, from around AUD$45, so the cost climbs every time you add a person to the phone system whether or not call volume changes. Frontly is a flat monthly rate per business from $149/mo, with a monthly call-minute allowance and no per-seat scaling, so what you pay tracks what you need answered rather than how many staff log in. Both meter beyond an allowance, so the real difference is the basis: Aircall's climbs with headcount, Frontly's does not.
How Pricing Compares
Flat monthly rate per business with a monthly call-minute allowance. No per-seat scaling. Outbound campaigns included on Frontly's outbound and bundled plans. Month to month costs 20% more than the yearly rate.
Aircall pricing is per-seat per month (Essentials, Professional, Custom tiers). Includes a regional bundle of outbound minutes; overage is per-minute. Setup-friendly but cost scales with team size, not call volume.
INDUSTRY FIT
Is Frontly right for your industry?
AI IVR to replace your phone menu already routes calls with a menu tree. The gap is that routing is all it does, so every call it handles still lands on a person who then does something simple.
AI intake reception for law firms already has a phone system that routes calls well during business hours. The gap is the after hours new-matter enquiry that reaches voicemail and goes to the next firm.
AI receptionist for accounting practices does not need a second phone system, it needs the overflow answered when tax season triples the call volume your existing lines were sized for.
AI helpdesk reception for MSPs sits closest to the hybrid model: keep your routing stack, and put an AI front desk in front of the after hours queue so SLA clocks start on answer, not on callback.
AI front desk for any business already routes calls perfectly well during business hours. The gap is who answers when the routing runs out of people to route to.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Different categories. Aircall is a phone system for your team to make and take calls. Frontly is an AI that answers calls automatically (no human needed). If your team needs a phone system, you need something like Aircall. If you want every inbound call answered without staffing, you need Frontly. Many businesses run both: Aircall for the team's outbound and warm-transferred inbound, Frontly for everything that would otherwise miss.
Yes. We support warm transfer to any SIP-addressable destination, which includes Aircall queues. The handoff carries the call transcript so your Aircall agent picks up the conversation in context.
No. Frontly provisions an Australian local number for you, or you forward your existing landline / mobile number to Frontly. No PBX, no VoIP system, no hardware required to use Frontly on its own.
It's a common mix-up. Aircall demos beautifully because it solves a real problem (your team needs better calling tools), but it does not answer inbound calls automatically. A human still has to pick up. If your actual pain is missed calls and unanswered enquiries, Frontly is the right purchase. If your pain is the team using mobile phones and Excel to track calls, Aircall is right. Some businesses need both.
Frontly's outbound is AI-driven campaign calling: recall, arrears, follow-up. Loaded as a list, no per-call charge. Aircall's outbound is human-driven dialing for your sales team. Different uses. We don't replace a sales team's manual outbound; we replace receptionist-style outbound campaigns.
Your call records and the Frontly platform are hosted in Australian data centres. Limited call content is processed by specialist speech and language providers, some located overseas, under no-retention terms. Aircall is a multi-region cloud product with primary data centres in the US and EU.
Usually about an hour if you keep your existing Aircall numbers and route the inbound to Frontly via SIP forwarding. Your Aircall outbound continues unchanged; only the inbound flow shifts. We run a parallel pilot for the first week so any edge cases get caught before full cutover.
HEAR IT FOR YOURSELF
Your AI Agent Is Ready to Talk
Call our AI agent right now. No signup. No credit card. Just dial and experience it.
Test Call
Talk to the AI agent right now from your browser. Hear exactly how Frontly will sound for your business.
Ready to Stop Missing Leads?
Set up your AI front desk in about an hour. No credit card required.