Free Call Tracking Vs. Paid—Which is Better?

Here you are, sitting on the fence as to whether you want free call tracking or paid.

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Well, it’s time to stop straddling the fence, because we’ve got the lowdown on both.

It’s understandable that adding *yet another* new piece of software to your company’s tech stack might cause your sales team to express annoyance, panic, and a range of other emotions. But we promise it’s worth it.

Let’s take a look at some stats:

• Sales calls were in the top three outreach methods studied by Rain Group, with 70% of salespeople successfully using the phone to connect with buyers
• 57% of C-level buyers prefer to be contacted over the phone (Crunchbase)
• 41% of sellers in Sales Insight Lab’s study say calling is still the most effective way to reach potential buyers

Ready to learn more? Let’s get into it!

Introduction to Free Call Tracking Software

If your business has a call center or sales teams that receive a lot of calls, then call tracking software is a worthwhile addition to your tech stack.

The best part is that there are free and paid options to suit companies and teams of any size and budget. Check out our comparison of free and paid call tracking software options later on in this article.

What is Call Tracking?

Call tracking, also sometimes called phone tracking software, is a feature that is often found in sales automation software that gives you enhanced information about the calls your business initiates and receives.

Call tracking software can record and track information from incoming calls, including audio and the source of each call. Most call tracking software can organize this information properly as well, so you can click on a lead or client to listen to a recorded conversation, for example.

In short, call tracking makes call information transparent, so you can glean ways to improve sales processes, focus marketing efforts, or provide training.

Benefits of Sales Calls Tracking

Sales call tracking, also called sales call reporting software or sales call log software, provides benefits that are so worthwhile to your company that you’ll wonder why you didn’t implement it earlier.

The main benefits of sales call tracking are usually focused on sales and marketing. We all know that successful marketing campaigns, for instance, can have a major impact on a business’s growth.

How Sales Calls Tracking Helps Marketing Teams

And with most businesses, the marketing team is responsible for generating leads that are then sent to the sales team to follow up with, and hopefully, convert.

Sales call reporting software can help marketing with generating leads by:

• Showing the source behind incoming calls
• Tracking phone numbers tied to offline campaigns, such as radio or print
• Improve Search Engine Optimization (SEO) by discovering keywords that generate calls

With call tracking information, marketing can determine what the best converting channels are and focus marketing efforts and dollars on those channels.

For instance, if the marketing team creates a radio or print campaign, they would assign specific phone numbers for each so the sales call tracking tool can determine which channel was better for generating calls.

From there, the marketing team can easily see which channel performed better: radio or print. If one performs way better than the other, then it’s a no-brainer to focus marketing dollars on that channel in the future. Of course, the same logic applies to online marketing campaigns.

A more focused marketing effort also helps the sales team by providing them with higher-quality leads that are easier to sell to.

How Sales Call Tracking Helps Sales Teams

For most businesses, the sales team is the last touchpoint before a prospect turns into a paying customer. Because of their role in the sales funnel, sales teams have to be on their A-game all the time in order to convert the most customers.

Sales call tracking helps sales teams increase conversions by:

• Providing information to optimize processes to increase sales
• Recording conversations so sales managers can listen and pinpoint areas for improvement
• Helping to manage sales and support staff performance

Every sales team has a process behind how they sell. Without it, you get inconsistent sales and reps doing whatever they feel like in order to make a sale, which results in poor customer experiences.

With sales call tracking, sales managers can review conversations and identify successes and necessary improvements.

As an example, let’s say you’re a sales manager and a new promotion just launched, but customers aren’t buying in at the rate the leadership team expected. There seems to be a steady number of leads coming in from the marketing team every single day, so what’s the problem?

When you listen to conversations recorded by your sales call tracking software, you find out that most sales reps aren’t communicating the details of the promotion properly to customers.

With this newly identified coaching opportunity, you gather your sales reps and explain exactly how to position the new promotion to customers. After the meeting, you notice sales of the promotion start to increase. After a short time, sales of the promotion start to align with what the leadership team at your company expects.

Thanks to sales call tracking, what could have resulted in low sales was identified and handled quickly, resulting in a win-win situation for everyone.

Now that you’ve read about the benefits of sales call tracking, let’s dive into an evaluation of free and paid app options.

Sales Call Tracking Evaluation Criteria

There are a ton of sales tracking apps out there. Sure, you could just go for the most expensive, highest-rated one that you find on Google, but is it really worth the cost and time investment?

As with anything, researching is always the best option. But you can’t research something if you don’t know what you’re looking for.

Whether it’s a free call tracking app or a paid call tracking app, these are the basic features you should be looking for:

• Click-to-call dialing
• Auto-dialer options
• Call recording
• User-friendly interface
• CRM or app integration

There may be more features that would benefit your business specifically, so it’s worth taking the time to familiarize yourself with call tracking in general.

Before we get into our top picks for free calling tracking and paid call tracking apps, Let’s take a quick look at how we rated the apps we chose.

Free call tracking apps and paid call tracking apps in the sections below were evaluated according to the following criteria:

• Price
• Ease of use
• Calling features
• Reporting
• Number availability
• Learning curve

Without further delay, let’s get into our recommendations.

3 Top-Rated Free Call Tracking Software Options

We get it: paying for software that you can get for free sounds like a waste of money, especially if you are not 100% convinced it’s going to give you the benefits it promises.

On the other hand, you might be totally sold on call tracking software, but have to convince the higher-ups (aka. Your leadership team) that spending the money on the software is worth it.

Or, maybe you’re a big proponent of free, open-source software that allows you to customize its functionality in whatever way you want. This could be especially attractive if you have an in-house development team and need to integrate call tracking into proprietary company software.

Whatever your reason is for opting for free call tracking software, we’ve got recommendations to fit any situation.

CallRail (Free trial with no credit card required)

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Quick summary and price outline

CallRail provides a 14-day free trial with no credit card required, which gives you plenty of time to try out the software without any sort of commitment or obligation. They use a technology called Dynamic Number Insertion (DNI) to assign a unique phone number to each advertising or marketing source, allowing the software to track call activity similar to how a website uses Cookies.

Ease of use

Capterra, on the other hand, gives CallRail a usability rating of 4.5/5 based on 145 user reviews. These reviews date back all the way to 2016, giving you a better idea of how users have rated the user-friendliness of the software over time.

Calling features

CallRail’s free call tracking software focuses on several main features, including call attribution (which is what tells you the source of calls), conversation intelligence (analyzes recorded calls for juicy tidbits) Lead management (to organize your lead communications) and form tracking (keeps track of form submission sources, as well as keywords).

These features come together to create a marketing-focused call tracker with light calling features. CallRail is a great option if you are more concerned with keeping track of call sources and want to manage online form submissions at the same time.

Reporting

Since CallRail’s focus is on providing call and form attribution, it makes sense that the software would have a clear, concise reporting feature, and that’s exactly what you’ll find. Tabbed navigation with colorful tags and good use of white space makes CallRail easy on the eyes.

Number availability

With a free trial, you get 10 local numbers to play with. Additional numbers and minutes, of course, are available with higher-tier paid plans.

Learning curve

CallRail is straightforward enough software, and according to them, you can set up the software and be ready to track calls in less than 10 minutes.

VICIDial (Open source, 100% free)

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Quick summary and price outline

VICIdial offers 100% free, open-source software that focuses on giving companies full control over their call tracking software. VICIdial makes money by offering support and hosting services to their users, should they need it.

Ease of use

Capterra rates VICIdial 4.3/5 for usability, out of 250 reviews. The main positives that users point out are that the software provides a great experience for those starting out with a sales call tracker and that in some cases, it provides a more robust experience than paid dialers.

Calling features

For free software, VICIdial offers a pretty long list of features. The basics are all here, including call recording, agent coaching (where a sales manager can listen in on a live call and offer advice), skills-based routing and queue prioritization, and more.

Reporting

Expected reporting features that show agent performance, number of calls, call sources, and more are all available through VICIdialer.

Number availability

Local numbers have to be purchased through a third-party provider.

Learning curve

As with most open-source software, the learning curve for VICIdial depends on what you are using it for and how complex your setup is. They do offer paid support and a variety of free resources on their website to help you out if you need it.

Qubicles (100% free option)

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Quick summary and price outline

Qubicles is an interesting piece of free call tracking software. It operates on blockchain technology, which is arguably the most secure way to establish end-to-end connections on the planet. If you’re looking for a free call tracking option that is super secure, Qubicles is a great choice. The free option also actually includes 100% of the software’s features, but onboarding and live support are left out of the free version and reserved for the paid versions only.

Ease of use

Capterra users rate Qubicles’ usability at 4.5/5, based on 24 reviews. Most reviews state that the software is easy to set up, and minimal technical ability is required to get things started.

Calling features

Many of the basic calling features that you’d expect to find in free call tracking software are here, including scripting, built-in webphone (softphone), inbound call queues, and more.

Reporting

Call reporting and QA are built into the Qubicles system, with sales and marketing-focused reporting as well.

Number availability

Qubicles provides affordable numbers available for purchase for the US and Canada, as well as most developed countries.

Learning curve

With a straightforward setup process and easy navigation, Qubicles is easy to learn.

Top 3 Paid Sales Tracking Software

Before we get into our top picks for sales tracking software, we have to come clean.

We’re going to talk about Ringy.

We know that you’re probably thinking, “oh of course they are” while you roll your eyes, but since you’re already here, you might as well give us a chance.

Look, most of the software we’ve discussed already and are going to discuss is great, but honestly, there are good reasons behind why you should choose Ringy instead.

• We’re only $109 per month for all current and future features and scales with your business with unlimited users
• If you don’t want to go the monthly route, you can always opt for pay-as-you-go.
• If you’re in the insurance industry, we’re the insurance CRM for you with specific features that cater to that industry.

Still on the fence? You can always request a demo or sign up for a no-obligation free trial.

Alright, back to our paid sales tracking software picks.

KiXie (Free trial w with no credit card required)

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Kixie is call tracking software that focuses on automating calling and texting for sales teams and can integrate with popular CRMs like Hubspot, Salesforce, and Pipedrive. You’ll find lots of features here that would be popular with call centers or teams that take a lot of calls, with things like voicemail drop and intelligent autodialer.

Price

Kixie offers a 7-day free trial with no credit card required. Once the free trial is up, you can migrate to a paid plan.

Ease of use

Capterra rates Kixie a 4.8/5 for usability based on 161 user reviews (as of Sept. 2021). Most reviews state that the software is straightforward and easy to navigate.

Calling features

Kixie really shines with its calling features. Everything you could want from call tracking software is here, with features like click-to-call, interactive customer menus, missed call alerts, and more.

Reporting

The most notable reporting features Kixie offers are the Live Call Board, Sales Leaderboard, and Reporting Dashboard. The live call board lets you see an agent’s current status, which leads they are speaking with, daily performance, and more.

With the Sales Leaderboard, you can get a quick glance at agent performance. Finally, the Reporting Dashboard shows recorded inbound and outbound calls and syncs to your CRM.

Number availability

Kixie doesn’t list numbers available on their website, so local numbers may have to be purchased separately through them or a different provider.

Learning curve

The learning curve with Kixie is quite low, but they do provide live support and an online help center if you get stuck.

Infinity Call Tracking (Call tracking software available in over 75 countries)

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Infinity call tracking provides full call analysis so you can see the sources behind incoming calls for sales and marketing purposes. You can also integrate the software with Google Suite, but full CRM integration is only available through the enterprise plan. Perhaps the most standout feature with Infinity is that it offers phone numbers in over 75 countries.

Price

Pricing for Infinity starts at $99 USD per month and scales up from there. For enterprise pricing, Infinity requests that you get in touch with their sales team.

Ease of use

Capterra users rate Infinity call tracking 4.7/5 for usability. Most users state that the interface is modern and straightforward, similar to other call tracking software available on the market.

Calling features

Although Infinity offers most calling features that other, similar platforms offer, call recording is only included for the first month of service. Afterwards, it looks like there is an additional cost for “call storage”, but it’s unclear as to what this additional cost is.

Reporting

Basic sales and marketing-focused reporting features are available through Infinity’s API.

Number availability

The SMB package includes 5 UK numbers, but it is unclear what the pricing is for numbers from other countries.

Learning curve

With a modern interface and clear navigation, Infinity doesn’t take long to learn how to use. Self-service support is the only available option if you go with the SMB plan, but live support is available in higher-tiered plans.

WhatConverts (Marketing focused, 14-day free trial)

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WhatConverts is a marketing-focused call tracking tool that is tailored to SEO and PPC professionals. With robust call source tracking options, you’re sure to get clean and accurate lead data with WhatConverts.

Price

WhatConverts’ pricing starts at $30 per month and scales up depending on how many local numbers and minutes you need.

Ease of use

Capterra’s users rate WhatConverts at 4.8/5 out of 46 reviews. Most reviews state that the software is straightforward and easy to use.

Calling features

WhatConverts offers call tracking, online form tracking, DNI, campaign and keyword reporting, and more. Most of the calling features are sales and marketing-focused.

Reporting

Marketing reporting through WhatConverts is pretty robust for a call tracking system, including leads by campaign and keyword, source/medium, ad and content, and more. Automatic monthly reports are also available with higher-tier plans.

Number availability

Number availability through WhatConverts is pretty easy, with local number search built into the software. Each number has to be purchased.

Learning curve

Similar to the other software we reviewed, WhatConverts provides a modern, clean interface with straightforward navigation and good use of white space. This reduces the learning curve, although live support and a good amount of written resources are also available if needed.

Free Call Tracking vs. Paid Call Tracking

We’ve gone through free call tracking and paid call tracking, so now it’s a matter of choosing which option works best for you and your organization.

We highlighted some great free call tracking software, so what would push you toward a paid product when there are free options out there?

Well, as the saying goes, you get what you pay for.

Free options are great to get you started and familiarize yourself with how free call tracking works, but you might end up hitting a wall when you realize your business needs more out of the software than it can give you.

Of course, open-source software can be modified to your heart’s content, but you need the technical know-how and time to implement those changes.

At the end of the day, free call tracking is great if you’re just getting started and are not sure if the idea behind the software will work for you or not, or you need a simple program that only does one or two things. If you need more features, support, and direction, then paid call tracking is the better option for you.

Conclusion

There you have it: a comparative guide that outlines the features and benefits of free call tracking and paid call tracking.

Now that you’ve gone through it, you’re probably ready to jump into trying out different free call tracking solutions, get your feet wet, and probably migrate to paid call tracking software at a later time.

Sounds like a solid plan? Then let us help you get started with a free trial of Ringy.

If you’d rather see the software in action, you can request a demo instead and we’ll walk you through it.