TL;DR: The best sales call recording software is the one that records the calls your reps actually make, attaches the recording to the right CRM record, and lets a manager pull it up later without asking anyone for a file. Kixie records every inbound and outbound call on a Kixie number automatically on any device, includes cloud storage for those recordings, plays them back inside the connected CRM, and lists call recording on all three published plans, with Multi-Line PowerDialer dialing up to 4 lines and conversation intelligence sold as a premium add-on. All vendor prices here are list prices read from each vendor’s own pricing page as of November 7, 2026. Gong publishes no price at all and charges per user plus a platform fee that scales with how many users you support. Dialpad’s entry sales plan lists $39 per user per month with AI transcripts, call recording, CRM integrations and 1-year recording and transcript retrieval. Aircall Essentials lists $30 per license per month billed annually with a 3-user minimum, and recording access up to 1 year by request with 6 months available in the dashboard. Fireflies.ai lists Pro at $10 per seat per month billed annually, Business at $19, Enterprise at $39 annual only. Avoma charges per recorder seat, $19 on Startup and $29 on Organization billed annually, keeps viewers and collaborators free, and sells conversation intelligence as a $29 per seat add-on. Phone-first tools capture dials. Meeting tools capture video calls. Most outbound teams need the phone side working first. Federal law at 18 U.S.C. 2511(2)(d) allows recording when one party to the call consents, several states require every party to consent, and that is a question for your counsel before you turn recording on rather than after.
Sales teams rarely lose call recordings because the vendor cannot record. They lose them because the rep dialed from a cell phone that morning, or the conversation happened on a personal number nobody provisioned, or the file exists in a portal the manager has never opened. The feature works. The workflow around it does not.
So compare sales call recording software the way you would inspect a queue. Where does the call start, where does the recording land, who can retrieve it on a Tuesday afternoon, and what happens the day capture fails? Answer those four and the shortlist writes itself. Skip them and you buy a feature list.
What follows is a shortlist by use case, the criteria that actually separate these products, and the consent question you need settled before any of it matters. Prices below were read from each vendor’s own pricing page on November 7, 2026. Verify them again before you sign anything.
What Sales Call Recording Software Has to Do
Strip the category down and recording software does three jobs. It captures the conversation. It attaches that conversation to a person and a deal. It lets someone find it again later.
Most products are fine at the first job. The second and third are where teams get hurt. A recording with no CRM association is a file. A file nobody can search is storage. Neither one changes what a manager coaches on Monday.
Here is the failure mode worth planning around. A rep has a hard conversation, the deal goes quiet three weeks later, and the manager wants to know what the buyer actually objected to. If answering that takes a Slack message to the rep, the recording never entered the workflow. It just entered a disk.
Ask vendors to demonstrate retrieval, not capture. Capture demos always work.
Best Sales Call Recording Software Picks
These are grouped by the motion they fit, not ranked one through six. A team making 150 dials a day and a team running eight video demos a week are not shopping for the same product, and a single ranking hides that.
Kixie for Outbound Sales Teams That Live in the CRM
Kixie is a sales engagement platform for business calling and texting, so recording is attached to the dialing motion rather than bolted on beside it. Every inbound and outbound call to or from a Kixie number is recorded automatically, on whatever device the rep is using, and the recordings appear both in the Kixie dashboard and in the connected CRM. Kixie documents automatic call recording with included cloud storage, so the recording lands in the workflow rather than in a separate archive somebody has to administer.
Call recording is listed on all three published plans, so it is not a tier you have to climb to. The Multi-Line PowerDialer plan adds dialing up to 4 lines at once, and conversation intelligence is sold separately as a premium add-on. Kixie does not publish per-seat prices, so the number comes from a quote.
Fit it to a team whose conversations happen on the phone and whose source of truth is HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Zoho or HighLevel. Skip it if most of your sales calls are scheduled video meetings.
Gong for Large Teams Buying Call Analysis as a Program
Gong sells revenue intelligence, and recording is the raw material rather than the product. That is a real distinction when you price it. Gong publishes no rate card. Its pricing page states that licenses are priced per user and that there is a separate platform fee based on the number of users supported.
Read that twice before you build a budget. A per-seat number from a peer does not transfer to your team, because the platform fee moves with headcount independently of the seats you are quoting. Ask for both numbers in writing.
Fit it to an organization that already has a person responsible for acting on call analysis. Skip it if nobody owns the output, because the analysis layer is the expensive part and it does not run itself.
Dialpad for Teams That Want the Phone System and the Recording Together
Dialpad packages recording with the phone service. As of November 7, 2026 its sales plan starts at $39 per user per month, listing AI transcripts, call recording and CRM integrations, plus 1-year recording and transcript retrieval on that entry tier. Advanced is $59 and Premium is $79 per user per month, adding local presence dialing, real-time assistance and quality management as you climb.
The retention line is the one to underline. One year is a published boundary, not a vague promise, which makes it something your legal and security reviewers can actually evaluate. Most vendors in this category make you ask.
Fit it to a team replacing a phone system and a recording tool in the same purchase. Skip it if you already own the phone layer and only need analysis on top.
Aircall for Small Teams Standardizing Call Recording Across Shared Lines
Aircall is a business phone system with recording included from the entry plan. As of November 7, 2026, Essentials lists $30 per license per month billed annually and Professional lists $50, with Enterprise quoted. Call recordings and AI transcripts are listed on Essentials, and the detailed pricing table sets recording access at up to 1 year by request, with 6 months available in the dashboard.
Two constraints decide this one for most small teams. Essentials and Professional both carry a 3-user minimum, and Enterprise carries a 25-user minimum. Additional phone numbers list at $6 per month each. If you were planning to buy two seats and three numbers, price it before the demo.
Fit it to a small team that wants shared inboxes, ring groups and recording on one bill. Skip it if your buying motion is single-rep and you resent paying for a third seat.
Fireflies.ai for Sales Teams Whose Calls Are Mostly Video Meetings
Fireflies.ai records and transcribes meetings rather than phone calls. That is the whole decision. If your discovery and demo conversations happen on a conferencing platform, a meeting recorder covers the calls that matter and a phone system does not.
Pricing is published and cheap relative to the phone tools. There is a free tier. As of November 7, 2026, Pro lists $10 per seat per month billed annually, Business lists $19, and Enterprise lists $39 per seat per month on annual billing only. The monthly rates are higher, at $18 and $29 for Pro and Business.
Fit it to a team where the phone is a scheduling channel and the real conversation is a meeting. Skip it if reps spend the day dialing, because a meeting recorder will quietly miss the calls that drive your pipeline.
Avoma for Teams Recording a Few Reps and Sharing With Many
Avoma prices by recorder seat, which is unusual enough to matter. As of November 7, 2026, Startup lists $19 per recorder seat per month billed annually and Organization lists $29, while viewers and collaborators are free. Conversation intelligence is a separate add-on at $29 per seat per month on annual billing and $35 on monthly billing.
That structure favors one specific shape of team. Eight reps recording and twenty people reviewing costs you eight seats, not twenty-eight. If your managers, enablement lead and product team all want access to calls, run the seat math both ways before you default to a per-user phone tool.
Fit it to a team with more reviewers than recorders. Skip it if everyone who needs access is also on the phone, because the pricing advantage disappears.
How to Compare Sales Call Recording Software
Build the scorecard before the demos start. Once a vendor controls the agenda you will evaluate what they chose to show you.
Sales Call Recording Coverage by Channel
List where conversations actually happen this quarter. Outbound dials, inbound calls, mobile, browser, conferencing. Then ask each vendor to record one of each in front of you.
Coverage on one channel is not coverage on all of them. A rep calling back from a personal cell is the usual gap, and it is the call most likely to matter later.
Call Recording Retention and Where Files Live
Retention is a hard number or it is a promise. As of November 7, 2026, Dialpad publishes 1 year on its entry sales plan and Aircall publishes up to 1 year by request with 6 months in the dashboard, while Kixie documents included cloud storage and publishes no retention limit. Those are three different answers to the same security review question.
Get the number, then ask the follow-up nobody asks. What happens to the recordings when you cancel?
Sales Call Recording and CRM Attachment
This is where recording either joins the sales process or sits outside it. During a trial, call a known contact, then call an unknown number, then call a number that matches two records. Go look at what the CRM did in each case.
Ask what gets written and where. Activity record, note field, custom object, a link back to the vendor portal. A link is weaker than an attachment, because the link breaks when the subscription ends.
Who Can Play a Call Recording
Decide the permission model before you decide the vendor. Reps, managers, enablement, support and legal do not need the same access, and most teams find that out after an awkward incident rather than before.
Check whether permissions are set by role, team or individual, and whether an admin can see who played what. If the product cannot answer who listened, it cannot support an access review.
What Happens When Call Recording Fails
Capture fails. Carrier behavior, device settings, a permission change, a dropped integration. The question is whether the system tells you.
Ask for the failure surface. Is there an alert, a report, a flag on the activity? A tool that silently records nothing is worse than no tool, because you will build a coaching program on a sample you believe is complete.
Consent Rules Before You Turn Call Recording On
This is not legal advice and this article is not a substitute for counsel. Have your lawyer review your recording and notification practices before you deploy, not after a complaint.
The federal baseline is narrow and worth knowing. Under 18 U.S.C. 2511(2)(d), interception is not unlawful for a person not acting under color of law where that person is a party to the communication, or where one of the parties has given prior consent, unless the interception is for the purpose of committing a criminal or tortious act. That is the one-party rule people refer to.
Several states go further and require every party to consent, and your reps are calling across state lines all day. The practical answer is a notification practice your counsel signs off on and a product that can play a disclosure or let the rep ask. For the state-level detail, read our breakdown of the laws governing call recordings, then confirm it against current guidance for the states you call into.
One more operational point. Decide which calls need recording at all. Recording everything is a storage decision that turns into a discovery decision later.
Sales Call Recording Software Pilot Checklist
- Write the business purpose down. Coaching, quality review, handoffs or documentation. If nobody can name it, you are buying storage.
- Get counsel’s sign-off on notification. Do this before the pilot, not before the rollout.
- Run every channel you actually use. Outbound, inbound, mobile, browser, conferencing. One call each, watched live.
- Break the CRM match on purpose. Unknown number, duplicate records, a rep calling from the wrong line. Check what the CRM shows afterward.
- Time one retrieval. Pick a call from two weeks earlier and have a manager find it unaided. Count the minutes.
- Test the permission edges. Add a user, remove a user, move someone between teams, then confirm what each can still play.
- Price the loaded cost. Seat minimums, extra numbers, retention tiers, conversation intelligence add-ons and implementation effort.
- Define the failure path. Decide what the team does the day a call is not recorded, and who is told.
Run that with two vendors, not five. Two real pilots beat five demos.
Sales Call Recording Software FAQs
What is the best sales call recording software for a small outbound team?
For a phone-heavy outbound team, Kixie is the closest fit on this list, because the honest filter is CRM attachment and seat minimums rather than feature count. Kixie includes call recording on all three published plans and logs recordings into the connected CRM, which suits a small outbound team. Aircall carries a 3-user minimum on its two published plans, so a two-seat team pays for three. Price the loaded cost before the feature grid.
Do sales teams need conversation intelligence or just call recording?
Most teams need recording first and analysis second. Recording answers what was said. Conversation intelligence organizes and scores it, which only pays off when someone is accountable for acting on the output. Several vendors price it separately for exactly this reason, including Kixie as a premium add-on and, as of November 7, 2026, Avoma at $29 per seat per month on annual billing.
How long should a team keep sales call recordings?
Long enough to serve the business purpose you wrote down and no longer than your counsel is comfortable with. The published boundaries differ as of November 7, 2026, with Dialpad listing 1-year recording and transcript retrieval on its entry sales plan, Aircall listing up to 1 year by request with 6 months in the dashboard, and Kixie documenting included cloud storage with no published retention limit. Match the vendor’s limit to your own retention policy rather than the other way around.
Is it legal to record sales calls?
Federal law at 18 U.S.C. 2511(2)(d) permits recording where one party to the call consents, and several states require consent from every party. That makes it a jurisdiction question tied to where your reps and buyers are, which is why it belongs with counsel rather than in a vendor FAQ.
What should a manager actually do with recorded sales calls?
Sample rather than review everything. Pick a stage, an objection type or a new-hire cohort, listen to a handful of calls a week, and coach the first broken behavior you can observe. Our guide on how to analyze sales call recordings covers the review pattern in more detail.
Pick the two vendors that fit your actual channels, run the pilot checklist, and time one retrieval. That tells you more than any comparison table, including this one.
Sources
- 18 U.S. Code 2511, Interception and disclosure of wire, oral, or electronic communications prohibited, Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School. Subsection (2)(d) provides that it shall not be unlawful under this chapter for a person not acting under color of law to intercept a wire, oral, or electronic communication where such person is a party to the communication or where one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to such interception, unless such communication is intercepted for the purpose of committing any criminal or tortious act in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States or of any State. Reviewed November 7, 2026.
- Kixie Call Recording, kixie.com, publisher documentation. The page documents automatic call recording with included cloud storage, and states that recordings can be played back in the CRM or synced with conversation intelligence. Its FAQ states that all inbound and outbound calls to or from a Kixie phone number will be automatically recorded, following two-party consent laws in applicable states, no matter what device the user is calling on, and that call recordings can be found in the Kixie dashboard and in the connected CRM. The page lists CRM and business tool connections including HighLevel, Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zoho, Copper, Monday, Insightly, Freshworks, Close, Zapier and Make. Reviewed November 7, 2026.
- Kixie Plans, kixie.com, publisher documentation. The page publishes three plans, Professional, Single-Line PowerDialer and Multi-Line PowerDialer, lists Call Recording among the core features of all three, describes Multi-Line PowerDialer as Professional plus PowerDial up to 4 lines, and lists Conversation Intelligence under available premium add-ons rather than in a plan. The page states a 7-day free trial with no credit card required and does not publish a per-seat price. Reviewed November 7, 2026.
- Gong Revenue AI Pricing, gong.io, publisher documentation. The page publishes no rate card and states that Gong’s pricing model depends on factors specific to the team, that licenses are priced per user, and that there is a platform fee based on the number of users supported. Reviewed November 7, 2026.
- Dialpad Plans and Pricing, dialpad.com, publisher documentation. The sales outbound plans list Essentials at $39 per user per month with AI transcripts, call recording and CRM integrations, unlimited domestic US and Canada minutes, coaching teams and 1-year recording and transcript retrieval; Advanced at $59 per user per month adding local presence dialing and real-time AI guidance; and Premium at $79 per user per month adding AI quality management. Reviewed November 7, 2026.
- Aircall Pricing, aircall.io, publisher documentation. The page lists Essentials at $30 per license per month and Professional at $50 per license per month, with Enterprise at custom pricing, and states that the Essentials plan starts at $30 per license per month billed annually and includes call recording. Its detailed pricing table sets the minimum number of users at 3 for Essentials, 3 for Professional and 25 for Enterprise, sets access to call recordings at up to 1 year by request with 6 months available in the dashboard for Essentials and unlimited by request with 6 months available in the dashboard for the higher plans, and prices each additional phone number at $6 per month. Reviewed November 7, 2026.
- Fireflies.ai Pricing, fireflies.ai, publisher documentation. The page lists a Free forever plan, Pro at $10 per seat per month billed annually with a $18 monthly rate shown, Business at $19 per seat per month billed annually with a $29 monthly rate shown, and Enterprise at $39 per seat per month marked annual only. Reviewed November 7, 2026.
- Avoma Pricing, avoma.com, publisher documentation. The page states that only meeting recorder users are paid and that viewers and collaborators are always free, and lists Startup at $19 per recorder seat per month billed annually, Organization at $29 per recorder seat per month billed annually and $39 billed monthly, and a Conversation Intelligence add-on at $29 per seat per month billed annually and $35 per seat per month billed monthly. Reviewed November 7, 2026.
Sources verified by the Kixie Research Team on November 7, 2026.
Ready to close more deals with Kixie?
See how Kixie's AI-powered tools can transform your sales and support operations.
Start Free Trial