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Resources / Comparisons / Aircall
Unibound vs Aircall.
Aircall is a phone system for your team, with an AI voice agent and calling campaigns. Unibound runs the whole follow-up across calls, texts, WhatsApp, email and web chat, and brings your team in when it counts. Here is how they differ, what each costs, and which suits you.
Channels, flows and people, side by side
Three things set these apart: which channels each covers, whether one flow joins them, and whether your own team can work in it.
| Aircall | Unibound | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Sales and support teams who make and take the calls themselves | Firms that want every enquiry called, chased and handed to the team |
| AI phone calls | In and out. A fee applies to each outbound AI attempt | In and out. Calls nobody answers are free |
| SMS | Yes for your team. The AI answers inbound messages only | Yes: sent by a flow, written by AI, and two-way |
| Add-on at £8 a user a month. The AI answers inbound messages only | Yes, on your own WhatsApp business account | |
| No email channel found | Yes, from your own domain | |
| Web chat | No web chat widget found | Yes, a widget for your website |
| A flow across channels | Call routing and call-only campaigns. No journey across channels found | Yes. Calls, messages, waits and people are steps, and each result has its own next step |
| Your team makes and takes calls in it | Yes, and it is Aircall's core strength: apps, call queues, a power dialler | Yes: browser calls, a call queue, dialling sessions and calls routed to teams |
| A person takes over from the AI | On messages a person can switch the AI off and back on. On calls, a transfer | Yes, in one inbox and one call queue, and can hand back |
| Cost per booking | Not found | Yes. Every flow has a goal and a cost for each contact who reached it |
| CRM integrations | A long list, and a real strength | API, webhooks and Zapier today. HubSpot is being built |
| How you pay | Per user, plus AI minutes and add-ons | Pay as you go for one user, or a monthly plan by team size, plus usage |
One call, or everything that follows it
Most leads are not won on the first call. They are won on the text after a missed call, the call back at the time they asked for, the answer to a question two days later. Aircall's AI Voice Agent makes and answers calls, and its outbound campaigns work through a list with retries. Those campaigns are calls only. We found no email channel, no web chat and no builder for a journey across channels on Aircall's site.
In Unibound every step ends in a result, and each result leads to its own next step, on whichever channel fits. You draw that once and it runs for every contact.
| What happened | What Unibound does next |
|---|---|
| They answer and want to go ahead | Books the appointment and stops the chasing |
| They ask to be called later | Waits until the time they asked for, then rings again |
| Nobody answers | Sends a WhatsApp or text, waits for a reply, and tries again the next morning |
| They reply with a question | The AI answers from your own material, on the channel they used |
| They ask for a person | Puts them in your team's queue with the whole history |
| They say no, or opt out | Stops, on every channel |
The problem you are trying to fix
Most firms looking at these tools have the same few problems. This is what each does about them.
| The problem | With Aircall | With Unibound |
|---|---|---|
| New enquiries wait until someone is free | The AI Voice Agent can ring a new lead. A text, WhatsApp or email after the call is set up in your CRM or another tool. | The flow rings within seconds. If nobody answers it carries on by WhatsApp, text and email until they book, say no or ask for a person. |
| Quotes go out and nobody chases them | Your team works a list with the power dialler on Professional, or an AI campaign rings it. | A flow texts two days later, answers their questions from your own material, calls if they go quiet, and puts the ready ones in your team's queue. |
| The team can't reach the whole list | Outbound campaigns ring a list and retry, by phone only. AI campaigns run five calls at once. | The AI works through the list on every channel at a pace you set. The warm ones go to your team's call queue with the history. |
| Nobody can say what a booking cost | Reports cover resolution rate, transfer rate and call figures. We found no cost per booking. | Every flow has a goal. The report shows how many contacts reached it, where the rest dropped out, and what each one cost. |
What each costs
| Aircall | Unibound | |
|---|---|---|
| Platform | £25 (Essentials) or £40 (Professional) a user a month, three users minimum | No monthly fee on pay as you go for one user. Team plans £500 to £1,500 a month, for 5 to 50 users |
| AI call minutes | £0.22 a minute pay as you go. Bundles: 1,000 minutes for £180, 10,000 for £1,400. A fee applies to each outbound attempt | 16p a started minute. Calls nobody answers are free |
| AI on messages | £0.26 a conversation | 2p for each message the AI writes |
| £8 a user a month, plus Meta's charges | No charge from Unibound. Meta bills your account |
Take a firm with 10 people on the phones and 500 new enquiries a month, where 45% answer and the AI call lasts two minutes (450 AI minutes). On Aircall Professional that is £400 for seats, £99 for AI minutes and £80 for WhatsApp: about £580, before texts, call charges outside the plan and the fee for each outbound AI attempt. On Unibound's Team plan, which covers up to 20 users, it is £1,000, plus £72 of calls, £90 of AI-written texts and £3 for a number: about £1,165. At 20 people Aircall is about £1,060 and Unibound is unchanged. Above 20, Unibound's Scale plan is £1,500 for up to 50 users, and the two cross at about 30 people.
Checked on Prices and features come from each company's own pages, listed under Sources. Prices exclude VAT. Where we say something was not found, we looked on those pages and did not see it; products change, so check before you decide.
Which suits you
Aircall is the better choice if
- Your people make most of the calls, and you want them to make more
- You need the phone system inside your CRM or helpdesk now
- You have fewer than 30 people and price per head matters most
Unibound is the better choice if
- Enquiries arrive faster than your team can ring them
- Follow-up needs several tries on several channels, not calls alone
- You want email and web chat in the same history as calls and texts
- You want to know what each booked appointment cost
Questions people ask
Is Unibound an alternative to Aircall?
For following up enquiries and quotes, yes. Unibound's AI calls and messages on every channel, and your team takes over from a queue. If what you need is a phone system for a team that makes its own calls, Aircall is the closer fit.
Which is cheaper, Unibound or Aircall?
Aircall, for most small teams. Ten people with 500 enquiries a month pay about £580 on Aircall and about £1,165 on Unibound's Team plan. Aircall charges per person and Unibound's plans step up by team size (5, 10, 20 or 50 users), so the two cross at about 30 people.
Does Aircall's AI send texts and emails after a call?
Aircall's AI messaging agent answers inbound SMS and WhatsApp. Its outbound campaigns are phone calls. We found no email channel on Aircall's site. In Unibound a text, WhatsApp or email after a call is a step in the same flow.
Can we use both?
Yes. Some firms keep their phone system for the office and run enquiries and quote chasing through Unibound on separate numbers.
Sources
- Aircall, UK pricing. aircall.io
- Aircall, AI Voice Agent. aircall.io
- Aircall, outbound campaigns. aircall.io
- Aircall, features. aircall.io
- Aircall help centre, AI messaging agent. support.aircall.io
- Unibound, pricing. unibound.ai
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