%20(1).avif)
.avif)
iPlum is the best Talkroute alternative for businesses that need secure calling and texting with HIPAA compliance, call recording, mobile and web calling as well as auto-replies built in.
It’s a great fit for healthcare, legal, and finance teams that want to manage calls professionally while keeping personal numbers private.
In this post, we’ll explore what makes iPlum unique when pitted against Talkroute. We’ll also throw in four other alternatives to Talkroute.
But before we do, here’s what you need to know about Talkroute.
Talkroute Reviews: What Are Users Saying?
Talkroute user reviews paint a picture of a virtual phone system marred by poor customer support, reliability issues, and other problems.
Here's what users are saying about the business phone system.
Frequent call drops and unresolved technical issues.
“Their system drops calls daily and is inconsistent… We currently have a trouble ticket that has been unresolved since March.” — user review, G2
Customer service is perceived as dismissive, especially towards small businesses.
“Talkroute does not want to risk jeopardizing their large accounts' stability to try to solve our issues.” — user review, G2
Limited international capabilities and a lack of certain features.
“Talkroute lacks international numbers and restricts international outgoing calls… It also lacks virtual fax and open API access.”— user review, Capterra
Account suspensions and billing issues.
“The account was also suspended, then restored after making me jump through hoops, then suspended again. It is illegal to take a payment card while promising not to charge it, then charge it.”— user review, GetApp
Texting functionality problems.
“Currently having serious issues with texting - as in, not able to send texts. This is one of the primary ways I remind patients of their appointments.”— user review G2
Not all feedback is negative. Here are a couple of positives users have noted.
Simple setup.
“We've been using Talkroute for a couple of months now, and it just works. — user review, G2
Good for small businesses.
“I love being able to forward calls to my cell and keep my personal number private. It’s exactly what I needed as a solo business owner.” — user review, SoftwareAdvice
Talkroute Features
Talkroute’s features revolve around helping small businesses with calls, texts, and voicemail management.
Notable capabilities include:
- Calling: Lets you make and receive calls using your business number.
- Text Messaging: Allows you to send and receive SMS and MMS messages.
- Voicemail: Enables you to capture missed calls and listen to messages in the app.
- Call Forwarding: Let you route incoming calls to another number
- Caller ID: Displays your business number instead of your personal one on outgoing calls.
- Apps: Allows you to manage calls, texts, and voicemails from your phone, tablet, or desktop.
Talkroute Pricing
Talkroute pricing is available in four tiers, structured as follows:
- Basic – $19/month
- Plus – $39/month
- Pro – $59/month
Talkroute also offers an Enterprise plan. However, you will need to contact Talkroute for pricing.
Why Consider a Talkroute Alternative?
If you're experiencing limitations with Talkroute or just exploring better options, here are ten reasons you might want to consider an alternative.
- Call drops and reliability issues reported by users.
- Limited support for international calling and numbers.
- No open API access for custom integrations.
- Texting problems, especially for healthcare reminders.
- Slow response to technical support tickets.
- Basic features missing in lower-tier plans.
- Call recording not included unless you upgrade.
- Billing and suspension issues, according to user reviews
- No built-in CRM or advanced contact management.
- Video meeting tools lack session recording (still “coming soon”).
Best Talkroute Alternatives
Now that you know about Talkroute’s capabilities and limitations, let’s look at five top alternatives to Talkroute that might serve your business better.
We’ll start with a quick comparison table.
1. iPlum (Best Value)
iPlum and Talkroute give you the basics — business calling, text messaging, voicemail, and call forwarding.
But if you’re running a business that values security, compliance, or mobile-first communication, iPlum is the more robust option..
Let’s talk about security and compliance first.
Both platforms are HIPAA compliant, but with fundamental differences. Talkroute requires users to turn off voicemail-to-email (since it’s not encrypted), and SMS can’t contain PHI. Furthermore, a signed BAA is only available on the Pro plan (which is more expensive than iPlum’s equivalent) or higher.
iPlum, by contrast, offers encrypted voice, text, and voicemail out of the box, with compliance support for HIPAA, HITECH, Dodd-Frank, and CMS. It also provides BAAs without bending your budget.
That said, iPlum is a safer and cost-effective Talkroute alternative for healthcare, legal, or finance teams handling sensitive data.
Sure, both services offer number porting, call forwarding, voicemail, and mobile apps.
But iPlum goes further with voicemail transcriptions, out-of-office greetings, toll-free vanity numbers, and a built-in business phonebook. And, while Talkroute offers call menus, iPlum supports phone trees and auto attendant with extensions, closing that gap.
Another critical difference is how they handle mobile communication.
iPlum supports dual calling modes, allowing you to switch between cellular and VoIP connections based on your network. It also lets clients respond securely via the free iPlum app.
Talkroute’s texting works, but users have reported issues with message delivery and syncing.
For remote teams, iPlum includes centralized user management, permission settings, and app-level security, featuring options such as two-factor authentication and enterprise-grade password policies. Talkroute manages users well but doesn’t offer the same depth of control.
To top it all off, iPlum includes EHR/EMS API integrations, online faxing, and auto-replies, essential features for daily mobile communication teams.
iPlum Pricing
.png)
iPlum pricing is structured in three tiers as follows:
Standard Plan – $8.99/user/month
Includes mobile app calling and texting in the U.S. and Canada, voicemail, auto-replies, business hours, and phone tree.
Professional – $14.99/user/month
This plan adds to the Standard plan with web-based calling and texting, secure encrypted texting, voicemail transcription, group and broadcast messaging, text archiving, and HIPAA compliance with a BAA for healthcare.
Premium – $19.99/user/month
Offers everything in the Professional plan, plus call recording and compliance features for finance, insurance, legal, sales, and support sectors.
iPlum Pricing Compared to Talkroute
Talkroute’s Basic plan is $19 per month for 1 user. To add 2 more users (like iPlum’s Professional plan would support), you'd pay $29/month total. But that still doesn’t include HIPAA compliance, voicemail transcription, or call recording, all of which iPlum offers for $14.99/user.
To get those features with Talkroute, you'd need the Pro plan, which costs $59/month, for up to 10 users. That breaks down to $5.90/user. While this seems competitive, it only makes sense if you need exactly 10 users. If you’re a team of 3 to 5, you're overpaying for unused seats.
In contrast, iPlum charges only for what you use. A 3-user team, for instance, would pay $44.97/month total on iPlum for full compliance features, compared to $59/month on Talkroute’s Pro plan, even though you’re only using half the available seats.
How to Port Your Talkroute Number to iPlum
Porting/transferring your Talkroute number to iPlum is super easy. Follow the video below to complete the process.
Port Your Talkroute Number to iPlum
2. Nextiva
Nextiva is a viable alternative to Talkroute if you’re looking for a business phone system with more advanced tools.
Talkroute offers the core features most small teams need. You get calling, texting, voicemail, call forwarding, and a virtual receptionist. It also includes call menus, extensions, and mobile and desktop apps. These tools work well for basic call handling and customer communication.
However, as your team grows, Talkroute starts to feel limited. There’s no API access. CRM integrations are missing. Plus, features like voicemail transcription, call recording, and detailed analytics are only available on higher-tier plans.
Nextiva, on the other hand, offers a broader set of tools. You still get calls, texts, voicemails and some extras. It includes AI-powered voicemail transcription, team chat, video conferencing, and screen sharing.
Nextiva also supports intelligent call routing and call queues. That means you can direct calls based on skills, departments, or time of day. It’s a better fit for teams that need more than basic forwarding.
Another notable advantage is integration. Nextiva connects with tools like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Zoho — far beyond what Talkroute offers.
It’s important to note, though, that while both platforms offer HIPAA compliance, you should expect some tradeoffs.
Talkroute’s setup requires users to disable certain features, like voicemail-to-email, to stay compliant. Nextiva, on the other hand, automatically disables non-compliant features, such as voicemail-to-email, visual voicemail, and in-app playback, for healthcare users.
iPlum, by comparison, gives you true HIPAA compliance, so you don’t have to worry about manually adjusting settings or sacrificing key features to stay secure.
Nextiva Pricing
Nextiva pricing is structured as follows:
- Digital plan – $25/user/month
- Core plan – $36/user/month
- Engage plan – $50/user/month
- Power Suite plan – $75/user/month
How iPlum Pricing Compares:
iPlum starts at $8.99/user/month, while comparable features in Nextiva require the Core or Engage plans, which cost $36–$50/user/month. That’s 4–5x the cost.
Furthermore, iPlum’s top Premium plan is just $19.99/user, making it a far more affordable option for small teams that call recording, HIPAA compliance, and secure texting.
3. RingCentral
RingCentral is one of the best Talkroute alternatives if you’re looking for a business phone system with deeply rooted AI functionality.
While both services offer standard tools like calling, voicemail, and text messaging, RingCentral builds on that foundation with a feature-rich, AI-powered unified communications platform.
It comes with AI-powered voicemail transcription, live call summaries, and smart replies. RingCentral’s AI can also generate automatic notes from calls and meetings, detect action items, and provide coaching suggestions for sales and support teams.
Talkroute, by comparison, offers basic voicemail transcription but lacks AI tools for summarizing conversations or analyzing customer interactions. It doesn’t include real-time automation or analytics beyond simple call logs.
RingCentral also includes AI-driven call routing and IVR, which allow calls to be directed based on caller intent or available data—a step above Talkroute’s manual phone tree setup.
In addition, features like speech recognition and sentiment detection are available in RingCentral’s advanced plans. These enable businesses to detect a customer's tone and urgency during calls, giving teams better context in real-time.
And so you may know, to be HIPAA compliant with RingCentral, users need to adjust the settings manually. You don’t get with iPlum.
RingCentral Pricing
RingCentral pricing is structured in three tiers as follows:
- Core – $30/user/month
- Advanced – $35/user/month
- Ultra – $45/user/month
How iPlum Pricing Compares:
iPlum starts at $8.99/user/month, with full HIPAA compliance and encryption available for $14.99. RingCentral’s Core plan starts at $30/user/month. That means iPlum can be up to 70% cheaper than RingCentral, even with HIPAA compliance included.
4. Dialpad
Dialpad is a worthwhile alternative to Talkroute if you want a business calling and texting platform that delivers in-depth analytics and is “all in” on integrations.
Like Talkroute, Dialpad offers business calling, voicemail, SMS/MMS, call forwarding, and auto-attendants.
However, it’s in areas like AI-driven call insights, CRM integrations, and team collaboration where Dialpad truly outshines Talkroute.
For instance, it comes with real-time transcription, which converts live calls and voicemails into text as they happen, great for record-keeping and follow-ups. It also includes AI Recap, a tool that automatically summarizes conversations, highlighting important points and action items.
In addition, Real-Time Assist provides on-screen suggestions during calls based on keywords and context, helping sales reps respond more effectively. Meanwhile, Sentiment Analysis scans for tone and keywords to determine customer satisfaction or frustration, giving reps a better assessment of how conversations are going.
Furthermore, Dialpad integrates with over 70 third-party tools, including Salesforce, HubSpot, and Google Workspace, whereas Talkroute lacks direct CRM integrations.
On the analytics side, Dialpad offers live dashboards, call metrics, and user-level reporting with filters for call type, duration, or outcome. Talkroute’s reporting is limited to basic call logs with minimal filtering or insights.
That said, despite its impressive capabilities, Dialpad doesn’t offer built-in HIPAA compliance. This exposes users in healthcare or legal fields to potential risk if manual security configurations are not set up correctly.
Dialpad Pricing
Dialpad pricing is structured in three tiers as follows:
- Standard – $27/user/month
- Pro – $35/user/month
- Enterprise – Contact Sales for pricing
How Dialpad Pricing Compares with iPlum
iPlum’s Premium plan costs $19.99/use/month, while Dialpad’s equivalent (Pro plan) goes for $35/month, more than double. In other words, for HIPAA compliance, call recording, and encrypted texting, iPlum delivers the same essentials at 43% less.
And, even at Dialpad’s annual rate of $25/user/month, it still costs over 25% more per user.
5. Grasshopper
Grasshopper is another alternative to Talkroute worth considering if you want a virtual phone system that allows you to build a memorable brand presence with vanity numbers.
Like Talkroute, Grasshopper covers the essentials for business communication with tools like business calling, call forwarding, voicemail, extensions, and mobile and desktop apps.
One standout feature is its support for vanity numbers.
You can easily search and register a custom toll-free number that spells out your business name or a keyword (like 1-800-FLOWERS or 855-GO-FIT). Talkroute also offers toll-free numbers but doesn’t focus on vanity options or the marketing value they bring.
Both platforms include voicemail transcription, call routing, and business texting. However, Grasshopper adds tools like instant responses, which send an automatic text reply to missed calls.
You also get MMS support for sending and receiving images. Talkroute supports SMS and MMS but doesn’t offer automatic replies.
Grasshopper also includes virtual fax, custom greetings, simultaneous call handling, and an intuitive interface on desktop and mobile. It offers features like call transfer, incoming call control, and customizable greetings.
That said, Talkroute has an edge in structured call routing. It supports multi-level IVR menus, scheduled call forwarding, live call transfers, and more granular user permissions—areas where Grasshopper is more limited.
It is worth noting, though, that Grasshopper is not HIPAA compliant, so keep that in mind.
Grasshopper Pricing
Grasshopper offers the pricing plans structured as follows:
- True Solo - $18/month
- Solo Plus -$32/month
- Small Business: $92/month
How Grasshopper Pricing Compares with Grasshopper
iPlum’s Professional plan, with HIPAA compliance, costs $14.99 per user per month. Grasshopper’s Solo Plus plan costs $25 per month without HIPAA compliance. That makes iPlum 40% cheaper while offering stronger security features.
Meanwhile, iPlum’s Standard plan at $8.99 is over 60% more affordable, making it the best Talkroute alternative if you’re looking for a cost-effective option.
Best Alternatives to Talkroute: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Is Talkroute Free?
No, Talkroute is not free. Its plans start at $19/month for a single user. iPlum, a more affordable alternative, offers business calling and texting starting at $8.99/user with HIPAA compliance and secure messaging built in.
Which are Talkroute's Competitors?
There are many, including Dialpad, Grasshopper, and RingCentral. However, iPlum stands out for its affordability, secure texting, and built-in HIPAA compliance.
It's a good alternative to Talkroute for healthcare, legal, and financial teams that prioritize privacy and mobile-first communication.
Does Talkroute Offer HIPAA Compliance?
Yes, but with limitations. You must disable voicemail-to-email and avoid texting PHI. A BAA is only available on the Pro plan. In contrast, iPlum includes full HIPAA compliance and a BAA at just $14.99/user/month.
Talkroute Alternatives and Competitors: Why Choose iPlum?
Indeed, Talkroute has its strengths. But it struggles with reliability, compliance gaps, and limited integrations.
Sure, you can consider alternatives like Nextiva, RingCentral, Dialpad, and Grasshopper.
However, none match iPlum’s combination of affordability, security, and flexibility.
iPlum leads the pack with true HIPAA-compliant calling, texting, voicemail, and mobile-first tools — all at a much lower cost.
If you’re in healthcare, legal, finance, or any industry where secure communication is paramount, iPlum delivers the best value without sacrificing essential features.
Want to experience iPlum’s capabilities firsthand?
Create your account below to get started.
Disclaimer: This article is intended for general informational purposes and may not reflect the most current features or capabilities of the products or companies mentioned. For the most accurate and up-to-date information, please refer to the official sources of each company.
