vsAircall
Aircall is a good cloud phone system for sales and support teams. Its AI agents are an add-on, and every person on the phones is a monthly fee. Patch starts from the AI agent and puts the people, the numbers and the API around it, on one plan.
Aircall is a business phone system: numbers, call routing, a softphone app for each person, call recording and a long list of CRM integrations. It is priced per user, on plans that start at about US$30 a person a month billed yearly, with a minimum of three users. Its AI agents came later and are sold as a separate bundle, with a small number of minutes included on the core plans.
If you run a team that lives on the phone all day and wants a Salesforce or HubSpot integration out of the box, Aircall is a sensible, mature choice.
Patch is a phone system built around the AI agent. Every plan includes the agents, the numbers, softphones for your people, transcripts and recordings on every call, a REST API, webhooks and an MCP server so Claude can run it. There is no fee per user: add as many people as you like and pay for numbers and minutes.
Patch is built for people putting a phone line on their own product. The softphone embeds in your app with one script tag, and the agent calls your API and MCP servers mid-call.
| Patch | Aircall | |
|---|---|---|
| AI voice agents | In every plan, with minutes included | Add-on bundle, 50 minutes a month on the core plans |
| Softphones for people | Included, and embeddable in your own app | Included, in Aircall's apps |
| Fee per user | None | About US$30 to US$50 a user a month, minimum three users |
| The agent's tools | Your HTTP endpoints and MCP servers, called mid-call | Aircall's integrations and its AI configuration |
| Running it from code | REST API, webhooks and an MCP server for Claude | REST API and webhooks |
| CRM integrations | Bring your own through the API and MCP | Many, built in |
| Transcripts and recordings | Every call, in the API and webhooks | Recording included, AI summaries on higher plans or the add-on |
| Billed in | Australian dollars, before GST | US dollars |
Three people on the phones, an AI agent taking 500 minutes of calls, and 500 minutes of calls between the people. The same month on each.
The Business plan: three numbers, 1,000 call minutes, 500 AI minutes, softphones for everyone, the API, webhooks and the MCP server. Nothing per user.
Three Essentials users billed yearly plus the 500 minute AI bundle, before call charges.
Competitor prices are from their public pricing pages in October 2026 (Aircall, Bland, Vapi, Retell), converted at A$1.52 to the US dollar. Patch prices are in Australian dollars before GST and come from the live price list.
Pick Aircall if your phones are mainly for people, you want a polished desk-phone replacement with the CRM integrations ready to go, and AI answering is a nice-to-have.
Pick Patch if the AI agent is the point, you want the people's phones included rather than charged per seat, or you are building a product and need a phone line you can drive from your own code.
Fourteen days free, with a number and an agent of your own. Or ring the demo agent now.
03 5213 3261