How we review AI phone tools

Every tool we cover earns a paid account, a real phone number, and the same battery of scripted calls — appointment booking, after-hours, irate caller, accent stress-test. We score what actually happens, not what the vendor claims.

The nine criteria

• Voice quality (15%) — naturalness, cadence, listenability.
• Latency (10%) — time-to-first-word and inter-turn gaps.
• Accuracy (25%) — correct intent capture and slot-filling.
• Integrations (20%) — depth of CRM/calendar hooks, not just count.
• Setup & support (15%) — time-to-first-call, docs, support response.
• Price & value (15%) — fully-loaded cost including per-minute fees.

How we make money

When you click an outbound link and sign up with a vendor, we may earn a commission. Affiliate relationships never influence rankings. Scores come from our test results; the only thing affiliate status changes is whether we earn a commission if you choose to sign up. Vendors cannot pay to move up in the rankings.

When scores change

We re-run our test suite monthly. Scores reflect the current product, not last year's. When a vendor ships a meaningful change — a new voice model, a price drop, an integration — we re-run the affected criteria within 2 weeks.