Published so you can check our work
How we test and score dialers
The rubric, the weights, the test protocol, how we verify pricing, and exactly what sponsorship does and does not buy.
The rubric
Every dialer is scored out of 5 on five criteria. The overall score is a weighted average, and the weights are fixed across all reviews.
| Criterion | Weight | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | 30% | Total cost of ownership at 1, 3, 10 and 25 seats, including telephony, against capability delivered |
| Dialing engine | 25% | Time between calls, line count, answering-machine detection, disposition speed, number rotation |
| CRM and data | 20% | Whether the tool can be a system of record, or needs one behind it |
| Setup and time to value | 15% | Hours from signup to a rep making calls, and how much of it needs an admin |
| Support and terms | 10% | Contract flexibility, seat minimums, pricing transparency, support channels and hours |
Value carries the largest weight deliberately. In a category where two tools that place one call at a time from a list can differ by a factor of twelve in price, cost is the axis that changes decisions most.
How we verify pricing
Vendor pricing pages first. Every price is read off the vendor's own published pricing page and the URL is recorded on the review.
Third-party guides second, and labelled. Where a vendor gates pricing behind a demo, we cite dated third-party pricing guides and mark the figure as an estimate rather than presenting it as published. Orum, Nooks, Koncert, Outreach and Salesloft all fall into this bucket as of 2026-09-04.
We do not guess. If a number cannot be traced to a source, the field says "not published" and the page says so in words.
Quarterly re-verification. Prices are re-checked every quarter and the verification date appears on every page. Vendors change pricing without notice; Kixie removed its prices entirely during 2026 and Aircall's page currently fails to render them.
The test protocol
Where we have hands-on access, each tool is tested with:
- A real call list of at least 200 records with known-good and known-bad numbers
- A live carrier account, using the vendor's own telephony or our own Twilio account where the tool supports it
- At least 100 dials per tool by a person who has made cold calls professionally
- Measurement of time between calls, disposition keystrokes, and connect quality on a standard office connection
Where we have not had hands-on access, the review says so and relies on published documentation, vendor pricing pages and the public review corpus. We do not claim to have tested something we have not.
How we use G2, Capterra and Trustpilot
As signal about direction, not as our score. A 4.8 rating across 1,540 reviews tells you something real. A 4.9 across 12 does not.
We read the complaints, not the averages. The recurring negative themes in a large review base are the most useful public data about a product, and they are what surface in our cons lists: the connect pause on parallel dialers, the contract lock-in at Kixie, the connection quality complaints at Aircall.
We never copy a third-party rating into our own structured data. Where we cite a G2 figure it appears in the page text with the count attached, so you can weigh the sample.
What disqualifies a tool
- No published pricing and no credible third-party figure. We will still review it and say that.
- Pricing figures with no unit attached. Koncert's pricing page shows numbers without stating whether they are per user, per month or per anything. That is worse than not publishing, and the review says so.
- Claims we cannot verify. A vendor claiming a connect-rate improvement without a methodology gets that claim reported as a claim, not as a fact.
Where our numbers come from
Telephony arithmetic is computed in code from Twilio's published rates rather than written in prose, so it cannot drift between pages. The model accounts for carriers billing per call rounded up to the whole minute, and for a picked-up voicemail billing a full minute. Most published dialer cost estimates skip both, which is why they run low.
Cold calling benchmarks each carry a named source and a date. Where two credible studies disagree, we publish both and explain the disagreement rather than picking the one that suits the argument.
Our own testing figures are labelled as ours. Dials per day by dialer type comes from our hands-on testing, not from a vendor's marketing.
How we make money
Sponsorship and affiliate links, both labelled. As of 2026-09-04, DialSheet is our anchor sponsor. We run no banner advertising: the relationship is disclosed with a plain label wherever the product appears in a ranking or table.
What sponsorship buys: a labelled disclosure, and a link.
What it does not buy: a score, a ranking position, the removal of a con, or sight of a review before it publishes. Our sponsor's review names five specific weaknesses including missing CRM connectors, no voicemail drop and the absence of a public review corpus. A comparison site that will not print that about its own sponsor is not one you should trust.
Corrections
If a price here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it and date the correction. Vendor pricing changes constantly and we would rather be corrected than be stale. Write to hello@mrrnerds.com.
Frequently asked questions
- How does MRR Nerds score dialers?
- Each dialer is scored out of 5 on five weighted criteria: value for money at 30 percent, dialing engine at 25, CRM and data at 20, setup and time to value at 15, and support and terms at 10. Value carries the largest weight because in a category where comparable tools differ by a factor of twelve in price, cost changes decisions most.
- Does sponsorship affect your rankings?
- No. Sponsorship buys a labelled disclosure and a link, and we run no banner advertising at all. It does not buy a score, a ranking position, the removal of a criticism, or sight of a review before publication. Our sponsor's own review lists five specific weaknesses, and several pages on this site recommend a competitor over the sponsor where the competitor is genuinely the better buy.
- How often do you re-verify pricing?
- Every quarter, with the verification date shown on every page. Vendor pricing in this category changes without notice: Kixie removed dollar figures from its pricing page entirely during 2026, and Aircall's page currently renders its prices as the word null. Where a price cannot be verified, the page says so rather than carrying a stale figure.
Who writes this
A small team of former SDRs, founders and revenue operators who have collectively made well over 200,000 cold calls. We test every dialer hands-on with a live Twilio number and a real call list before we write a word.
Read our editorial policy or how sponsorship works.