Overview

Dialpad Meetings makes a deliberate bet: instead of trying to match Zoom's feature breadth or Teams' ecosystem depth, it goes all-in on AI-powered conversation intelligence. That bet pays off in specific, measurable ways. The transcription engine, trained on over 3 billion minutes of voice data, produces the most accurate real-time transcripts we have tested in any video conferencing platform. Custom vocabulary support means it handles industry-specific terminology — medical, legal, financial — without the garbled output that plagues general-purpose transcription.

What makes Dialpad's approach genuinely distinctive is the decision to include AI Recap with action items on every plan, including free. Most competitors gate their best AI features behind premium tiers or expensive add-ons (Teams Copilot at $30/user/month, for example). Dialpad treats AI as foundational rather than upsell. The tradeoff is real, though: collaboration tooling lags noticeably behind the market leaders, and the integration marketplace is thin compared to Zoom's 2,500+ apps. For teams that prioritize meeting intelligence over meeting bells and whistles, Dialpad is the strongest option in the category.

Features Deep-Dive

AI Transcription & Conversation Intelligence

This is where Dialpad earns its highest marks and where the 3 billion minutes of training data become tangible. Real-time transcription runs during every call with accuracy that consistently outperforms Zoom AI Companion and Google Meet's Gemini integration, particularly on domain-specific vocabulary. You can define custom terms and acronyms — your product names, internal project codes, medical terminology — and the engine learns them. For teams in regulated industries where transcript accuracy matters for compliance, this is a meaningful advantage rather than a marketing claim.

Moment detection automatically identifies key call events: questions asked, objections raised, positive sentiment, and action items committed to. For customer-facing teams, the CSAT scoring feature analyzes call sentiment in real time, flagging conversations that may need follow-up. This moves Dialpad beyond simple meeting transcription into genuine conversation analytics territory that competitors like Zoom only approximate through third-party integrations.

Live AI Coach Cards

During active calls, Dialpad surfaces contextual coaching suggestions in real time. If a sales rep is talking too fast, the system nudges them to slow down. If a customer raises a common objection, relevant talking points appear automatically. This is not a post-call report you review later — it is live, in-the-moment guidance that can shift the trajectory of a conversation as it happens.

The coaching engine draws on patterns across your organization's call history, so recommendations become more relevant over time. For sales teams and customer success organizations, this feature alone can justify the platform choice. It replaces the need for standalone conversation intelligence tools like Gong or Chorus, which typically cost $100+/user/month as separate subscriptions. That said, the coaching cards are most useful in structured, customer-facing conversations. For internal brainstorming or casual team meetings, they add less value and can occasionally feel intrusive.

AI Recap & Post-Meeting Workflow

Every meeting — regardless of plan tier — generates an AI Recap that includes a structured summary, key discussion points, and extracted action items with assignees. The summaries are concise and surprisingly well-organized, breaking long meetings into logical sections without losing critical context. Compared to Zoom's AI Companion summaries, Dialpad's tend to be more structured and action-oriented, though Zoom handles freeform creative discussions slightly better.

The action item extraction is where this feature delivers the most practical value. Dialpad identifies commitments made during calls ("I'll send the proposal by Friday") and surfaces them as trackable items. For teams drowning in meeting follow-up, this is genuinely time-saving. The summaries are shareable and searchable, building an organizational knowledge base from your meeting history over time.

Video & Audio Quality

The core meeting experience is solid without being exceptional. Video quality is clean at 1080p, audio uses AI-powered noise cancellation that performs well in typical home office environments, and the interface is straightforward. Join times are fast and the desktop and mobile apps are responsive. Where Dialpad falls short relative to Zoom or Teams is in the polish of advanced meeting features: breakout rooms are basic, the whiteboard is rudimentary at best, and large-meeting controls (polling, Q&A management, spotlight views) lack the refinement you get from platforms that have iterated on them for years.

Pricing Analysis

Dialpad Meetings uses a freemium model with the paid Business tier at $15/user/month. The free plan includes AI transcription, AI Recap, and recording — which is remarkably generous — but caps meetings at 10 participants and 45 minutes for group calls. That participant limit is the real constraint; 10 people is too few for most team meetings beyond a small squad standup.

The Business plan at $15/user/month removes the participant cap (up to 150), extends meeting duration, and adds analytics dashboards, custom call routing, and admin controls. Compared to Zoom Pro at $13.33/user/month, Dialpad is slightly more expensive on paper, but the included AI features close that gap quickly. Zoom's AI Companion is included on paid plans but lacks the transcription depth and coaching capabilities. If you would otherwise pair Zoom with a third-party conversation intelligence tool, Dialpad's $15/month starts looking like a bargain.

For customer-facing teams currently paying separately for tools like Gong, Chorus, or Fireflies.ai alongside their video platform, consolidating into Dialpad can represent significant savings — often $100+/user/month in reduced tool sprawl.

Who Is This For?

• Sales and customer success teams who need real-time conversation intelligence, CSAT scoring, and live coaching without bolting on expensive third-party tools like Gong or Chorus
• AI-first organizations that want transcription accuracy and meeting intelligence to be a core capability rather than a premium add-on gated behind enterprise pricing
• Teams in specialized industries (legal, medical, financial) where custom vocabulary and transcript accuracy directly impact compliance and documentation quality
• Small-to-midsize companies looking to consolidate their meeting and conversation intelligence stack into a single platform at a predictable per-seat cost

Who Should NOT Use This

• Teams that rely heavily on collaborative meeting features like advanced breakout rooms, interactive whiteboards, or large-event management (polling, Q&A, webinar controls) — Zoom and Teams are substantially ahead here
• Organizations with large integration ecosystems that depend on a broad app marketplace — Dialpad's integration catalog is a fraction of Zoom's 2,500+ apps, and some niche tools simply will not connect natively
• Large free-tier users who need more than 10 participants without paying — Google Meet's free plan supports 100 participants for 60 minutes, making it far more practical for budget-constrained teams

Bottom Line

Dialpad Meetings is the best AI-native meeting platform available if conversation intelligence is your priority. The transcription accuracy is genuinely best-in-class, the decision to include AI Recap and coaching on all plans is refreshingly un-gated, and the conversation analytics capabilities replace tools that would otherwise cost multiples of Dialpad's price. The tradeoffs are real — thinner collaboration features, a smaller integration marketplace, and a restrictive free tier — but they are the right tradeoffs for teams that value what happens with meeting data more than what happens during the meeting itself.

FAQ

How accurate is Dialpad's AI transcription compared to Zoom and Teams?

Dialpad's transcription engine, trained on over 3 billion minutes of voice data, consistently produces the most accurate real-time transcripts in the category. The advantage is most pronounced with industry-specific terminology, where custom vocabulary support allows it to correctly capture terms that general-purpose engines mishandle. For standard business English, the gap narrows, but Dialpad still edges ahead — particularly in noisy environments where its audio processing pipeline cleans up input before transcription.

Can Dialpad Meetings replace standalone tools like Gong or Chorus?

For many teams, yes. Dialpad's combination of real-time transcription, moment detection, CSAT scoring, and live AI coaching covers the core functionality that conversation intelligence platforms provide. Where Gong and Chorus still have an edge is in deeper CRM integration, deal pipeline analytics, and coaching playbook management. If your primary need is call recording, transcription, and sentiment analysis, Dialpad handles it well. If you need granular deal-level forecasting based on conversation patterns, a dedicated tool may still be warranted.

Is the free plan worth using?

The free plan is excellent for individuals or very small teams (under 10 people) who want AI-powered transcription and recaps without paying anything. The AI features at the free tier genuinely outclass what most competitors offer on paid plans. However, the 10-participant cap makes it impractical for standard team meetings at most companies. Think of it as a strong trial rather than a long-term solution for groups.

How does the $15/month pricing compare to the real cost of alternatives?

On the surface, Dialpad at $15/user/month is slightly more expensive than Zoom Pro ($13.33) or Google Meet's Workspace equivalent. But this comparison misses the bundled value. If you are currently paying for a video platform plus a separate transcription service or conversation intelligence tool, Dialpad consolidates those into a single line item. For a sales team of 20 people using Zoom Pro ($13.33) plus Gong ($100+), switching to Dialpad at $15/user could save over $2,000/month while maintaining equivalent meeting intelligence capabilities.