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AI Dialer

Comparison

Five9 vs 8x8: contact centre or the whole phone system?

Reviewed by Sujan ThapaliyaLast updated

The short answer

Five9 is a contact-centre platform: dialling, routing, workforce management. 8x8 is a unified-communications suite with a contact centre inside it. If the contact centre is the business, Five9 is deeper. If you are also replacing the company phone system, 8x8 covers both from one vendor.
Flat per-seat licensing plotted against metered usage over connected minutes: the licence is $750 a month regardless of use, metered calling starts at zero and rises at $0.020 a minute, and the two only meet at 37,500 connected minutes. Where your team sits on this chart decides most comparisons of this kind.
Most comparisons in this area resolve to volume rather than features.

Side by side

What is the difference between five9 and 8x8?

The differences that change a decision, not a feature checklist.

Five98x8
Primary productContact centre (CCaaS)Unified communications with contact centre (UCaaS + CCaaS)
Company phone systemNot the focus — usually alongside something elseYes, it is the core product
Outbound diallingPredictive, power and preview, maturePresent in contact-centre tiers
Workforce managementDeep — forecasting, scheduling, adherenceAvailable, generally less deep
International coverageGoodUnusually broad, with in-country compliance
PricingPer seat, enterprise termsPer seat, tiered
Typical buyerA contact centreA company standardising all communications

Which to choose

Which one should you use?

Five9 when the contact centre is the business

Outbound at scale, forecasting, shift planning, adherence. If you employ a workforce-management function, this is the platform built for it.

8x8 when you are replacing the phone system too

One vendor for desk phones, meetings, messaging and the contact centre, with international coverage that is genuinely hard to match. The contact centre is capable rather than category-leading, which is the trade.

Neither, if you are ten people who need to dial

Both are enterprise purchases with seat commitments and implementation projects. A growing team that needs dialling modes, queues and recording this quarter is paying for procurement overhead it will not use.

Frequently asked questions

Can 8x8 replace Five9 for outbound?
For moderate outbound, generally yes. Where Five9 pulls ahead is sustained predictive dialling with workforce management around it — forecasting volume, scheduling to it, and measuring adherence. If none of that is in your operating model, the gap is smaller than the comparison implies.
Do we need both?
Some companies run 8x8 for the office phone system and Five9 for the contact centre. It works, and it means two contracts, two admin surfaces and two sets of numbers. Worth pricing against a single-vendor answer before committing.

Sources

  1. Telemarketing Sales Rule — Federal Trade CommissionDo-not-call obligations, abandonment-rate limits for predictive dialing, and required call disclosures.
  2. 47 U.S.C. § 227 — Restrictions on the use of telephone equipment — Cornell Legal Information InstituteThe Telephone Consumer Protection Act itself — the consent requirements, calling-hours limits, and private right of action.
  3. National Do Not Call Registry — Federal Trade CommissionThe registry that outbound calling lists must be scrubbed against.

Run both modes on one platform

You do not have to choose a product to choose a mode. Power, parallel, and predictive dialing are all in the base product; switch per campaign, per list, per hour of the day.

  • Every dialing mode included
  • No seat licences
  • Compliance guardrails on by default
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