3CX vs Drift

Likelihood to Recommend

In many scenarios decision is driven by budget and compared to other solutions at the time of purchase [3CX] was simply the cheapest solution for what it has to offer. If you are looking for integrations, extensibility, and advanced functionalities, this might not be a solution for you. At the time of use (and this may have changed by now), there was a lack of APIs, CLI commands, and similar so nothing could be automated with the system. There are ways of importing data through CSV but automation would solve us so much time and support calls if we were able to connect with other systems.

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Verified User

Administrator in Information Technology

Higher Education Company, 201-500 employees

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It is recommended for any company; it is a comprehensive tool for teams interested in strengthening business management and improving efficiency. It allows you to automatically schedule support with customers, thus saving a lot of time. Large companies can establish a chat and communication between potential customers, answering their questions quickly; allow you to monitor and track your leads and new leads, to make it fully functional, it has a very affordable value so that it can be used in all companies, it will not affect their economic aspects.

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Michael Guth

CMO (Chief Marketing Officer)

Spectrum ReachMarketing & Advertising, 1001-5000 employees

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Pros

Simplicity: Using a single 3CX interface we can manage every phone and extension used throughout our company.
Flexibility: There are a wide variety of options to configure each extension and phone. Changing anything after the hardware is deployed is very easy.
Portability: Phones with 3CX can be easily moved or repurposed within an office or at remote locations, including users' homes. The mobile app allows users to use their office extension anywhere without exposing their cell number.

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Restaurants Company, 501-1000 employees

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Easy to implement - we were up on our site in hours.
Increases the volume and quality of buyer conversations - visitors get to value faster and qualify themselves by chatting in.
Surfaces relevant experiences and content to people faster based on targeted use cases.
Brings your brand to the prospect experience to stand out in the market. For example, our mascot Ollie Llama welcoming visitors on the homepage with funny llama.

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Ben Battaglia

Director of Marketing

LessonlyComputer Software, 51-200 employees

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Cons

I would like to be able to see direct-dial numbers on the handsets. Currently that is not possible but that would be a nice feature.
You need an SBC per location, which can be a point of failure.
You also need a server that might get disconnected, which is another point of failure.

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Daniel Merkl

IT Support

Cypress HealthcareHospital & Health Care, 51-200 employees

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Whenever there have been challenges with the product, the team has always been hungry to fix the issues that we raise.
In-platform reporting on conversion metrics can be improved. For example, it's not possible to report on business vs non business email capture rate (currently reported by our CSM every week), and to get the most detail about meetings that have been booked, you have to export data and review in Sheets/Excel. Drift responds quickly, and they're already working on this... so by the time you read this review, the reports will probably be fully functional in the platform.

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Adrian Cohn

Director of Brand Strategy and Communications

SmartlingInformation Technology & Services, 51-200 employees

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

Yes

Free/Freemium Version

Yes

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Yes

Entry-level set up fee?

Optional

Starting Price

$0

3CX Editions & Modules

Edition

Standard	Free
Pro	1.08²
Enterprise	1.31²

none
per user/per month

Additional Pricing Details

Price displayed is based on 25 users. 3CX pricing is based on the number of simultaneous calls your business requires or in other words, how many calls your system needs to support at once. Unlike other PBX vendors there is no per extension cost.

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

Yes

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Yes

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Starting Price

—

Drift Editions & Modules

—

Additional Pricing Details

—

Usability

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Drift 7.3

Based on 3 answers

The customer-facing usability is great, but managing drift from the back end can be challenging at times. This is mainly due to slow loading speeds when it comes to editing or viewing routing. Coupling this with no autosave function, changes are hard to make and can easily be lost.

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Verified User

Analyst in Marketing

Security & Investigations Company, 501-1000 employees

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Support Rating

3CX 5.4

Based on 4 answers

The 3CX Phone System is only a five because while they provide set-up/how-to/Q and A documents to help your district or company get started, they do not offer support for free. The documents provided, though, are good enough for you to get you up and running. We also found a good source of help through a sip trunk provider, which was a 3CX reseller provider.

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Laura Steinbrink

HS Teacher/District Tech Integration Specialist

Plato R-V School DistrictEducation Management, 51-200 employees

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Drift 8.0

Based on 3 answers

The Drift team has been remarkably responsive to me. From support reps available in-app, to my account manager committed to my long-term success, to regular connections and interactions with their leadership team. They have been wholeheartedly committed to answering every question and solving every issue so that we can succeed as a team, and I can succeed as a marketer!

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Ben Battaglia

Director of Marketing

LessonlyComputer Software, 51-200 employees

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Alternatives Considered

The main differences between 8x8, Inc. and 3CX is pricing and ease of use in my opinion. The 3CX system uses annual based pricing plans based on of simultaneous calls your company needs, not the number of extensions/users and offers a free plan. 8x8, Inc. charges per extension with different plans. We currently have 19 extensions so the 3CX system makes more sense for us, however, if your company only has a few extensions you may want to throughly consider both options. In my experience, it was difficult to add new extensions and phones with 8x8 because at least at that time we had 8x8 I could not add anything on the web admin. I had to call a sales rep which took a lot more time. Also, if you didn't purchase a phone and/or headset directly from 8x8 at a usually higher price than Amazon for example then you would have to spend anywhere from 30 minutes to hours on the phone with 8x8 tech support to program the phone to work with the 8x8 system so adding a new extension could turn into a long ordeal. I can easily add new extensions on 3CX directly in the web cpanel. Granted, if you are actually adding a new phone number you would need to purchase that number from a company like ATT first before adding it to 3CX. The difference between a phone number and an extension would be a phone number allows a customer to call in directly using that number. The extension would require the customer to call the main business number then be transferred to the extension. 3CX provides a list of supported phone models on their website

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Arts and Crafts Company, 11-50 employees

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I have used a few different chat platforms, the most popular one being Intercom. They both have some similarities in functionalities and features. I have had more success with Drift and the calendar link/automation. I love the fact that a prospect can easily find my calendar link and book a demo without needing to speak with me.

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Verified User

Employee in Sales

Information Technology and Services Company, 51-200 employees

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Return on Investment

3CX has a lot to offer for a very low cost as its business model is based on simultaneous calls and not per device. It's very cost effective and very affordable.
As the 3CX server does not require a high-performance server to run, with the Public Cloud option, it might allow even further savings.

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Artur Bittencourt

Information Technology Manager

Corporation of the Township of EsquimaltGovernment Administration, 51-200 employees

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Save time by allowing your inbound audience to access what they want immediately through Drift bots.
Reducing friction you will increase your inbound audience engagement traffic.
With Drift, our company has increased our qualified sales meetings booked more than 3x than when we used forms.

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Rachel Green

Marketing Demand Generation Manager

DyKnowEducation Management, 11-50 employees

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3CX

Drift

Attribute Ratings

Likelihood to Recommend

3CX

Drift

Usability

3CX

Drift

Support Rating

3CX

Drift

Pros

Cons

Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

Free/Freemium Version

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Entry-level set up fee?

Starting Price

3CX Editions & Modules

Edition

Additional Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

Free/Freemium Version

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Entry-level set up fee?

Starting Price

Drift Editions & Modules

Additional Pricing Details

Usability

Support Rating

Alternatives Considered

Return on Investment

Screenshots

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