Introduction: Nooks vs Orum
This comparison was designed to be an unbiased look at Nooks vs Orum as competitors. Nooks and Orum are generally considered the leading “AI parallel dialers” in 2024. An AI parallel dialer allows you to call multiple lines at once, with the help of AI to detect whether a line connects with a voicemail or a human.
This article was written by a human without the help of AI, so it took some time. We used our 90-rows deep feature-level comparison of Nooks and Orum, which also compares ServiceBell’s own dialer. We will offer one promotion here for ServiceBell’s own dialer and then leave you alone to read in peace.
ServiceBell’s AI parallel dialer, complete with a virtual salesfloor, is not only gorgeous, it is the world’s first “inbound-aware” dialer. Before we launched a dialer, we built video chat and visitor intelligence to track companies and contacts engaging with your website. We integrated this capability with our dialer, so that you can…
- Get alerts when companies you’ve called visit your website.
- Build call task lists off of your ICP at companies who have visited your website.
- Migrate connected cold calls to an on-site video call using our chat platform.
That said, let’s dive right into to compare Orum and Nooks on
- Pricing
- Spam Monitoring
- Ease of Use
- Virtual Salesfloor
- Live Listen
- Pre-Recorded Voicemail Drop
- Integrations
A brief note on basic features:
- Both Nooks and Orum source phone numbers from Twilio’s API.
- Nooks allows you to dial up to 5 lines at once, while Orum allows you to dial up to 7. (ServiceBell is up to 9, for the record).
Nooks vs Orum Pricing
Nooks Pricing
Nooks does not list its pricing on its site, and LinkedIn is full of reports of different tiers and discounts offered to acquire customers. But the list price is identical to Orum’s at $5,000 per user per year, billed annually.
Orum Pricing
Orum does not list its pricing, and is less discount-friendly than Nooks. But the list price is also $5,000 per user per year, billed annually.
Why are Orum and Nooks so expensive compared to other dialers?
Let’s dive deep into pricing and VC funding for a minute.
When companies raise venture capital to help their business grow, it comes with strings attached, particularly in how quickly they most grow revenue. When the growth rate isn’t fast enough, or market conditions worsen, the product can stop innovating altogether while the company goes into life support mode.
Orum, for instance, last raised a $22M seed round in November, 2022. But their growth in terms of employees suffered a downturn in late Spring of 2023. Likely, they had to perform layoffs to reduce their burn rate. They’re probably in need of another funding round this year.
To their credit, they have great Glassdoor reviews, which means their employees are in a healthy spot overall so they may make it out ok.
But the product hasn’t been able to innovate as much for the last year-ish, unlike Nooks, which matches signals from both.
Nooks employee growth is stellar, and this only with a $5M seed round in the Summer of 2021.
Likely they’re profitable and can command a good position in the next fundraise.
However, they have another problem - with only 2 dismal reviews on Glassdoor, as well as a terrible set of reviews on the interview experience (78% negative), they seem to have confronted some culture issues which threaten their ability to hire good talent and therefore their long-term viability.
Now will all this impact your experience with the product? Not necessarily. Not for a while at least.
But it is why their pricing is highest on the market - not just because of feature richness, but because of the need to maintain a certain level of pre-recession bloat in their forecasts and revenue targets.
And it is one reason we bet against them in the long-term here at ServiceBell: they’ve created great awareness of the AI parallel dialer category, or autodialer category, and it won’t be hard to win some customers over like we’ve already done.
Now back to our analysis.
Do Nooks and Orum offer free trials?
Yes, both Nooks and Orum offer free trials. However, Nooks requires a demo before they allow you into a free trial. Orum just wants your firstborn in the form of the most required fields we’ve ever seen on a form.
Now technically Twilio must approve each company that calls using numbers it provides from its API. We’re not really sure how Orum is getting around this. Maybe a sort of “ask forgiveness later” approach?
Nooks vs Orum Spam Risk Monitoring
One of the most important features your dialer needs to have is the ability to monitor whether the number you are using to call is currently marked as spam. Sometimes it doesn’t take many dials in a single day - usually 100-200 - to get a number marked as spam. But there is no exact science, since most often spam label algorithms rely on recipients marking your number as spam.
Number Marked as “Spam Likely” - What Should I Do?
If you believe your number is marked as “Spam Likely” you should switch to a new number. If you’re not sure, call your own mobile number as a simple test. Spam labeling is on a per-carrier basis though, so it may not be a full test.
What is a Spam Detection API
There are services for monitoring which phone numbers have been marked as “Spam Likely” and the best ones offer details for each mobile carrier.
These services produce real-time feeds via APIs so that autodialers that have higher volume capabilities, like ServiceBell, Nooks, and Orum, can check the number you’re using to call to determine if it’s being marked as spam.
How Good are Nooks and Orum at Spam Risk Monitoring?
Both Nooks and Orum rely on Twilio’s embedded NoMoRobo API for spam risk monitoring - and it isn’t very good. We tested a half dozen APIs to identify the best one and baked it into our product, but NoMoRobo didn’t make the cut because it often marked Twilio’s numbers as “good” when other providers reflected what we discovered, which is that the majority are spam or about to become spam. Most of the phone numbers Twilio provides were scored by alternative APIs as Spam Likely (or almost Spam Likely).
Spam Label Removal
Nooks claims to have a feature to fix the “Marked as Spam” status on a phone number. We could not verify this further than their website.
Nooks vs Orum Ease of Use
Simple, Beautiful Interface
We’ve been surprised how many cold calling leaders and experts really care about the overall look-and-feel, and simplicity of navigation, of their dialing platforms. But if you take a look around the majority of dialers were built a while ago. Even Orum is relatively recent but really suffers from a case of the 90s when it comes to design.
There are quite a few options and configurations in Orum to get going, another common problem among older dialers. This can be pretty overwhelming for teams that just need to get started dialing.
Nooks, on the other hand, is a clean, pleasant interface with just the right amount of options. While we can’t speak to ease of implementation, they’ve certainly taken a thoughtful approach to design.
Getting Started with Nooks and Orum
Since both offer trials, it’s not difficult per se to get going. Defining your custom fields, sequence steps, location preferences, and other admin preferences can take a bit of time, when you’re finally ready to roll out one of these parallel dialers.
Nooks vs Orum Virtual Salesfloor
Virtual salesfloors, or sales rooms, have become more and more popular since Nooks introduced the concept a little over a year ago. The idea that you can hang out with your team while you dial, or find more coaching opportunities for your team by listening in while they talk with prospects, has plenty of merit.
Virtual salesfloors work like a Zoom call designed for each person to be dialing through lists, waiting for a connection, and having a casual meeting in the meantime. When a connect happens, everyone else in the room is automatically muted.
Nooks and Orum both have very similar virtual salesfloors, though it’s worth mentioning that Nooks created the category, and Orum’s virtual salesfloor is only a few months old. Nooks also lets you listen to Spotify while you wait for a connect.
In our own development of a virtual salesfloor we largely followed Nooks’ example.
Nooks vs Orum Live Listen
“Live Listen” is a feature that managers of cold calling teams use to help their reps improve by listening in to calls.
Both Nooks and Orum give you the ability to listen live to calls happening in the salesfloor. Orum also gives you the ability to listen to calls during a rep’s dial session outside of a salesfloor.
ServiceBell shares these features with Nooks and Orum.
Nooks vs Orum Voicemail Drop
Both Nooks and Orum allow you to pre-record voicemails that automatically get “dropped” - or sent - to voicemails you connect with. This practice decreases the potential of being marked as spam by recipients.
It also serves as an excellent way to drive awareness for your brand. Then when they come back to the site, there is only one tool that can alert you that a recently dialed company is checking out your site.
Nooks vs Orum Integrations
Nooks and Orum both sync recordings, lists, activity, notes and dispositions to the same five platforms. Both Nooks and Orum integrate with the following five sequencers and CRMs for dialing functionality:
- Salesforce
- HubSpot
- Apollo
- Outreach
- Salesloft
And both integrate with Gong for analyzing calls through Nooks and Orum.
Alternatives to Orum and Nooks
Why choose an alternative to Orum and Nooks? They have solid functionality, even if Orum is losing its edge. But most businesses, cannot afford an additional $5,000 per sales rep per year. That’s a big increase on top of a seat in the CRM, a seat in the email sequencer, data vendors
ServiceBell
Didn’t see that one coming, did you?
ServiceBell gives you your first three users for less than $1,600 per year per rep. And all the functionality you saw described above in Nooks and Orum.
Plus it’s the world’s only “inbound-aware” dialer - complete with website visitor identification so you can call high-intent website visitors soon after they visit the site, and get alerts on when they come back to the site.
Kixie
Kixie is a solid inexpensive alternative to Nooks and Orum, with an AI parallel dialer and power mode. No virtual salesfloor though.
Koncert
Koncert has a parallel dialer and is inexpensive, but no AI pickup detection, and no virtual salesfloor.