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Most buyers should pick Nextiva.
Nextiva is the clearer choice if you want a public starting price: NEXT Core is $15 per user/month billed annually ($23 monthly), and NEXT Engage is $25 annually ($50 monthly). 8x8’s pricing page does not publish rates, and its plans require a custom quote. Choose Nextiva for XBert AI and listed CRM, helpdesk, productivity, and healthcare integrations; choose 8x8 for its phone, video, chat, messaging, meetings, and contact-center mix. Neither lists a free plan.
01Side by side
| Nextiva | 8x8 | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $15/user/month, billed annually | Custom quote; rates not published |
| Free plan | No free plan listed | No free plan listed |
| Best for | Teams wanting public pricing and XBert AI | Teams combining communications and contact-center tools |
| Core strength | Multichannel conversations and XBert AI | Unified communications and AI customer routing |
| Learning curve | Not published | Not published |
| Integrations/data | CRM, helpdesk, productivity, healthcare, REST APIs | Integration details not published |
| Team/seat costs | Per-user and per-agent pricing listed | Seat pricing requires a custom quote |
| Support | Review support rating: 4 | Review support rating: 4 |
Nextiva Choose Nextiva if
- Choose Nextiva if you want published per-user pricing.
- Choose Nextiva if XBert should answer, book, update, and route.
- Choose Nextiva if CRM, helpdesk, or healthcare integrations matter.
8x8 Choose 8x8 if
- Choose 8x8 if you want phone, video, chat, and messaging together.
- Choose 8x8 if AI routing across available experts matters.
- Choose 8x8 if you need its Microsoft Teams offering.
02Pricing compared
Nextiva is easier to budget from its published rates. According to the pricing page, NEXT Core costs $15 per user/month billed annually or $23 month to month. NEXT Engage is $25 annually or $50 monthly. NEXT Scale is listed at $75 per user/month, with no monthly rate shown. Contact-center pricing is separate: Essential is $75 per agent/month, while Professional and Premium rates are not published. XBert AI Employee starts at $99/month for packages beginning at 100 conversations; XBert AI for NEXT plans is $1.50 per conversation. 8x8 publishes no rates for its listed plans and requires a custom quote, so compare proposals before deciding. Neither product lists a free plan in the published pricing information.
03Features and depth
Nextiva’s feature set spans voice, video, chat, email, and social conversations, with customer profiles that show interaction history and customer information. Its XBert AI agent can answer questions, book appointments, update records, and route requests to a team member. Nextiva also lists real-time sentiment analysis, transcripts, summaries, customer satisfaction surveys, team chat with channels and threads, and REST APIs plus integrations for CRM, helpdesk, productivity, and healthcare tools.
8x8 brings phone, video, chat, and messaging into its 8x8 Work app, and lists calling, texting, fax, team file sharing, and online meetings. Meeting features include recordings, polls, noise suppression, and AI-powered multilingual summaries and transcripts. Its AI routing pairs customers with an available expert. The published 8x8 information does not detail specific integrations or plan-level feature limits, so confirm those in a quote.
04Ease of use and learning curve
The published information does not establish which platform is easier to learn or migrate to. Nextiva lists team messaging with channels and threads, and describes XBert AI Employee as no-code managed; its pricing page says teams can launch a voice agent in five minutes. That is a claim about the agent launch, not a promise that the whole platform takes five minutes to configure.
8x8 describes 8x8 Work as one app for phone, video, chat, and messaging, and offers an option for organizations using Microsoft Teams. Those details may suit teams already using those tools, but the sources do not explain setup steps or migration support. Our review scores rate Nextiva ease of use at 7 and 8x8 at 6; treat that as directional, not a universal learning-curve result.
Questions people ask
Which is cheaper, Nextiva or 8x8?
Nextiva has the clearer published starting price: NEXT Core is $15 per user/month billed annually or $23 month to month. 8x8 requires a custom quote and does not publish rates, so we can’t establish which will cost less for a particular team.
Does Nextiva or 8x8 offer more AI features?
Nextiva lists XBert AI for customer conversations, plus sentiment analysis, transcripts, and summaries. 8x8 lists AI customer routing and AI-powered meeting transcripts and summaries with multilingual support. The published information does not provide comparable AI limits or plan-by-plan availability.
Does Nextiva integrate with CRM and other business tools?
Nextiva lists integrations with CRM, helpdesk, productivity, and healthcare tools, as well as REST APIs. The published 8x8 information does not specify integrations, so ask 8x8 which systems are supported and whether they are included in the quote.
Do Nextiva or 8x8 have a free plan or trial?
Neither product lists a free plan in the published pricing information. A free trial is not listed for either one in the published details, so confirm trial availability directly with the vendor before committing.