vs 3CX - a PBX, not a predictive dialer

VICIfast vs 3CX: which should you pick?

Pick 3CX if you need a business phone system - extensions, queues, wallboards - licensed per system by simultaneous calls rather than per seat, and hosted wherever you like. Pick managed VICIdial on VICIfast if outbound is the work: 3CX's dialer is an object you build in a Windows desktop tool and feed with your own database query, and there is no campaign, lead-list or disposition layer around it.

3CX is an IP PBX. Its own site headers call it a phone system, its call-centre feature set is inbound queues, and across its pricing, features, call-centre and queue documentation the word "dialer" does not appear at all. That is not a criticism. It is a different product from a predictive dialer, and the mistake to avoid is buying one expecting the other.

Quick summary

Prices and inclusions checked September 2026 against 3CX's own pricing, documentation and product pages. 3CX notes that prices exclude tax and VAT and are subject to change - check their pricelist before you buy.

Where 3CX wins

• It is a proper PBX and we are not. Extensions, voicemail, auto-attendant, conference rooms, ring groups, hunt strategies, mobile and desktop apps for staff who never touch a campaign. VICIdial does some of this; it is not where the product's depth is.
• Per-system licensing, not per seat. 3CX's own pitch is "priced per system, not per seat" with "one predictable annual price, no per-user fees". That is the same argument we make about per-server billing, and it is a good argument.
• There is a free tier. Up to 10 users, self-hosted. If you are a small office that needs phones and nothing else, the software costs nothing.
• You choose where it runs. 3CX documents self-hosting on Windows or Linux, on-premise or on AWS, Lightsail, DigitalOcean, Azure or Google - or you pay them to host it. Very few vendors in this comparison let you keep the box.
• Inbound queue management with wallboards. Queues, ring strategies, callback, barge, listen and whisper, agent dashboards, and call transcription and sentiment in their AI reporting. For a support or customer-success floor, that is the right feature set.

Where VICIfast wins

• Outbound is the entire product. Predictive pacing, dial level, drop-SLA enforcement, recycle rules, answering-machine detection, per-campaign. On 3CX none of that exists to configure.
• You are not building your dialer. See below - 3CX's is a Call Flow Designer object you compile and upload, not a screen you configure.
• Compliance tooling for regulated outbound. Per-trunk litigator scrubbing with your own Blacklist Alliance key, drop-rate caps, federal DNC handling. See /features/tcpa-compliance.
• Somebody else patches it. With 3CX self-hosted, the OS, the upgrades and the backups are yours. Ours are ours, and you keep root anyway - every SSH session recorded as a replayable asciinema cast.
• Concurrency is not a licence line. A predictive floor places well over one call per agent. On a per-simultaneous-call licence that multiplies the tier you need; on VICIfast the limit is what the hardware runs.

Does 3CX have a predictive dialer?

Yes - with a large caveat about what "have" means here.

The Call Flow Designer manual, current for V20, documents a dialer with two modes: "Power Dialer: calls are made at a steady pace" and "Predictive Dialer: make call pace is automatically adjusted based on the number of agents available in a queue." Predictive carries an optimisation setting that trades keeping agents busy against making callees wait. These are product features with properties, not a one-off blog sample, and the Call Flow Designer itself is actively maintained - 3CX shipped a V20 release of it in February 2025.

The caveat is what surrounds it. The Call Flow Designer is a Windows-only desktop tool requiring a PRO licence, in which you build a call flow, compile it and upload a .zip to the management console. You supply the numbers yourself - 3CX's own guidance is that the list "can be anywhere, for example in a text file, in a database". There is no campaign layer, no lead list, no dispositions, no recycling rules and no DNC handling in the product, and 3CX's own contact-centre and call-centre pages never mention outbound dialing at all.

So the honest comparison is not "they don't have one". It is that 3CX gives you a pacing engine you assemble, and VICIdial gives you the campaign machinery around it.

On VICIdial, predictive is a dropdown and a drop-rate target.

How much does 3CX cost?

3CX licenses per system per year, by simultaneous calls: "a flat cost per 3CX system per year based on the number of calls (SC) - internal and external - happening at the same time." Each SC tier bundles a user cap. Their current feature matrix lists three paid editions - Basic, PRO and AI - plus two free tiers: a self-hosted 4SC Free Basic and a shared-instance SMB Free, both capped at 10 users. Hosting is a separate add-on on top of the licence; self-hosting adds no 3CX charge.

A representative slice of their published annual pricelist, in USD, checked September 2026:

Two caveats from their own page: prices exclude tax and VAT and can change without notice, and the hosting column sits under a discount offer 3CX dates to 30 September 2026. Billing is annual - no monthly option is published - and their FAQ points buyers at partners rather than a checkout.

For a phone system, that is inexpensive. For an outbound floor it is the wrong unit: predictive dialing places several calls per agent, so your simultaneous-call requirement is a multiple of your headcount, and the tier you need climbs with dial ratio rather than with staff.

VICIfast bills per server per month: $219 for Growth at a suggested 25 agents, $399 for Pro at 50, $749 for Ultimate at 100, in the US region. The same server runs 20 agents or 45, and concurrency is a hardware question rather than a licence question. See VICIfast pricing.

When is 3CX the better choice?

• The phone system is the requirement. Extensions, voicemail, IVR, conferences and queues for a company, with outbound as a side activity.
• Mixed floors. 30 office staff on handsets plus 15 agents on queues, in one install, is exactly 3CX's shape.
• Inbound support or customer success. Queue management, wallboards and barge/listen/whisper are the tools that job needs.
• You want to own the box and the licence. Self-hosted on your own hardware or your own cloud account, with an annual licence and no per-seat meter.
• Your IT team already runs it. Switching cost is real, and a PBX your admins know is worth more than a marginally better one they do not.

Running both

The most common outcome is not a replacement. 3CX stays as the company phone system and inbound PBX; VICIfast runs the outbound floor. Different DIDs, different routing, both speaking SIP to your carrier, coexisting cleanly. Teams usually do this as a one-to-two-week parallel run: stand up VICIfast, point a trunk at it, move the outbound campaigns and lead lists, leave everything else where it is.

The 3CX to VICIdial migration guide covers both routes - the hybrid setup most teams pick, and the full replacement if you are consolidating.

Next steps

• Migrating from 3CX to managed VICIdial - hybrid versus full replacement, DID porting, and what happens to your IVR.
• VICIfast pricing - the published plan grid, flat per server rather than per simultaneous call.
• Managed VICIdial hosting - what runs on the box and who patches it.

Start a 7-day trial → - card validated, no charge until day 7. Test predictive on a real campaign before the 3CX renewal lands.