Five9 Review and Pricing

Why We Chose Five9 for Highly Regulated Companies

All businesses face challenges keeping data secure and protecting sensitive information as cybersecurity and risk management threats grow more sophisticated every year. For companies in healthcare, legal, financial services, government and other highly regulated industries, every customer interaction also carries additional compliance and privacy obligations. Their contact center platform must protect customer data, help organizations meet regulatory requirements, maintain reliable service and still give agents the tools they need to resolve customer issues quickly.

Five9 delivers on all of those fronts. Its enterprise contact center platform combines omnichannel communications, AI-powered automation and workforce engagement tools with robust security features, configurable compliance controls and extensive compliance certifications. We were particularly impressed with how AI is woven throughout the system — giving supervisors real-time insight into customer sentiment, equipping agents with live coaching prompts and helping organizations improve customer interactions without sacrificing security or usability. 

Combined with its strong focus on security, privacy and AI governance, Five9 gives businesses operating in highly regulated industries confidence that they can meet demanding regulatory requirements while delivering an excellent customer experience.

Ease of Use

Five9’s web-based interface is modern, well-organized and easy to navigate for both supervisors and agents despite the platform’s extensive feature set. Supervisors can monitor live activity, review performance metrics and respond quickly to issues through customizable dashboards, alerts and real-time coaching tools. Agents have a streamlined workspace that keeps calls, chats, emails, customer history and AI-powered guidance in one place, making it easier to manage conversations without switching between screens.

One of Five9’s biggest strengths is how naturally AI fits into everyday workflows. Instead of feeling like a separate tool, AI provides real-time coaching prompts, customer sentiment analysis and conversation insights while agents work. Five9 also offers mobile apps for supervisors and Workforce Management users, allowing agents to easily manage schedules, shifts and time-off requests from their mobile devices.

Additionally, Five9 makes it easy to connect the platform with existing business software. The marketplace includes more than 125 prebuilt integrations, while APIs and SDKs support additional custom connections. Although some advanced integrations and capabilities require additional licensing, we found it straightforward to extend Five9’s functionality as business needs evolve.

Five9 Features 

Five9 includes all the core call center features you’d expect from an enterprise contact center platform, including omnichannel communications, intelligent routing, workforce engagement tools and AI-powered automation. What distinguishes the platform, however, is the breadth of its built-in security, compliance and governance capabilities, which make it particularly well-suited to organizations that manage sensitive customer data. Here’s what stood out:

Built-In Compliance Systems

Five9 offers one of the most comprehensive sets of compliance and security features we evaluated. Beyond helping businesses meet industry and regional regulatory requirements, the platform includes governance controls, encryption, audit capabilities and compliance tools that help protect customer information without disrupting agent workflows.

For example, Five9 includes built-in Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) capabilities for businesses that securely accept credit card payments over the phone. Organizations operating internationally can also use Five9 to support compliance with regional privacy regulations, including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) for healthcare organizations.

Five9 also maintains numerous security certifications and attestations, including:

• ISO 27001
• ISO 27017
• SOC 2 Type II
• PCI DSS Level 1 Service Provider
• HIPAA support
• Cyber Essentials certification
• Texas TX-RAMP Level 2 certification
• GovRAMP membership

Data Security and Business Continuity

As a cloud-based contact center provider and VoIP carrier, Five9 includes cloud data encryption to help protect customer information at every stage. Data is encrypted both at rest and in transit, and the platform includes intrusion detection and prevention, regular security patch management, role-based access controls and configurable security policies. Five9 also maintains security certifications and follows widely recognized frameworks, including ISO 27001, ISO 27017, PCI DSS, NIST and the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA).

Five9 also focuses on keeping contact centers running without interruption. The platform uses geographically distributed data centers and built-in redundancy, allowing customer interactions to continue even if one data center experiences an outage. The vendor backs this architecture with a 99.999 percent uptime service-level agreement.

Supervisor and Agent Tools

We like how Five9 uses AI and workflow automation to reduce administrative work so agents can focus on customers. For example, Five9 automatically transcribes and summarizes conversations, eliminating much of the manual work involved in documenting customer interactions. The platform can also provide real-time guidance, recommended next steps and context-aware scripts during calls, helping agents stay compliant while resolving issues more efficiently.

The agent workspace is clean, intuitive and designed to keep everything needed for a customer interaction in one place. Customer information, conversation history, AI guidance, scripts and CRM data can all appear alongside the active call or digital conversation, reducing the need to switch between applications. We also like that supervisors can monitor interactions in real time and step in when needed using the following tools:

• Whisper: Speak privately to an agent without the customer hearing.
• Barge: Join a live conversation so both the agent and customer can hear the supervisor.
• Take Over: Transfer the interaction completely to the supervisor.

Beyond individual conversations, Five9 gives supervisors powerful coaching and quality management tools. Supervisors can build guided workflows and required forms that help agents follow company policies and compliance requirements during customer interactions. Meanwhile, Five9’s AI analyzes conversations across teams to identify trending customer issues, measure sentiment, evaluate quality and surface coaching opportunities, making it easier to improve agent performance over time.

Five9 also does a nice job with workforce engagement. Agents can earn points, badges and leaderboard rankings through the platform’s gamification features, giving supervisors another way to recognize strong performance and keep teams motivated. Unlike some competitors, where gamification feels tacked on, Five9 makes it a meaningful part of its workforce engagement tools.

Intelligent Routing

Five9 uses AI to go beyond traditional skills-based routing, matching customers with the agent best equipped to handle their needs based on factors such as customer intent, agent proficiency and business rules. The platform’s intelligent routing capabilities help reduce unnecessary transfers, improve first-contact resolution and maintain consistent service levels.

For example, Five9’s AI Agents and Intelligent Virtual Agents can answer routine customer questions, schedule or confirm appointments, provide shipping updates, look up orders and send outage notifications across voice and digital channels. If the AI can’t fully resolve an issue, it transfers the customer — along with the conversation history and relevant context — to a live agent, allowing the interaction to continue without customers having to repeat themselves.

Five9 also supports outbound campaigns with a robust set of dialing options, including:

• Predictive dialing: Predicts when an agent will become available and places outbound calls automatically to maximize agent talk time.
• Power dialing: Automatically places the next outbound call as soon as an agent becomes available.
• Progressive dialing: Waits until an agent is available before placing the next outbound call.
• Preview dialing: Gives agents time to review customer information before placing the call, either until they’re ready or until a preset review time expires.

Five9 also includes TCPA Manual Touch Mode, which requires agents to manually initiate each outbound call instead of relying on automated dialing. This feature can help businesses comply with Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) requirements.

Integrations

Five9’s integrations help businesses connect their contact center with the rest of their technology stack, making it easier to automate workflows and deliver more personalized customer service. For example, when integrated with a CRM, order management system or other business application, Five9 can automatically provide customers with updates such as appointment reminders, shipping notifications and order status changes through their preferred communication channel.

Five9’s App Marketplace includes more than 125 prebuilt integrations spanning many of the best CRM software platforms, unified communications, workforce engagement, AI, data analytics and business applications. Popular integrations include Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Oracle, ServiceNow, Zendesk, Microsoft Teams and Zoom, while APIs and SDKs allow organizations to build custom integrations for specialized workflows.

We also like Five9’s support for digital engagement channels, including WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Instagram, which allow businesses to manage customer conversations alongside voice, email and chat interactions from a single platform. Combined with the platform’s broad integration ecosystem, these capabilities make it easy to fit Five9 into existing business processes, although some advanced integrations and features require additional licensing.

Five9 Pricing

Five9 offers five subscription tiers, ranging from a digital-only plan for smaller teams to enterprise packages with advanced AI and workforce engagement tools. Here’s how they compare:

Additional pricing considerations include the following: 

• Pricing shown is based on a minimum of 50 users.
• Most agreements require an annual commitment.
• Plus, Pro and Enterprise plans require a custom quote from Five9.
• Businesses can customize their subscription with optional add-ons, including AI tools (Intelligent Virtual Agent, AI Agents and Agent Assist), CRM and unified communications adapters, advanced analytics, workforce engagement management and professional services.
• CRM adapters are available for platforms such as Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Oracle, ServiceNow and Zendesk.
• Five9 doesn’t offer a free trial, but businesses can schedule a personalized product demo.

Implementation and Onboarding

Getting started with Five9 is relatively straightforward, although implementation complexity depends on your contact center’s size, integrations and customization requirements. After creating an account, administrators can configure the platform, deploy the browser-based agent and supervisor workspaces and connect supported headsets or VoIP-enabled desk phones. Organizations can also integrate Five9 with their CRM so agents can access customer information and manage interactions from a familiar interface.

For businesses that need additional assistance, Five9 offers Professional Services packages that provide dedicated implementation specialists, train-the-trainer education and a structured deployment process covering discovery, configuration, user acceptance testing, go-live readiness and post-launch optimization. Once implementation is complete, customers transition to Five9’s Customer Success team for ongoing guidance as their contact center evolves. We also like Five9 University, the vendor’s online learning hub, which includes training courses, videos and documentation for administrators, supervisors and agents. 

Customer Support

Five9 includes 24/7 customer support with every subscription, along with a variety of self-service resources and optional success services for businesses that want more hands-on guidance. We especially like that the vendor offers meaningful support well beyond basic troubleshooting, with training, strategic consulting and dedicated customer success options available as your contact center grows. Here’s what you should know:

• 24/7 global support: Every Five9 customer receives around-the-clock technical support, plus access to the Platform Health Dashboard for real-time system monitoring, the Five9 Product Knowledge Base, community forums and online training through Five9 University.
• Customer Success Services: Businesses can purchase one of Five9’s Customer Success Services packages — Ignite, Accelerate or Elevate — for progressively more personalized guidance. Depending on the service level, customers receive success planning, configuration assistance, strategic reviews, training and proactive support to help maximize their investment. 
• Dedicated technical expertise: Organizations with complex deployments can add a dedicated Technical Account Manager (TAM). TAMs provide ongoing consulting, optimization recommendations, project assistance, release planning and customized training while serving as an advocate within Five9 for your organization.
• Extensive training resources: Five9 University includes self-paced articles, videos and training courses for administrators, supervisors and agents. Businesses that need more personalized instruction can also purchase instructor-led and customized training tailored to their environment.

Note that pricing for paid support services isn’t published, so you’ll need to contact Five9 for a quote.

Limitations

Five9 is one of the most capable contact center platforms we’ve tested, but it isn’t the right fit for every business. Its biggest drawbacks relate to cost and complexity rather than missing functionality.

• Costs can add up quickly: Five9’s base plans are already priced toward the higher end of the market, and many businesses will also purchase AI capabilities, CRM adapters, workforce engagement tools or professional services. Those extras can significantly increase the total cost of ownership, so it’s worth carefully evaluating which features your team will actually use. 
• Advanced features require more setup: The browser-based interface is intuitive for agents and supervisors, but configuring intelligent routing, workflow automation, AI assistants and enterprise integrations takes time and planning. Organizations with dedicated IT or contact center administrators are likely to get the most value from the platform, while smaller businesses with simpler needs may prefer a less feature-rich solution. If you’re looking for a more plug-and-play alternative, see our review of GoTo Contact Center.
• No free trial: Five9 offers personalized product demos, but you can’t sign up for a free trial and test the platform on your own. That means you’ll need to contact the company for a demo or quote before making a decision. If you’d prefer to thoroughly test a contact center platform, take a look at our Twilio Flex review. This vendor provides a free trial of 5,000 active user hours, so prospective customers can test and customize the platform.
• Some customers report call quality issues: Some users have reported dropped calls, audio lag and connectivity issues. Because call quality depends on your network and deployment, we’d recommend testing the platform with your own team before signing a long-term agreement.

Methodology

To help businesses choose the best call center software, we evaluated the leading platforms on the market. We assessed each solution’s ease of use, implementation process, pricing, customer support and overall value, along with core contact center capabilities such as omnichannel communications, inbound and outbound call management, AI-powered features, workforce management, reporting and analytics, integrations and self-service tools. Whenever possible, we participated in product demos and free trials to better understand how each platform performs in real-world business environments.

When selecting the best call center software for highly regulated industries, we placed particular emphasis on security, compliance and governance capabilities, along with business continuity, data protection, AI-powered quality management and integrations that help organizations meet strict regulatory requirements while delivering secure, consistent customer service.

Bottom Line

We recommend Five9 for …

• Companies in healthcare, financial services, government, legal and other highly regulated industries.
• Businesses that want AI-powered automation to improve customer service and reduce agent workloads.
• Organizations that need enterprise-grade security, compliance and governance features.

We don’t recommend Five9 for …

• Companies with a limited budget.
• Businesses that want to try the software before speaking with sales.
• Organizations that prefer a simpler contact center platform with fewer features to manage.